[Stoves] Billion Stoves Program (Karin Troncoso)

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Paul

If the goal is simply "A Billion Stoves", or "A Billion Cookstoves", the 
goal is already met. Anyone who can prepare cooked food already has a stove.

Sadly, all too many people have stoves of the nature shown in this photo 
by Kanchan Raj. The Mother in this photo has no need for a "stove" 
because she already has one. What she really needs is a "clean stove".

 From a practical standpoint, a "clean stove is an efficient stove." The 
easiest way to "clean up a stove" is to make it more efficient by 
burning the products of combustion to completion. Obviously, one can use 
the old Automobile Industry trick of dilution as a solution to 
pollution, but cooking temperatures would probably be ineffectively low, 
and the stove system larger and more costly.

So, practically speaking, if we have a clean stove, it will be 
efficient, and the only challenge is to make an efficient stove at 
acceptable cost.

The question of "How clean is clean?" is somewhat academic. The most 
important "measuring instrument" is the user of the stove. The palpable 
results detected by her eyes, nose, lungs and integrated by her mind 
will trump the digitized performance figures in a Lab Report. If she 
will praise a stove to her friends, it is a better stove, and if she 
won't, it isn't.

We on this List are a world apart from the people we wish to help. Our 
opinions of what would be a good program name are not nearly as 
important as the opinion of the Mother in Kanchan's photo.

Best wishes,

Kevin Chisholm