On NPR now- efficient stoves save lives

On The World- they have a story about efficient stoves in Africa saving lives , as women and kids don't have to travel as far for cooking fuel. Rocket stoves etc have been a fascination for me for a while, partially for what they can do in places like this. Program is on here at 1900

Best ones are the solar stoves that use no wood at all.For cooking

What's the simplest portable cooking stove design anyone can come up with using scroungable fuel? Coffee can with pot and steamer on top?

Ehouse

EHouse- with slight modification, the coffee can cooker can be extremely efficient
You can find directions online- look for "gasifying coffee can"

Hi,
Here is a nice simple homemade stored heat solar cooker: http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Cooking/StoredHeat/StoredHeat.htm

I think there are some larger and more established designs out there that direct concentrated solar onto a fixed heat storage container in which the heat can be used later.

Gary

I just remembered; the Mayans (and maybe others) use three round stones with a stick stuck in each opening of the triangle that is fed in as the fire burns.

Ehouse

If I'm not mistaken, the DOE or some other Federal department was funding development of efficient biomass stoves.

Edit: Found the related post: http://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/...lopment-of-low-cost-biomass-cookstoves.86101/

If your depending on gathering wood to cook your food i would surmise interfering with your lifestyle is not a high priority. Places like haiti have practically no wood left,(because of using wood for cooking)so they either wait till daylight hours to cook or do without cooking altogether. Denuding the landscape also leads to servere erosion and crop failures.

Granted efficient stoves make a big improvement to those with adequate supplies of wood. Purportedly as many as 3 billion (hard to believe).

Those simple brick rocket stoves mean that scrap wood could be used to cook- a very small fraction of what was needed. Previously women would walk miles and risk rape or murder- new methods mean that many could grow what they need for fuel in their yards!

how about this stove

http://biolitestove.com/homestove/overview/

Wow! Cooking, heating, electricity all in one. Now if you could only poop in it....

Ehouse

They do make a toilet that turns waste into charcoal. That would qualify.

Yes, and my comment was only partly in jest. Suppose you had a small potty stool with a steel bowl that you could slide the Biolite under when you're done cooking. The extra heat could dry and sterilize the poo to the point where it is usable for fertilizer.

Ehouse

I've been using a similar stove for years for camping/hiking. http://www.zzstove.com/sierra.html
I carry two AA batteries in a solar charger on top my pack and gather fuel at the campsite. Its amazing how well the stove works.