Udaykumar, H.S., A. Kindig, S. Rao, M. Del Viscio, V. Kukilaya, N.L. Panwar, and D. Sharma. (2015). How a Simple, Inexpensive Device Makes a Three-Stone Hearth as Efficient as an Improved Cookstove. Solutions 6(4): 53-60. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/how-a-simple-inexpensive-device-makes-a-three-stone-hearth-as-efficient-as-an-improved-cookstove/
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How a Simple, Inexpensive Device Makes a ThreeStone Hearth as Efficient as an Improved Cookstove by H. S. Udaykumar, A. Kindig, S. Rao, M. Del Viscio, V. Kukillaya, N. L. Panwar, and D. Sharma
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irewood burning is the second most significant cause of deforestation worldwide, behind only livestock production.1 Loss of biodiversity, habitat niches, and carbon stocks caused by deforestation are all major global concerns. The emissions from incomplete combustion of firewood also present a major source of atmospheric pollution and global warming.2,3 In particular, when deposited on the ice in the Arctic through wind currents in the northern hemisphere, soot or black carbon from firewood burning absorbs solar energy, whereas the original ice would have reflected it. This affects the “albedo,” or the fraction of solar energy reflected from the Earth back into space, contributing to accelerated warming and further ice loss.4 Firewood smoke has also become a potent human health hazard, contributing to a loss of as many as eight years in lifespan for the women who cook with firewood due to the constant inhalation of particulate matter as well as carcinogens such as benzopyrene.5,6 Much effort has been expended to mitigate the effects of firewood use among the three billion people in the Global South who still rely on biomass for their energy needs (mostly for
cooking), but almost all of these efforts have been largely unsuccessful. The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC) has an ambitious plan to deploy 100 million High Efficiency Cookstoves (HECs) by the year 2020,7 but the plan has not yet been put into action due to technological and implementation hurdles. The Government of India has been trying to deploy HECs in rural India for the past two decades, but this intervention has been largely unsuccessful as well.8 The present group of authors has been working on issues related to forest degradation and firewood use in collaboration with the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Foundation for Ecological Security in the areas around the Kumbalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary along the Aravali hill range in the semi-arid Mewar region of Rajasthan in India.9 In this location, despite previous efforts, the use of firewood is widespread and persistent (the authors were unable to find HECs in the local markets in the region). In the Bhil communities that reside on the hillsides along the forest preserve, women engage in the quotidian activity of firewood harvesting from the forest edge, which may take several hours each day depending on
In Brief Approximately 2.7 billion people worldwide continue to use firewood for their energy and cooking needs leading to negative climate change, health, and ecological impacts. Efforts to replace the highly inefficient three-stone hearth stoves used in the majority of these homes with high efficiency cookstoves that cut wood use by half have met with mixed success; in India such efforts have by-and-large failed. Our team has been working on various solutions in the Mewar region of Rajasthan in western India. A resulting design for a simple, inexpensive (USD $1) device that may be simply placed in existing three-stone hearths has proven to cut wood use and diminish smoke to levels comparable to those achieved by the more expensive high efficiency cookstoves. In field tests in several households as well as in controlled laboratory experiments, it was demonstrated that this simple, unobtrusive, and inexpensive insert has the potential to significantly reduce smoke emissions and related respiratory discomfort and disease in the developing world.
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