Engineers Aim To Make Cleaner-Burning Cookstoves For Developing World 147
vinces99 writes in with news about a new cookstove design for developing countries. "About 3 billion people, or 42 percent of the world's population, rely on burning materials such as wood, animal dung or coal in stoves for cooking and heating their homes. Often these stoves are crudely designed, and poor ventilation and damp wood can create a smoky, hazardous indoor environment day after day. A recent study in The Lancet estimates that 3.5 million people die each year as a result of indoor air pollution from open fires or rudimentary stoves in their homes. More than 900,000 people die from pneumonia alone, which has been linked to indoor air pollution. University of Washington engineers hope to make a dent in these numbers by designing a cookstove that meets a stringent set of emission and efficiency standards while still being affordable and attractive to families who cook over a flame each day. The team has received a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to design a better cookstove, which researchers say will use half as much fuel and cut emissions by 90 percent."
Rocket Stove - not really revolutionary (Score:2, Interesting)
It's called rocket stove and can be built easily from different material:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_stove
Re:Will the cost be a barrier? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've made molten steel from scrap in a "giant clay stove". The clay was a chrome magnesite clay but it came out of the ground like that and the "stove" was an arc furnace, but there's plenty of stuff that can be found in a variety of places that can handle less extreme conditions.
Re:Simpsons already did it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Enclosed stove with a stack and convection-based oxygenating of fuel, been done for thousands of years in various places in asia and africa.
The stove in the article looks exactly like the cookstoves we made from coffee cans when I was in the girl scouts*. They work well, and are a big improvement over an open fire, but I don't see anything new about it.
*Yes, I was a male girl scout. My mom was the scout leader, and my sisters were already girl scouts, so she signed me up too. My mom was a tough scout leader. Years later, I enlisted in the Marine Corps, and it was a piece of cake compared to my mom's girl scout troop. -- Semper Fi, and Be Prepared.