[Stoves] Charcoal Rocket Stove

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Cornelio

Your last comment was:

>...Or alternatively, to produce a charcoal
>stove that retails for US $ 1.50.

I am very interested to know why you think that the stove should cost so 
little.  I received the same info from a consultant for an African city in 
which people cook with charcoal.

I am usually told that people cannot afford a stove costing more, or that 
they are so used to paying $1.50 that they will not spend more on a more 
expensive stove.

Yet the same people pay $12 for a bag of charcoal that is wasted on the 
$1.50 stove, when a $4.00 stove would use only 1/2 as much charcoal.  This 
is a very interesting time to be promoting charcoal stoves and the devices 
used as so badly designed (if indeed they are designed at all) that there is 
nowhere to go but up.

It seems obvious to me that offering 1/2 a bag of charcoal for $6.00 and a 
$5.00 stove that uses 1/2 as much fuel, lowers emissions and looks nice and 
last a long time is an attractive "value proposition".

So...why is the $1.50 retail a target price for an improved stove in 
Manilla?

Many thanks
Crispin in Johannesburg
(where poor people do not cook with charcoal!)