To Build A Better Fire
April 24, 2015 7:32 AM   Subscribe

 
That was an interesting read, thank you.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:13 AM on April 24, 2015


This is a subject pf great interest to me, but I lost it at "long, columnar head." Why do so many journalists feel the need to bury the interesting stuff under a page or so of irrelevant description of the interviewee's facial features? I'll try again later, when I've a little more patience.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:59 AM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Optimizing a single variable may be easy, may be hard. Two probably hard, through impossible. Three and up, well good luck.
posted by sammyo at 9:01 AM on April 24, 2015


this relates to my prior post Heating People, Not Places, so I'm just going to drop updates here: Radiant & Conductive Heating Systems and How to Keep Warm in a Cool House. Same source says Well-Tended Fires Outperform Modern Cooking Stoves, except the rocket stove, which is one of the kinds that Aprovecho works with.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:07 AM on April 24, 2015 [8 favorites]


...the other half burns wood, coal, dung, or other solid fuels.

Other?
posted by sammyo at 9:08 AM on April 24, 2015


Presumably peat, alcohol tablets, etc.
posted by LionIndex at 9:17 AM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


the men ordered drinks and a vegetarian Reuben
There are not enough drinks in the world to get me drunk enough to order that.
posted by w0mbat at 9:42 AM on April 24, 2015 [16 favorites]


I'm not sure whether a "vegetarian Reuben" is classed as an oxymoron or a hate crime against cuisine.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:47 AM on April 24, 2015 [8 favorites]


NB: there are many updates since this was first published in 2009 (originally in The New Yorker) -- might want to see --
* The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
* EcoZoom stoves
* Bunch of links from 2014
* Aprovecho research center is having a Stove Camp this July
posted by PandaMomentum at 9:50 AM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Same source says Well-Tended Fires Outperform Modern Cooking Stoves, except the rocket stove, which is one of the kinds that Aprovecho works with.

If you look at the two studies that are being compared, you'll see they are definitely apples to oranges. One is a marketing study for some sort of boiler that installs under your counter. Highly dubious. I doubt that statement is true.

In general, rocket stove proponents seem to have quite a bit of an evangelical zeal about the whole subject and tend to be less than scientifically rigorous. It's an interesting subject, but the claims that get tossed around casually as fact really aren't helping anyone. There is a definite anti-technology vibe to the whole endeavour. It's sad.
posted by ssg at 9:56 AM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Thanks for this,it helps in the hope department. Vegetarian Reuben sandwiches are delicious, behind the rye, sauerkraut, cheese and thousand island dressing, is something spicy salty, tempeh would do it, or any of the fake meats. A Reuben is a screamy mix of amped flavors, an easy place to pawn off some salty, fake meat. What and drown it in tasty beer, yah!
posted by Oyéah at 9:59 AM on April 24, 2015 [4 favorites]


When I was a Boy Scout, we spent a lot of our camping time foraging for wood to burn: we needed it for cooking, and to heat wash water, and of course for evening campfires. So I never paid much attention to stoves…but now the Scouts cook on gas stoves, so I find the subject far more interesting than I used to, especially since I have so little useful experience to draw on.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:24 AM on April 24, 2015


NB: there are many updates since this was first published in 2009 (originally in The New Yorker) -- might want to see --


I was thinking that this looked familiar.

One of the advantages of an open fire (contained by rocks or in an old truck wheel) is that you can burn whatever is available. Charcoal this week, scrap wood next week, dung the week after. Some of the improved stoves are optimized for one fuel type or size, which isn't always going to work.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:46 AM on April 24, 2015


The women in the villages where I work in Cote d'Ivoire primarily cook on an open fire. They often have a fire in their yard, and also a small shed with another fire in it, with three clay props to balance pots on. They spend a lot of time walking from their farms or the nearest piece of forest with large logs on their head, and then splitting those logs with an ax to build their fires, and since every woman is trying to get wood at least a few times a week, you have fewer and fewer options and have to walk further. It is arduous, and smokey, and dangerous. Many women and small children have pretty severe burn, either from their skirts catching fire, touching pots, or getting boiling pots knocked over on them. The locally available alternatives are not great - I bought a friend a propane stovetop that she asked me to help her with, but she has to put together money for propane tanks when they run out, and that's expensive (around 15 dollars/tank). Charcoal is easy to get, but they get it by chopping down large trees from local protected areas and it's expensive. It's hard to see what a successful cooking solution will look like across the developing world.
posted by ChuraChura at 11:10 AM on April 24, 2015 [4 favorites]


It's hard to see what a successful cooking solution will look like across the developing world.

How feasible is solar cooking methods in these locations? (this is a sincere question asked out of ignorance). It wouldn't work after dark (of course) but it seems to me that is the kind of one time expense (for the mirror/collector) that could help a lot. It would still be pretty dangerous, but seemingly no more so than big pots of boiling water and open flame...

(I feel kinda stupid asking this since it seem so obvious that someone surely has tried it and it has failed for some reason...)
posted by bartonlong at 11:33 AM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think it could probably work for parts of the year, but it would certainly be challenging during the rainy season. The biggest barrier that I would see is that those materials are going to be difficult to produce and distribute locally, although some people do have solar panels that they use to charge cell phones and the like.
posted by ChuraChura at 11:54 AM on April 24, 2015


This solar cooking wikia page has a good deal to say about considering the cook's culture and setting.

Are there open, sunny spaces near homes, where a solar cooker and food can be safe from theft, tampering, or damage?
Is cooking already usually done outside?
When are primary meals served? Around noon and/or around sunset or soon after?
Do gender roles allow/encourage women to participate in community groups and decision-making in family financial matters?

Food preferences and customs vary by culture and promoters should consider whether high-heat frying consumes a significant portion of household fuel. In cultures where most foods are fried, parabolic cookers may be the most suitable, while in cultures where frying is less important, lower-cost box cookers and panel cookers may be the most practical and economical choice.

Here are a few other variables promoters should consider:

How many people do most women cook for in the community?
What size or style of cooker suits a particular family's needs?
What pots are used? Will they work for solar cooking and will they fit in the chosen cooker(s)?
What time of day do women buy the day’s food?
Is there enough time after purchasing the food to solar cook it?
Will they have time to solar cook both lunch and dinner?

Knowing local food customs can help promoters find niches where solar cookers can have dramatic pay-offs. For example, in Hausa communities in West Africa, there are often a significant number of people involved in small businesses that roast chickens. These chicken roasters could be a great market for solar box cookers.

...

posted by sebastienbailard at 12:11 PM on April 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


How much longer will wood be a viable fuel source in these countries? It seems like there is going to be a serious supply shortage in the next future given the rate of deforestation and population growth.
posted by humanfont at 12:23 PM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


How much longer will wood be a viable fuel source in these countries? It seems like there is going to be a serious supply shortage in the next future given the rate of deforestation and population growth.

North Korea might be a helpful example. The linked article in the FPP talks about wood-gasification. This isn't just for stoves! It's also how at least some North Korean trucks are powered. Here's a video and a photo showing what that looks like.

That said, the wood-powered trucks are an extreme example. The amount of wood that goes toward powering trucks is probably insignificant compared to what gets consumed for cooking and heating.

Here a picture of North Korea and South Korea as viewed from space. The difference in land cover is obvious, but I'm not sure how much of the difference is natural and how much of it is from deforestation. Nor am I sure when the picture was taken.

Different sources give different rates of deforestation. According to PBS, 17% of North Korean forest cover was lost between the late 1970s and the late 1990s. This site says that 24.6% was lost between 1990 and 2005. And this paper says that North Korea lost 40% of its forest cover since 1985.

This report shows North Korea ranking third in their deforestation index behind Nigeria and Indonesia. According to the report, Nigeria is losing 4% of their forests per year.
posted by compartment at 12:55 PM on April 24, 2015


It's hard to see what a successful cooking solution will look like across the developing world.

I like what the Kinyanjuis are doing over at Cookswell Jikos. They cover the entire cycle from seed to ash, have designed an efficient kiln to make your own charcoal from the fast growing trees whose seeds they deliver with your charcoal stove, oven or designer barbecue *and* the stoves and ovens are far more efficient than the norm. A sustainable circle.
posted by infini at 2:22 PM on April 24, 2015 [6 favorites]


Being an inveterate tinkerer things like this appeal to me but I have real doubts about the whole thing. I wish I could remember where I read a couple of articles by African, (don't even remember what country, I know I know,) writers that really illuminated my misgivings. The takeaway was along the lines of "why the hell can't we have electric ranges instead of cooking with cow shit? Why do we have to be some special case that has to be solved by esoteric technology which would be roundly rejected in the place where it is coming from?"
posted by Pembquist at 2:40 PM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


"why the hell can't we have electric ranges instead of cooking with cow shit?"

Quite a few assumptions in that "we". While such writers are fighting the righteous fight, some of their rural compatriots will be dying young of smoke-induced lung diseases in homes with no power. Sure, aim for electricity, but don't kill yourselves while you're waiting.

"Why do we have to be some special case that has to be solved by esoteric technology which would be roundly rejected in the place where it is coming from?"

My family got a rocket stove to take camping last year. It's so efficient that we've ditched our portable barbecue and bags of charcoal; a few handfuls of dry sticks can cook a meal. Very little smoke, lots of heat.
posted by rory at 3:17 PM on April 24, 2015


Another stove technology the author didn't spend much time on is on fixed-bed gasifying woodstoves. On the ten point scale, they fail in the "cooks love it" department, because they're (usually) batch stoves, require pellet or chip fuel, and can be rather finicky to run.

Here's an example mass produced in India.

Gasifiers have a side benefit that they burn in two stages. Wood is pyrolized to charcoal, and then charcoal is burnt to ash. If the stove user snuffs out the flame before the charcoal starts burning, and the charcoal is dug into soil, it's effectively sequestering carbon. Biochar hype!
posted by anthill at 4:19 PM on April 24, 2015


Up in Smoke
Why India is still looking for a perfect cookstove


This was not the first time a big push for clean cookstoves started only to falter. The history of India’s cookstove programmes parallels the evolution of the global development agenda, shaped by the geopolitics of each era—saving forests in the 1970s, improving women’s lot in the 1990s, preventing global warming in the 2000s. Since the 1970s, development agencies and governments around the world have spent millions of dollars promoting clean stoves as the solution for a succession of big problems. These programmes reflect a yearning, among nation-builders and international donors alike, for silver bullets—objects that are quantifiable technological solutions, but also symbolic, such as vaccines, mosquito nets and toilets.

posted by infini at 6:55 AM on April 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


Here are 2 links to the essay that this stove thing brought to mind. They are links to almost the same essay one is from Harper's which requires a subscription and is slightly different than the original but is easier to read typographically speaking.
posted by Pembquist at 2:35 PM on April 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


Pembquist: that essay is great!
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:02 PM on April 28, 2015


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