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

[Xavier Brandao]

Hello Kirk,

This topic wasn't meant to be negative, only critical. Maybe some of the 
negativity derives from the article, which seems a bit pessimistic.
I tend to talk always more about the half-empty part of the glass, than 
the half-full, I may seem negative at times.

But there are like you say great people working on great technologies, 
and every month bring some new developments in the stove sector, so 
there are a lot of reasons to hope!

The subject is complex, that's maybe the reason why explanations are 
dragging like that.
I would summarize what I think are the conclusions as follow:

  * there still exist a gap between the efforts in the stove sector and
    the user adoption
  * this gap is due, I believe, to putting the focus on the clean
    aspects of the technology at the detriment of the usability of the
    stoves, that users value most. I am not saying that making clean
    stoves is not important, because it is capital, but usability
    shouldn't be forgotten in the process.
  * this trend can start to be changed, I think, by adopting different
    stove design approaches (like Dale's), and being very self-critical
  * more efforts and funding on R&D are necessary

But in the end, I believe we actually start to be conscious of our 
strengths and weaknesses, and start taking actions accordingly.

/'There is no success so far so stop already' seems to be a strong sympathy/

We should never think like that. Failures only call for more tentatives.

As I said, what is happening now is really exciting, and the above 
conclusions should only galvanize us and make us intensify efforts.

Let's keep the debate alive!

Best regards,

Xavier

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