The popular Jiko stove, photo by AIDG on Flickr With carbon prices low and support apparently shifting, perhaps thinking about market-based improved cook stoves is increasingly interesting? In the Millennium Villages studies, a high-end retail price of something like $10 was recommended to sell stoves directly into the market. (Adkins, Tyler, al, 2010) What can be […]
From SAMUEL BALDWIN’S “BIOMASS STOVES: ENGINEERING DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT, AND DISSEMINATION,” VITA, 1987 Various stove/pot/skirt combinations are achieving ~ 60% thermal efficiency. How high can we go? There may be other important factors? In ARC tests of modern Rocket stoves, a pot with an area of around 800cm2 scored 34% thermal efficiency. Increasing the area to […]
Two dollar and fifty cent SSM adjustable pot skirt Aprovecho staff travel around the world assisting stove projects. We experience that almost all biomass stoves in Low Middle Income Countries markets are sold for $10 USD or less. It seems to us that more expensive stoves are supported by carbon revenue, or sold in cities […]
Iterative Development: Addressing Health & Climate Change Thanks to the Osprey Foundation, ARC just finished building a new heating stove lab and we are experimenting with how to make very clean burning home heating stoves. The intended price points are considerably lower than higher emission stoves currently for sale. Zero Green Premium products cost less […]
INDOOR AIR QUALITY GUIDELINES: HOUSEHOLD FUEL COMBUSTION, 2014 A “Cut and Paste” Summary PM levels have to be very low to protect health “Among the key findings is that for several important health outcomes, including child acute respiratory infections, exposure to the key pollutant– fine particulate matter, or PM2.5 – needs to be brought down […]
Do not burn the rice! A stick fed cook stove can achieve a ~three to one turndown ratio (TDR) by burning more or fewer sticks per unit of time. In a low mass Rocket cook stove, ~five small sticks can boil the water/food and ~two to three small sticks can simmer it (without, hopefully, burning […]
A cook stove can require a ~three to one turndown ratio to boil quickly and then not burn rice, tomato sauce, etc. High power boils food, ~one third of the high firepower simmers it to completion. With a lid, even lower amounts of energy can maintain simmering temperatures. When the stove cannot turn down sufficiently […]
It has been fascinating to cross-pollinate learnings from biomass cook stoves typical of the Global South and biomass heating stoves used in the Global North. Biomass cook stoves are often used indoors without chimneys. They are not usually closed boxes. Primary air cannot be limited when the fuel door is open. Cook stoves are also […]
In the first week of October, ARC Research and Development Engineer Jaden Berger visited CSIR-Ghana for capacity building training. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is the foremost national science and technology institution in Ghana. The main focus of the visit was to teach them how to perform field testing using various sensor […]
Hardware includes the physical parts of a computer. Software is the set of instructions that can be stored and run by the hardware. Wetware is the people who do things. Of the three, what component makes the most trouble? To what extent do you affect decision making in your circumstances? In stove projects, being adept at […]