A $5 solar stove for rural poor, paid for by polluters
It looks so simple, and that's the key innovation.
The Kyoto Box consists of two cardboard boxes, one inside the other. The inner box is painted black to absorb sunlight, and the heat is trapped with a transparent acrylic lid. Captured solar energy heats up the air in the box enough to boil food and water and bake, but the stove is not powerful enough to fry food.
A prototype of the award-winning Kyoto Box solar cooker.
(Credit: Kyoto Energy)The invention received the $75,000 FT Climate Change Challenge award last week. The competition, run by Forum for the Future with The Financial Times and Hewlett-Packard, had nearly 300 entries, which were judged on their contribution to tackling climate change.
"It feels good. It was the only finalist that was a solution for developing countries," Kyoto Energy CEO Jan Bohmer, a Norwegian-born entrepreneur based in Kenya, told CNET News during a call on a crackling phone line from Nairobi.
The invention was inspired by the 240-year-old "hot box," a heat catcher by Swiss inventor Horace de Sausseur, and it could solve problems plaguing rural areas of developing countries.
Deforestation is a huge problem in Africa, note the inventors of the Kyoto Box, who hope the stove could halve firewood use, saving trees and preventing carbon emissions. The Kyoto Box is targeted at people who currently use firewood, a fuel that takes the rural poor hours of hard labor per day to collect, and can cause health problems when the fumes from the often primitive stoves are breathed in the home.
Norwegian inventor and Kyoto Energy CEO Jan Bohmer is based in Nairobi, Kenya.
(Credit: Kyoto Energy)While the design of the stove and manufacturing is simple, the business model is advanced. The box costs just $5 to make, but the goal is that it will be given away for free. How? The cooker could be eligible for carbon credits, which could finance the production of the boxes.
They named the company Kyoto Energy because of the key role the Kyoto Protocol will play in lowering the cost.
In principle, carbon credits are part of a market for reducing greenhouse emissions. The company reducing its emissions gets credits to sell to those who emit more. Bundling the Kyoto Box with a solar-charged flashlight, a solar water bag, and an efficient turbo cooker to burn residues (in a package the company calls "Kyoto Family") can help each family save two tons of greenhouse gases per year could make it a freebie for the users.
The company explains its calculations: each ton of carbon credits is worth about 10 euros ($13). Two tons means 20 euros ($26) worth of credits per year per family. The cost of the Kyoto Family kit is 40 euros ($52), which means that if the family uses the kit for two years, it should be free, the company hopes.
Since receiving the prize, Kyoto Energy has received requests from 20 countries, from Guatemala to Cambodia, for trials. A plastic version of The Kyoto Box will go into production soon in a Malaysian factory. "The cardboard version was more of a test," Bohmer said. "It is the same thing made of recycled plastic bottles, but this one is more durable."
Kyoto Energy's goal is to reach 500 million households with its products. Bohmer wants his company to stay in the family, since kin have helped develop the products. He has a car and a house and says he doesn't need big profits. "I have used everything I have to do R&D," he said. "If I get more, I'll probably do more R&D. I am obsessed with finding solutions for problems."
For Bohmer, receiving the Climate Change Challenge award is an acknowledgement after years of trying to get support for his ideas. "I've had 200 application from governments and organizations rejected or ignored before this," he said.
But for the business model to work, the relatively new carbon trading system must continue to improve. Bohmer hopes the U.S. finally will join this carbon trading system, and recent signs suggest it might. The White House needs to offset its emissions from all their flying, Bohmer joked, adding that the president has a great opportunity to show the way: "President Obama can buy these carbon credits from his own grandmother here in Kenya."
Click on the video below to see the see the problems the Kyoto Box wants to solve.
"Just another eight hours dear, it's cloudy today."
The Kyoto Box is one of those things that seems like a good idea but if things really were that simple, we'd all be using them. It's hugely impractical. Providing these people with cheap electricity through rural electrification programs would be money better spent.
http://www.solarworld.de/2657.0.html?L=1
(this is an example of one that puts small solar power plants into remote African villages to provide electricity for things like schools, clinics, and etc).
mmntech: Things really are this simple. Why aren't you using them?
Turning out the lights when we leave a room is 'that simple' but lots of people don't. Eating healthy is 'that simple'. Staying out of debt is 'that simple'. The 'simple' truth: We're wasteful, fat and broke.
Wh haven't been doing a lot of good, simple things. In fact, we're hopeless, the only ones that might be able to embrace something like this is someone who is already used to simplicity.
Carbon credits etc are just the first step in reducing the standard of living in the modern world.
Everything will be more expensive and further out of reach for people who need it.
should be "back in the 5th grade"
But $52 does seem a high price, maybe the price will come down after production starts?
Good Will Hunting
(yep, me).
As it being hugely impractical and "if it were really that simple we'd all be using them," that's ludicrous. Instead of cheap solar cookers, which are a significant step up in much of Africa, lets electrify half a continent with money we get from who knows where. Then, these people with no money will be able to buy electricity. And of course they'll also be able to buy electric cookers, which are much more expensive than five dollars. It takes lots of money to pay for huge infrastructure and electric cookers for everyone. Funny how that works.
Egypt's enrichment on giving up arms became the prototype for Gaza and Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq. The whole third world will take up arms against us (and each other) if merely to get our attention so they can fill their bellies the easy way. We have got to do something, now. We must see to it that these tactics stop succeeding. We must teach the world to sing in perfect harmony and the sooner the better.
True, providing infrastructure to rural American did uplift millions of Americans, but it also helped cause us to be the worlds worst pollution offender. Instead of bringing all other countries along our same course, let's instead provide them with new technology that isn't dependent upon this infrastructure and doesn't cause the same problems that we've caused these past 100 years. The cost of maintaining our old infrastructure is preventing us from moving into a new paradigm with new technology. Any technology we provide to third world countries should also aim to limit global warming.
Wow; what a humanitarian!
However, those who poo poo the whole idea as being simplistic and impractical are suffering from an egregiously severe case of hubris at best, and more likely, criminal stupidity. It shows that those persons have absolutely no knowledge of what conditions are truely like in a 3rd world nation.
This is exactly the same principle for hot water preheating that is installed (and still being installed) on over a million american roofs, and even more foreign rooftops, at this time. Although our systems use aluminum, copper, and glass instead of cardboard, plastic, and aluminum foil. Up to sixty-five percent of the energy needed to heat water in a home can be provided by solar water heating systems. That works out to several hundred to a couple thousand dollars a year per american home.
Major savings in fuel or electical costs to Americans, equal to a significant percentage of our income. Providing a third world family with something that could save hundreds to thousands of dollars in energy costs is a quantum jump in wealth for them; and even though "simplistic" can revolutionize their lives. Hell, just being able to cheaply and reliably boil water to purify it has major ramifications for health improvement.
Can the solar heater heat water high enough to make it safe to drink?
But if the water is laced with industrial pollutants, pesticides, fertilizers, heavy metals and other toxic elements, the solar heater won't solve that other equally common kind of problem.
I guess you missed my point. The likelyhood that there will be energy delivered to these people from PV or flat plate water heaters, let alone hydro, coal, or (heaven forbid) fusion, is slim to none. There is no will by their governments or private industry to carry out such efforts. It's too expensive and totally inappropriate technology. Rapid deployment of these appropriately scaled devices NOW can save lives and reduce the amount of carbon that comes from the smoldering tree branches and cow dung.
"Ever hear of solar panels?"
I was installing solar panels in the late 70's and early 80's until Reagan cut the legs out from under the fledgling solar industry. Where were you?
- by gill1980 November 26, 2009 7:14 PM PST
- If it can boil water then it can create pressure. If wind is a problem you can use that steam/pressure to spin a turbine to generate a lot more energy than solar panels....of course with much less spendy equipment than solar cells require. If light is what creates the heat they could use a battery bank to create light to maintain the heat which would maintain pressure and keep working at night.... it should be noted that mercury halide lights can get upwards of 1100 degrees celsius....yeah... problem solved 3rd world countries... but...im sure bono or some dick will come out and say it was their idea...
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(29 Comments)