
Cheap, clean stoves were supposed to save millions of lives – what happened? - r721
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/these-cheap-clean-stoves-were-supposed-to-save-millions-of-lives-what-happened/2015/10/29/c0b98f38-77fa-11e5-a958-d889faf561dc_story.html
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bcg1
Ethanol stoves are actually great for this problem... very low emissions, and
fuel that is easy and safe to store and can be produced locally. In many parts
of the world, there are abundant non-food sources of mash... kelp, mesquite
seeds, cattails, etc... and community scale production is much more efficient
than the bizarre government subsidized ethanol industry in the US that uses GE
corn with that requires a lot of energy input and has a high energy cost for
transportation to and from the centralized production facilities.

I'm not sure how it is "undeveloped" countries but around here is quite
illegal to make your own fuel in this way however... it is, after all, the "A"
in BATF. It seems that without addressing such issues, the "clean" stoves will
not be popular because locals would need to keep paying some "authority"
(government or otherwise) for access to the fuel, and money is much more
scarce than dung in many places.

~~~
vonmoltke
> I'm not sure how it is "undeveloped" countries but around here is quite
> illegal to make your own fuel in this way however...

Not sure what you mean by "in this way", but it is quite legal to make ethanol
fuel for your own use in the US.

~~~
bcg1
You have to get a license from the BATF to do so, and you are limited to
10,000 gallons per year (which is plenty). To get the license you have to give
them permission to enter your property without a warrant to inspect whenever
they like, and you have to keep meticulous records to account for every gallon
produced. By "in this way" I meant a means through which normal people can
make their own fuel with a low barrier to entry and little or no risk of fines
and/or jail.

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aaron695
Sounds to me like it is working, is what happened.

> Although these cookstoves produce fewer emissions than open fires, burning
> biomass fuels in them still releases plenty of toxins

For toxins that actually matter, that's smoke in layperson terms.

So what if the benefits are only partially there. It still rocks.

It makes me suspicions that the study where all the stovetops were no longer
being used, was just picked as an example because it failed.

And as to electricity and gas being better, that's nice, the doers can
continue down the biomass efficiency road while this is still being discussed.

~~~
benp84
That was my take-away too.

They had an idea to fix a problem, it worked but not as well as hoped, so now
they're learning and iterating. Sounds like any experimental project (or
startup).

They got 28 million stoves out with a budget of $10m/year (times 5 years?).
Big deal if they haven't saved the world yet.

------
zeveb
> “As yet, no biomass stove in the world is clean enough to be truly health
> protective in household use,” says Kirk Smith, a professor of global
> environmental health at the University of California at Berkeley and the
> leading health researcher on cookstoves.

My understanding is that rocket stoves[1] are extremely efficient and non-
polluting. Is that incorrect, or are rocket stoves not profitable for the
concerns promoting this sort of effort?

> “With their system of government, they can kind of dictate what happens,”
> notes Jim Jetter, a senior research engineer who tests cookstoves for the
> EPA.

Well, yes, it helps if one can sentence holdouts to the _laogai_.

> much like some American cooks like the flavor of meat grilled over charcoal.

Only some? I'm pretty sure that _everyone_ prefers the flavour of food cooked
over good lump charcoal.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_stove](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_stove)

------
stevetrewick
_> Perhaps more research could apprehend what actually works_

No, not really. Since the obvious solution (i.e. the one that has worked
everywhere in the world it's been tried) is affordable grid scale electricity
- which at this point means fossil or nuclear - and the west is apparently
hellbent on preventing the devolping world from having this, it's unlikely any
future research will come up with anything of any actual utility.

~~~
eveningcoffee
There is actually even simpler solution. Build a chimney and exhaust the
burning fumes directly to the outside. Problem solved.

These people are living two centuries in the past so proved, simple and local
solutions would be the best.

~~~
intopieces
You solution doesn't take into account any of the issues discovered in the
implementation of the stove programs. Not only is the issue more complex than
you acknowledge, but it's this kind of "we can fix this problem by making them
do things our way" attitude that severely hinders progress on the issue.

~~~
eveningcoffee
The article did not evaluate such issues. If you could point to any background
information then I would be interested.

~~~
intopieces
A significant portion of the article is devoted to such issues.

"Even if people are aware of the health risks of cooking over open fires (and
many are not), they are reluctant to abandon cooking methods embedded in their
culture."

"Women had stopped using the stoves because they didn’t like the design or
because the stoves broke, burned more wood (not less, as intended) or didn’t
get foods hot enough."

"Indian women surveyed by the Stockholm Environment Institute said they prefer
to cook roti, a flatbread eaten with every meal, in a clay oven using a mix of
firewood and cow dung because they can both fry and bake the bread and the
fuels improve the taste — much like some American cooks like the flavor of
meat grilled over charcoal."

"The affordable ones are inadequate, and the good ones are unaffordable.” (How
do you expect a group of people unable to afford a stove to afford
retrofitting their home with a chimney?)

Your chimney solution solves none of these problems. When attempting to
address an issue in developing nations, it's importent to analyze exactly how
people are implementing he solution on the ground. Cultural grandstanding as
seen in these comments does nothing to solve the problem.

~~~
eveningcoffee
I meant the usage of chimneys, but yes, I could imagine how these claims can
be extended to that too.

Now * How do you expect a group of people unable to afford a stove to afford
retrofitting their home with a chimney? *

I am from nation with very poor and repressed background, but we managed to do
that.

For building a functioning oven with a chimney you do not need a lot of fancy
material - just bricks, mortar (or can be even made from clay rich earth) and
a iron plate.

Of course these gadgets are expensive and stupid and this was my original
criticism.

* Your chimney solution solves none of these problems. *

We do not know that as it was not even considered as it seems to me from the
article. Instead they tried to sell complicated industrial products.

------
kirk21
Solar panels + batteries will have an enormous impact in a lot of countries.
Once ppl buy a stove it is 'free' to use vs having to buy fuel every time
(like pellets or ethanol). Will take 10-15 years but it is coming. Combine
this with satellite internet and the living standard will radically increase.

~~~
reitanqild
Cooking use very much energy compared to led lamps or even tvs.

------
eveningcoffee
I do not have time to read this bag of words but I searched for the word
"chimney" and I did not find it.

See, there is your problem and a big fat hint for a solution.

Most countries in northern hemisphere solved this problem more than century
ago and it amazes me how this solution is not even mentioned once.

~~~
cc438
These populations aren't mentally incompetent, they use chimneys. The issue is
that chimney's aren't 100% efficient and only remove the pollution from the
home, not the surrounding environment. The pollution becomes pervasive when an
entire city of 100,000+ people is cooking with biomass fuel. Your chimney's
exhaust is just another person's air when it's as concentrated as you'd find
in places like those described in the article.

~~~
clock_tower
Look at the woman in the article picture: she's not using a chimney, and she
has to squat to cook. German women were cooking standing up (building fires on
raised stone platforms), with chimneys to vent away smoke, in the 17th
century. (See Fernand Braudel, _The Structures of Everyday Life_.) Draw your
own conclusions: pathological loyalty to tradition or lack of imagination; or
severe lack of capital and calories; or what?

~~~
panglott
This comment made me think of the Japanese kamado or the traditional Russian
stove, but see this discussion of the Lorena adobe stove
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_stove#Lorena_adobe_stove](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_stove#Lorena_adobe_stove)

One problem is that ceramic stoves with a large thermal mass may take a lot
more fuel to fire. In colder northern regions with plentiful fuel, the high
thermal mass is an advantage because it can help keep the house warm. But in a
tropical setting, open indoor fires may be more efficient at quickly heating
food, especially when deforestation is a problem.

~~~
clock_tower
What Braudel discussed was an assembly with an oven underneath, and a raised
hearth on top. You didn't have to heat the stove -- just build a fire on the
top surface (with a chimney and smoke hood directly above), and cook with
that.

------
pakled_engineer
A solsource solar cooker I gave to a friend's family in the Rajasthan desert
still works as advertised a year later. These are desperate needed around
refugee camps where locals clash with refugees looking for firewood.

------
clock_tower
While we're at it, check out [http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/06/thermal-
efficiency-co...](http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/06/thermal-efficiency-
cooking-stoves.html) . I found this on the human-powered cranes article
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10499228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10499228))
-- and it's arguing that the developed world should go back to open cooking
fires!

Admittedly, the argument isn't very strong (the grid may be dirty, but it's
not _that_ dirty); but it's interesting and strange that it can be made at
all.

------
SixSigma
"We know what's best for rural Indian poor" proclaims millionaire with her own
catering.

Still, at least India has a rocket going to Mars even if its children don't
have toilets and clean water.

~~~
denzil_correa
> Still, at least India has a rocket going to Mars even if its children don't
> have toilets and clean water.

Fallacy of Relative Privation?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_relative_privation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_relative_privation)

~~~
SixSigma
Like Kim Il Jong eating while his people starve, I guess that's the same
fallacy

~~~
nivla
That is not the same fallacy. That is one person who controls the nation
sitting on an immense amount of wealth while his people starve. India doesn't
have a huge wealth tucked under its bed that it refuses to redistribute to its
citizens.

Let me put this into perspective for you, even distributing 1 billion dollars
to its citizens barely makes each person richer by only a dollar!

~~~
SixSigma
Thanks for the perspective, I feel so stupid.

I'm sure spending $1bn on clean water and sewage in the some of the most
populous cities on earth would be equally pointless.

