We’ve been scratching our heads wondering why energy-efficient stoves have not caught on among the world’s 2.4 billion energy poor.
Stove prices are relatively affordable, the advantages seem fairly obvious, and the technology is simple, proven, and effective.
So what’s the hold up?
With a single, concerted initiative, says Lakshman Guruswami, the world could save millions of people in poor nations from respiratory ailments and early death, while dealing a big blow to global warming — and all at a surprisingly small cost.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper last week reported on a story we published back in January. The short video highlights a stove project run by international relief agency Mercy Corps in one of its refugee camps in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Watch the video Continue reading
In October 1998 I walked out of a Costa Rican jungle after narrowly escaping a disastrous film shoot with crocodiles.
The near fiasco had nothing to do with filming the animals up close in their natural habitat. Instead, what almost sunk the project was the relentless pounding of a tropical rain that soaked everything and everyone.
Back in our hotel in San Jose we discovered the cause of the rain was a major hurricane that had slowly swept across the Central American isthmus, causing massive death and destruction in Guatemala, Honduras, and in my home country, Nicaragua. Nearly 11,000 people were killed. The flooding caused extreme damage, estimated at over $5 billion (1998 USD, $6.5 billion 2008 USD).
How many abandoned stove projects litter the world? How much money have donors sunk into ill-conceived stove designs? Poorly executed marketing campaigns? And lack of investment in capacity building?
I raise this question because a recent conversation forced me to rethink one of my cherished assumptions: that local stove production was the only way to go. Continue reading