Reducing/removing smoke from the kitchen improves health. Adding a chimney is one recommended solution. In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) published intermediate and final indoor air guidelines for vented and unvented biomass cooking stoves. Their strong recommendation directed governments and implementers to advocate technologies and fuels that are proven to protect health. The WHO […]
The old saying, “if you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen,” is not lost on us when we are working in the test kitchen. It takes us a while to get the vertical and horizontal grid of Climate Solution Consulting’s HAPEx particulate matter monitors started and positioned. Then ARC’s PEMS-PC partial-capture based […]
General Manager Sam Bentsen is happy about some LEMS test results. Why test a stove? Most of the time, our lab uses testing for product development. If we did not test a stove prototype we would be guessing whether it met expectations. Testing in the lab gets us ready for the field testing of prototypes. […]
Testing the Oorja Stove under the LEMS hood. There are many forced draft TLUDs that are quite similar to Dr. Tom Reed’s 2001 version, the WoodGas stove. The Oorja stove can be about as clean burning but has several obvious differences: a high mass refractory ceramic combustion chamber, much bigger secondary air holes, and high […]
Fred & Lise Colgan, from InStove An All American Autoclave Fred and Lise Colgan created InStove, manufacturing and distributing institutional stoves initially designed by Dr. Larry Winiarski. They developed and sold large Rocket stoves that cooked food, sterilized medical equipment, and pasteurized water. The autoclave, sold by Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, works like a big pressure […]
It can be challenging to find the time to read a book so here’s a ten-minute video introduction to “Clean Burning Biomass Cookstoves” (2020), our recent updating of the 2015 edition. Download the book for free on the publications page. We spent a significant part of last year rewriting most of the book trying to put […]
Aprovecho Research Center is pleased to announce that it has just been awarded a $50,000 grant from The Osprey Foundation in support of expanding research into the connection between biomass combustion and climate change. To date, a handful of lab and field studies have resulted in relatively little information on how stove/fuel interventions could impact emissions. […]
Photo from the BURN Newsletter, May 2021 In a recent BURN newsletter it was announced that the natural draft Kuniokoa stove with a new pot skirt achieved 51.3 % thermal efficiency. That’s Tier 5, the highest score on the voluntary tiers of performance. Achieving great thermal efficiency involves improving heat transfer efficiency which is summarized […]
Prices of carbon credits used by companies to offset their emissions are currently low, due to an excess of supply built up over several years. According to recent research at the University of London, without the excess supply, prices would be around $15/tCO2e higher, compared to $3-5/tCO2e today. (tCO2e means tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, “carbon […]
When this sort of fire is maintained, a high mass Rocket stove can get close to Tier 3 for CO (less than 7.2g/MJd) and PM2.5 (less than 218mg/MJd). Testing stoves means that many, many hours are spent watching the flames and pushing sticks of wood into the fire. We watch the real time emissions, water […]