Fast Facts!

• Improved cooking stoves can address at least 5 of the 8 Millennium Development Goals.
• It takes only about 3 StoveTec rocket stoves to offset 1 average American's driving habits for 1 year.
• Scientific American reports that the dominant source of the smoke polluting the skies over Asia and accelerating glacier melt is from traditional cooking fires.
• Prince Charles is an environmentalist and awarded prizes for sustainable energy solutions at the 2009 Ashden Awards where ARC won the Energy Champion Award.
• ARC is working on a fan stove that reduces emissions by 95% and a 5-year stove that reduces about 10 tons of carbon in its lifetime.

For decades, Aprovecho Research Center has been the world's leader in open source development of all aspects of improved cooking stoves. ARC's goal is to empower people to help each other and the planet.

StoveTec

StoveTec was created in the fall of 2008 as a not-just-for-profit entity to act as the technology transfer recipient for the Aprovecho Research Center. ARC has worked for 30 years to design and build improved cook stoves and has completed over 100 projects in 60 countries. ARC designed StoveTec stoves with cooks to assure that cooks all over the world would love the stove.

Current technologies designed by ARC and represented by StoveTec include Improved Rocket Cook Stoves, the Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS) and the Indoor Air Pollution/Exposure Meter (IAP Meter).

International Stove Design Consulting and Training

Our consultants travel to cities and villages around the world to provide technical assistance and training to NGOs and local groups developing and disseminating improved stove technology.

We have current and past projects in Mexico, Central America, South America, Africa, India, the Philippines and more.

Emissions Testing and Evaluation

We operate a state of the art laboratory facility for testing stoves. Testing and reports on fuel use, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and greenhouse gas emissions from a variety of improved cook stoves are available to projects, with examples here for download.

Portable in-field emissions testing equipment is also available for use in-country to monitor indoor air pollution. Read more about stove testing and this equipment.

Research and Development

The Advanced Studies in Appropriate Technology (ASAT) Lab studies methods for designing, building, and disseminating cooking and heating technology that is both mass-produced and/or made from vernacular (locally available) low cost materials that can be found easily in the towns and villages where improved stoves are needed.

Publications and Media

We develop educational books, videos, and other media using simple, easy to understand language to teach methods and principles for designing and disseminating improved cooking and heating stoves.

Review the list of ARC publications availabe for download or visit the ARC Research Library for reports and other information relevant to the issues ARC strives to address.

Partnership for Clean Indoor Air

One of the heroes of the Stove Movement is Dr. Tom Reed, who has inspired all of us for many years. Many, many people are trying very hard to relieve suffering by providing better stoves to the two to three billion people in the world who use biomass for cooking. The Partnership for Clean Indoor Air is leading the international effort to use biomass more effectively and safely. Improved cooking stoves can help to reduce deforestation, to reduce the serious health impacts of inhaling smoke, and improved cook stoves can reduce the Global Warming effects that are threatening our planet.

Dr. Reed has been reminding folks that it will take lots of stoves to significantly address these problems. We hope that our efforts can help to create a more sustainable future.