Cook Stove - Improved Stoves and Other Measures

Improved Stoves and Other Measures

The World Health Organization has documented the significant number of deaths caused by smoke from home fires. The negative impacts can be reduced by using improved cook stoves, improved fuels (e.g. biogas, or kerosene instead of dung), changes to the environment (e.g. use of a chimney), and changes to user behaviour (e.g. drying fuel wood before use, using a lid during cooking)." Improved stoves are more efficient, meaning that the stove's users spend less time gathering wood or other fuels, suffer less emphysema and other lung diseases prevalent in smoke-filled homes, while reducing deforestation and air pollution.

For instance, an improvement of the energy efficiency from 25% for the traditional Lao stove (wood and charcoal fired) to 29% efficiency for an improved Lao stove, results in 21% less wood fuel being needed, and saves 182000 ton CO2eq emissions, as reported in this GHG-compensation project. The traditional Lao stove needs an average of 385 kilograms of charcoal and 450 kilograms of wood per year as fuel. For making a kilogram of charcoal about seven kilograms of wood is needed. The report also indicates that in Cambodia 369000 ton of non-renewable biomass wood fuel is consumed yearly for charcoal production for these stoves, destroying 45 km² of deciduous forests. This is not sustainable, as only 4% of the forests regrows.

Some designs also make the stove safer, preventing burns that often occur when children stumble into open fires. Some of the new stove designs are discussed below.