[Stoves] What poor means?

Dean Still deankstill at gmail.com
Sun Nov 20 14:13:16 CST 2011


Hi Phil,

I think that if we factor in the ill health and climate change caused by
incomplete combustion of biomass, society as a whole saves money by
subsidizing the 50% fuel reduction and 90% emission reduction cooking
stove. However, as Bryan Wilson points out in his presentations, the bottom
of the pyramid consumer is not motivated to pay for these improvements.

My hope is that someone will be smart enough and stubborn enough to
manufacture a market driven stove that meets the 50% and 90% level of
performance. And, the necessary push to accomplish this difficult task
would be very much assisted by a firm order for 1 million stoves from some
motivated funder who also locates and secures the distribution network.

Making the 50% and 90% stove is the relatively easy part. I would guess
that the commercial distribution side is 10 times harder. I can imagine
distributing 100 million stoves by selling at the market price to cooks who
then use the stoves and the funder makes the money back on the carbon
credits.

 I hear that Envirofit is doing something along these lines?

All Best,

Dean

On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Phil Hughes <nicafyl at gmail.com> wrote:

> The $2/day number can clearly mean very different things in different
> places. I live in rural Nicaragua and can offer some data that at least
> fits here. And here is a place where fuel-efficient stoves really are
> needed.
>
> For those with work, $2/day is the going wage. There are lots of people
> who seldom work so $2/day/family in this area as far as cash income is
> pretty high. That said, most people have enough land to grow much of what
> they eat and few have any debts.
>
> The cash gets spent on batteries for radios, cooking oil, salt, sugar,
> rice and minimally on clothing. That's really about it. But, having no
> savings and living day-to-day on what they have is typical. That is, if
> they had a good week they might buy batteries for the radio but, if not,
> just not listen to it.
>
> Health care and education are free so they are non-issues (for pretty low
> quality for each). That pretty well defines rural life here.
>
> Telling someone they can reduce fuel consumption by 50%, get rid of smoke
> in the house and such is not going to compute if an investment is needed.
> They will walk farther to cut wood for cooking and pretend the smoke is a
> non-issue. Thus, these people are unlikely to get excited about "something
> better" if an investment is needed.
>
> What will work is if they can go to a workshop showing them how to make a
> stove using mud and something that is available as scrap or given to them.
> Beyond that, good luck.
>
> --
> Phil Hughes
> nicafyl at gmail.com
>
>
>
>
>
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