[Stoves] Why is it still so difficult to design cookstoves for 3 billion people?

[Xavier Brandao]

Dear Anand,

That means we will be soon out of business!

Which would be great news, if about 1.2 billion Indians were soon having 
100% clean cooking.
Indeed, India is a country where, when the political will is there, 
mountains can be moved, and change happens very rapidly, even to the 
poorest. We follow attentively the quick progress of LPG and induction 
stoves.

But what we see when we go to the villages, even in a comparatively rich 
and developed state such as Tamil Nadu, where LPG and electricity is 
spread, is that people are still massively using wood for cooking. 
Often, they have gas connection, but their bottle is empty, and even 
with a subsidized gas, they prefer to cook with (free, collected) wood, 
than to do a gas refill. And they do most of the cooking with wood.
Don't you think also that the amount of energy required for induction 
cooking would put a great toll on the already strained supply of 
electricity in India? Load sheds are still too often.
It is possible that wood cooking still has a few decades of life expectancy.

I think in the coming decades, clean biomass cookstoves will still be 
part of the energy mix. But we need to be ready to evolve, to adapt. 
Master the clean combustion of wood products is something that could be 
adapted to other markets than only the household markets, may the need 
not exist anymore for households.

Best regards,

Xavier



On 6/15/16 11:30 PM, stoves-request at lists.bioenergylists.org wrote:
> As far as India is concerned, our government is planning to give
> electricity to all households in the next 5 years. Induction stoves are
> being used even in villages, where electricity has become available. The
> programme of giving LPG to poor householders has also already been started.
> Availability of electricity and LPG, and the rapid pace of urbanization
> would soon spell the end of biomass based cooking.


-- 
Xavier Brandao
COO

Prakti
T  +91 413 262 34 37
M  +91 997 610 69 21
S  x.brandao
Wwww.praktidesign.com
A  Spirit Sense, Old Auroville Rd,
    605 104, Bommiyarpalayam, Tamil Nadu
    INDIA

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