[Stoves] Report - Day 1

[Ronal W. Larson]

List:

   The stove conference finished its first full official day an hour ago.  About 100 persons here.  My impression is a larger number from overseas than in years past,  (four from GACC-sponsored regional stove test centers).  The same format as previous years, but a little longer time for discussions at meal times.  About twenty minutes each for 3-4 speakers each in 3 parallel breakout sessions of 1 to 1.5 hours each.  Good plenary sessions as well.  Organized for 14 years by Mark Bryden of ISU and Dean Still.

   Missing were this list’s managers Tom and Erin Miles.  Something late hampered their attendance. Hope everything is OK.

   About the same number of presentations as past few years by representatives from GACC and several of their close partners.  The last several years have seen a doubling of improved cook stove sales each year.  GACC will be releasing a “Catalog” of clean stoves very soon.  Now they have >900 partners - and seem assured of going over 1000 soon.

   Hard always to pick a favorite speaker, but I was very favorably impressed by Dr.  Alexis Belonio speaking on TLUD-type rice husk gasifiers.  Dr.  Paul Olivier has spoken often about Alexis  (from the Philippines).    So it was interesting to see the many small and large projects making char from rice husks with good use of the pyrolysis gases for water pumping, electrical generation, and of course cook stoves (with very clean-looking blue flames).

  Friday, maybe 20 or so visited Burn Lab (host Dr.  Paul Means) on Vashon Island, then a 2-hour “stoves 101" class led by Christa Roth, Paul Anderson,  Dean Still and Dale Andreata.  Then dinner hosted by Aprovecho and several hours of 8-10 individuals showing videos and photos of their work.

  My overall impression is that we are making very good progress on stove development right now.

Ron