[Stoves] WorldStove replies to BioFuelWatyche's latest imprecise reporting of facts

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Xavier

Your story of issuing warnings from the Land of Reality was interesting, if
also depressingly familiar.

With regard to SHS, it seems the South Africans are proving what people
wanted to know - does it bring some relief from rural poverty.

As (then called) GTZ showed over a number of years (more than 5 I think,
perhaps 7) solar cookers are not, on their own, viable commercially. The
caveat for that claim is that low power, low temperature cookers (steamers?)
have made a go of it - I am thinking of the folding aluminized plastic
sheets. But in terms of 1.4 m diameter 'ordinary' concentrating solar
cooking, any promotion of them requires the addition of an efficient, rapid
starting wood stove to go with them. 

So, when it comes to SHS, why not add thermoelectric power generation to the
family stove? It could be incorporated into the SHS system to provide
additional power and to save draining (cycling) the battery so much. This
would lead to a longer working lifetime. Neither the panel nor the battery
nor the stove would have to be large enough to provide all power needed at
once. The cost of adding a TEG to the system might be much less than
replacing batteries early, adding panels or upgrading the controller.

Regards
Crispin