[Stoves] Fwd: business sickness

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Bob L

 

I think there is a choice or two that was not covered in your list of the options (or rather, Radha’s options if that was the source).


"a billions women can't afford the stove they need. We have three choices.
we can leave them out
we can sell them a stove they can afford that they will abandon
we can subsidize their purchase.

we choose to subsidise their purchase."

One of the things Cecil Cook keeps saying is that the designers have to realise that there is an upper limit to what people are willing to spend on a stove. That is true, and the amount can be ascertained, but there is more complication to it.

 

A stove that only does a certain range of things (addressing Nikhil’s question about ‘performance’) has a certain perceived value. Another device that does pretty much the same thing will be assigned pretty much the same perceived value.

 

Three options: change the perceived value (advertising), or bring more to the table (like adding electricity), or increase the performance without increasing the cost. 

 

There is always the possibility that an assumption is blocking the way. In this case, that a high performance stove (however defined) has to cost a lot more. This is common cause in the donor community, with some but not a heck of a lot of justification. Using the same materials and creating a new configuration can deliver more benefit without increasing the amount of material of the cost.  Some designs would benefit from being mass produced, some from mass parts production and local assembly. Some designs require a high local skill level and it is difficult to transfer such skills.

 

My main point is that delivering far better stoves for the same cost is what engineers and in fact universities are good at doing. More function for less cost. I mention universities because while they are not major sources of invention, they are very good at optimising the application of new ideas. Engineers are supposed to optimise the use of materials and cost to deliver a given performance target with a required margin of safety as a matter of course. 

 

Practical Action made a major effort in Darfur to improve the performance of the local mud stoves that were in common use. They achieved a consistent 50% fuel saving across the board without an increase in cost. Such an achievement is usually accompanied by a reduction in emissions of smoke and CO because they have to be burned to get that magnitude of performance increase. Not always, but almost all the time. So we can demonstrate that the goal of improvement can be achieved without having to spend more. 

 

We can also spend more and get an improvement, no problem. Cecil’s question is which stove will find the greatest acceptance in the least time? Make and maintain it yourself forever, or wait for a subsidy? That is a rational choice. If someone gives you as stove and you sell it then make your own, you have benefitted from the stove programme.  I know where there are thousands of examples of that. Maybe tens of thousands. It depends on the offer.

 

Bob, it sounds like you have a winner of an approach, and it is quite likely the government won’t kick in anything. Don’t give up, but unless there is some net beneficial offer it will lag behind in the decision tree.  Is it not possible for the communities to kick something in? I live in Mennonite country and they frequently do things like that. Local self-upliftment. If it is really valuable and appreciated, to what extent can a community organise things for its own benefit? I have seen amazing things happen.

 

Kukaa vizuri

Crispin

 


bob lange      508 735 9176
the Maasai Stoves and Solar Project.
the ICSEE










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