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Half the world (~3 billion people) cooks substandard meals, consuming too much wood, breathing too much smoke and burning the kids. My grandmother had a wood/coal range that worked pretty well, but wood is difficult to burn on a smaller scale. On first lighting the volatiles are driven off faster than combustion air can be supplied. Then, when the wood is reduced to charcoal, it is difficult to supply enough air to make flames. We think that our WoodGas stoves are the best fix for these problems. However, we don't think they are the only fix and there is a lot of good work going on around the world. The best way to keep in touch is to join the
STOVE discussion group at the Renewable Energy Policy Project, REPP.
REPP
maintains a discussion group on STOVES and GASIFICATION with archives of thousands of letters on file asking and answering questions about all aspects of biomass stoves and gasification. Anyone seriously wanting to help with world stove problems should join this group.
The Aprovecho research institute is actively developing new improved stoves and deploying them around the world. They also maintain a school for cookstoves, alternative building methods etc. Worth a trip anytime. They will be having a Spring Cookoff in June 2003. Maybe I'll see you there.
I have long admired the wood stoves developed by Fred Hottenroth. Unfortunately, Fred died several years ago, but the stoves are still being manufactured by the ZZ Manufacturing Co.
However, these are not gasifier stoves, so have lots of unburned gas. Gas which burns more than an inch above any stove will be quenched by the cooking pot when it is put on the fire, resulting in blackened pots and high emissions.
You can purchase a WoodGas Camp
Stove through our online bookstore.
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