Cooking up Clean Air with Clean Burning Stoves

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A stove that can save lives and slow global warming? How the clean burning stove is doing just that.

 

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Imagine that preparing meals for your family, or heating your home could be dangerous. Fatal, even. For roughly three billion people, that's reality. Nearly half the global population meets their most basic energy needs by burning biomass-wood, coal, charcoal, dung or agricultural waste-inefficiently. The smoke produced by this inefficient burning of solid fuels is filled with hundreds of pollutants, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and a whole range of known carcinogens.

This is indoor air pollution (IAP), and its levels in many low-income homes in the developing world can be fifty times higher than acceptable levels of outdoor air pollution. IAP is listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the fourth highest global risk factor to health-behind HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, and water and sanitation. It kills 1.5 million people every year (more than malaria) and it's responsible for over half of annual pneumonia deaths.

And at the heart of the issue is not only what is burning, but also how these solid fuels are burnt. Low-income families in developing nations often rely on traditional three-stone fires-indoor campfires built out of three stones on a dirt floor with burning fuel in the centre-for all aspects of household energy. But an open flame is inefficient, and produces an overwhelming amount of smoke. In small, poorly-ventilated homes that are often designed to keep heat in, that smoke clings to the walls and fills the lungs of the women and children who are tending the fire.

 



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