[Stoves] About LPG and India and biomass stoves

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Ron


Does anyone know of any other stove type where cooking costs can be negative?

It is common practice in Java to make money while cooking, at least for some foods. Homesteads with sugar palm trees must spend either four or eight hours a day tending a fire to boil the sap. Either they do or they lose the product because it won't keep for 12 hours in the raw state.

Thus while they are making money they use a stove that boils sap continuously. ‎Investigating how food was prepared we found that they used nearly no fuel at all because they cook certain foods on the exhaust from the palm sugar making. The traditional stove has two cooking stations, and the improved ones have three plus a chimney.

The entire time they are cooking rice, simmering soup, heating water, they are making money. It would be more accurate of course to say that they are cooking food 'energy free' because if there is no food being prepared, the residual heat is wasted.

Cooking in this case is an added efficiency and separating it from the 'commercial' use of energy is impractical. By far, the most fuel consumed in the home is for making money. Something like 85% of homes generate income with their stove. If this figure is in error someone can correct it. It is very high, is my point.

In the Western world, very few homes are generating income with their domestic stoves. Elsewhere it is the norm. Cooking food is an ancillary task done free while the money is made.

Deliberately making charcoal while cooking they would see in the same manner. Why waste the heat, right?

Regards
Crispin

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