[Stoves] Urgent Support Gaza Industrial Stove Design

[Patricia Mcardle]

Hi Christina,

Kudos to WCK for your efforts to provide food to the people of Gaza and to WCK's current efforts to also provide them with the means to cook raw food using biomass stoves.  

Given the fact that: 

1.  Gaza is located in the sun belt with more than 300 sunny days per year  <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9568520/>and an average of 8 hours of daily brightness”; 

2. The forests in Gaza cover only 0.55% of the Gaza Strip...

I urge you to consider introducing the integrated solar cooking method <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpn04j_0pdQ&t=25s> which combines the use of: 

An appropriate solar cooker <https://www.appropedia.org/Solar_cooker> model whenever the sun is shining;
A  <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHdO_HaSqtQ>retained heat cooker <https://www.appropedia.org/Retained_heat_cooker> (hay basket or fireless cooker) to keep solar cooked food piping hot for hours or to allow a cook to bring a pot of food to a boil for 15 minutes, then extinguish the fire and let the food simmer for two or three more house in a retained heat container using no fuel at all. 
An improved cookstove <https://www.appropedia.org/Improved_cookstove> (i.e. fuel efficient biomass cook stove) for use when there is not sufficient sunshine.

There are three basic types of solar cookers:

1. Light weight fold up, but very durable panel cookers like the Haines solar cooker <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmMhCq5Y0Ig>, which can cook food at above 300F/150C on any sunny day. 
It can also boil water and keep it simmering for hours using no fuel at all.  Haines solar cookers are being used in: Kenya, Uganda, Haiti, Gambia, Chad, Ecuador, Mexico and the U.S.  The designer and manufacturer, Roger Haines lives in Del Mar California and is a retired U.S.Department of Justice lawyer.

2. Parabolic solar cookers like the ones Jose Andres took to Haiti <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LVDdHH9TyU>.  Jose Andres introduced solar cookers to the Haitian people in 2010 <https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/solarcooking/images/c/c2/Scr_may14.pdf/revision/latest?cb=20140602164023>.  He brought solar parabolic cookers <https://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2010-11-10/food-and-haitis-path-recovery/> after their devastating earthquake and taught the Haitians how to cook with sunshine. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LVDdHH9TyU>.


3. Box solar cookers <https://inhabitat.com/palestinian-man-overcomes-gaza-energy-cuts-with-affordable-diy-solar-ovens/> like the ones already being built in Gaza

Several years ago, a group of women in war torn Yemen <https://themedialine.org/people/displaced-women-in-yemen-become-entrepreneurs/>, who were no longer able to buy bottled cooking gas, did their own research on fuel efficient cooking methods <https://solarcooking.fandom.com/wiki/Integrated_Cooking_Method>. They discovered integrated cooking <https://solarcooking.fandom.com/wiki/Integrated_Cooking_Method> and are making and distributing these three devices and teaching Yemeni women how to combine their use for maximum fuel savings: 

Mr. Khaled Bashir, who lives in Deir al Balah in the Gaza Strip, has been for the past few years building and selling solar box cookers to take advantage of Gaza’s abundant sunshine that not even a blockade can disrupt. <https://inhabitat.com/palestinian-man-overcomes-gaza-energy-cuts-with-affordable-diy-solar-ovens/>  Since he’s already doing this instead of burning lumber in cooking fires on sunny days, why not help Mr. Bashir turn that lumber into thousands of solar box cookers for his neighbors?

.  ..  
A leading influencer in the biomass stove community, Dean Still, Director of Aprovecho Research Center in Oregon <https://www.linkedin.com/in/dean-still-51267176/>, published a manual almost 20 years ago, which describes the integrated cooking method and provides instructions on building and using each of the necessary devices.



I hope you find this information useful. I am a retired diplomat but have been doing pro-bono advising in the U.S. and overseas for the past 17 years.  Let me know if there is any way I can assist your effort.
Thanks,
Pat

Patricia McArdle <https://solarcooking.fandom.com/wiki/Patricia_McArdle>
Author, Farishta <https://www.npr.org/2011/06/04/136928898/farishta-afghan-fiction-from-the-foreign-service>, a novel about Afghanistan
Videographer <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_tLie5msnr6QwhEWPZIzIg/videos?view=0&sort=p> renewable energy
Member Global Advisory Council,  Solar Cookers International <https://www.solarcookers.org/about/team/sci-global-advisor-council/patricia-mcardle>
Board of Advisors, Solar Household Energy <http://www.she-inc.org/?page_id=293>

p.s. My you tube channel features many videos on fuel efficient cooking methods including:   

- Heat Retention Cooking <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHdO_HaSqtQ> 

-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_lA4I9__aI. (I filmed this short video at a solar cooking conference in Sacramento. It was in response to an anti-solar ‘expert” who frequently dismissed solar cookers as useless.)

 This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpn04j_0pdQ&t=25s is an interview I gave to USAID on integrated cooking.

My very first two videos were filmed 15 years ago in Mexico  when I was invited to join a Rotary group of doctors who were setting up a health clinic in a remote part of the country. They wanted demonstrations on how to make and use solar cookers, retained heat containers and fuel efficient stoves.  My fellow instructor was the well known biomass stove designer, Larry Winiarski, whom I filmed demonstrating the construction of a 16 brick rocket stove <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSMR2ANIZ7E> and a tin can rocket stove <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO-vPyCShLg>.  




>>> On Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 4:05?PM Christina Espinosa <
>>> c_espinosa1 at u.pacific.edu <mailto:c_espinosa1 at u.pacific.edu>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Listserv!
>>>> 
>>>> I have a team in Egypt working on a quick manufacturing design to be
>>>> able to send into our cooking partners in Gaza ASAP. Rules are strict
>>>> on what gets let in and there is almost no fuel inside Gaza for cooking.
>>>> They currently have a pellet design with a fan. I was hoping that someone
>>>> might be willing to jump on a call with me or the team there ASAP to try
>>>> and troubleshoot some problems they have in the design. This is where they
>>>> are at now. But they need to be able to make these ASAP and all of the
>>>> large manufacturers have long turn arounds and shipping costs.
>>>> 
>>>> Please let me know if anyone would be able to help.
>>>> 
>>>> You can email me directly at Christina at wck.org <mailto:Christina at wck.org>
>>>> 
>>>> Best,
>>>> 
>>>> Christina
>>>> Director of Clean Cooking
>>>> World Central Kitchen
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