Last night's pub quiz on cookstoves

At the Carpenters Arms last night, Ashden's Senior Advisor Anne Wheldon spoke about cookstoves as the secret weapon against poverty and climate change. Her talk gave the background to Ashden's recent report Stoking up a cookstove revolution and prompted so many questions about cookstoves that it might have been a pub quiz. (If only we knew all the answers.)

The Hedon meeting took place in an upstairs room in the pub, crowded with people with a high level of knowledge about cookstoves. The questions afterwards included:

How would Hillary Clinton's $50m affect those already making cookstoves?

Would the money go towards pre-finance? (A big problem is waiting for accreditation for carbon finance,which can take three to four years.)

Would there be a global standard of efficiency over cookstoves?

Would that standard be based on design features or on measurable output?

How is the Clinton scheme different from other initiatives over the years?

Is it better to have a very popular stove that improves efficiency by 25% or not-so-popular one that improves efficiency by 90%?

Why isn't there a hefty textbook on cookstoves - with all the maths, geometry and equations - freely available to designers?

Where's the social science research on what makes some gadgets take off?

Why did mobile phones take off in Africa? (Hint: it's the men who buy the phones, the women who buy the stoves.)

For more on stoves: Stoking up a cookstove revolution (Ashden Awards)
See also: Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and Hillary Clinton calls clean cookstoves a "cross-cutting issue"
And for some Ashden award-winning stove projects, go to: TWP/AHDESA, GERES Cambodia and Aprovecho/SSM.

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The Economist welcomes Clinton's $50m for clean cookstoves (just don't give them away)

This week's Economist welcomes Hillary Clinton's $50m for clean cookstoves but quotes US stove specialist Kirk Smith saying in the past too much emphasis has gone on technology and talking to people at the top, too little to consulting the women who actually do the cooking.

The Economist also welcomes "a new-found awareness of market forces" in government and within the UN. It reports Mrs Clinton saying the new stoves "must not be given away".

That will come as good news to the small army of entrepreneurs in the developing world now coming up with novel business models to sell and service the cooking stoves. One such innovator is Suraj Wahab of Toyola [pictured above], a start-up selling some 60,000 stoves a year in Ghana by offering micro-credit. His advice to the new UN coalition is “please don’t offer handouts and don’t give away stoves.”

One of the investors in Toyola is E+Co, which has also invested in Ashden Award winners Tecnosol (2010), Ecami (2009), Zara Solar (2007) and SELCO-India (2005 and 2007).

For a detailed assessment of the issues surrounding clean cookstoves, read the Ashden Awards report Stoking up a cookstove revolution.

For more on "the small army of entrepreneurs" see, for instance: Clean, green energy future " holds huge promise for Indian business"

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Follow the coverage on Clinton's $50m for clean cookstoves

"This could be as transformative as bednets or even vaccines."
Hillary Clinton, CGI, 21 Sept 2010.
Video.
Prospects Rise for Clean Cooking in Poor Places (New York Times)
Clinton unveils U.S. funds for clean cookstove push (Reuters)
Hillary on Fire About Clean Cookstoves (Daily Beast)
Secretary of State Clinton announces global cookstove initiative (Nature)
Hillary Clinton, cookstoves and "The Girl Effect". Watch a short film about why girls hold the key to transforming the world (Salon)
How Hillary Clinton's clean stoves will help African women (Guardian)

For more on stoves: Stoking up a cookstove revolution (Ashden Awards)
See also: Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and Hillary Clinton calls clean cookstoves a "cross-cutting issue"
And for some Ashden award-winning stove projects, go to: TWP/AHDESA, GERES Cambodia and Aprovecho/SSM.

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Hillary Clinton calls cookstoves a "cross-cutting issue"

Update: The Guardian columnist Madeleine Bunting writes about Clinton and cookstoves: "Finally, this huge story is percolating through to the mainstream ... This is a problem that does not require expensive technology. It is about using fuel efficiently. Watch this video."

The video link is to Ashden award-winner Aprovecho.

The New York Times reports that later this morning Hillary Clinton will announce $50 million in seed money for the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

Mrs. Clinton called the problem of indoor pollution from primitive cookstoves a “cross-cutting issue” that affects health, the environment and women’s status in much of the world.

The NYT says the Alliance has set itself the goal of providing 100 million clean-burning stoves to villages in Africa, Asia and South America by 2020.

Although the toxic smoke from the primitive stoves is one of the leading environmental causes of death and disease, and perhaps the second biggest contributor to global warming, after the industrial use of fossil fuels, it has long been neglected by governments and private aid organizations.

See also: Ashden Awards report Stoking up a cookstove revolution and Ashden award-winning stove projects: TWP/AHDESA, GERES Cambodia and Aprovecho/SSM.

More: Shell, UN to Back $100 Million Plan for Clean Energy Cookstoves
Ashden award-winner GERES Cambodia have sold their one millionth stove

Update: Anne Wheldon, Senior Adviser at the Ashden Awards, says:

This is something that need not cost much, but it has got to be done right, for the particular country and culture, and it must be what people who do the cooking actually want. I think Andrew Mitchell, the UK development minister, is arguing at the Millenium Development Goals conference for 'spend aid better' rather than 'spend more'. A lot can be achieved at a comparatively low cost provided that it is done in the right way.

pic: Escorts Foundation, Pakistan - Ashden winners 2004

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