Comments on: A $5 solar stove for rural poor, paid for by polluters

The Kyoto Box, an award-winning solar cooker made of cardboard, aims to reach millions for free with the help of the carbon credit market.

[mmntech]

"Honey, when's dinner going to be ready"
"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.

[Random_Walk]

There are green energy companies doing just that right now:

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).

[flathead50]

Solar box cookers are not new. Many groups have been deploying them for the past decade or so. These are very effective in areas of the sub sahara in Africa and many other areas. The cost is negligible. The impact is great. Women who spend all day foraging for fire wood and dried dung can now spend their time doing other things like foraging for food and clean water. The forests and scrub will not be denuded by such efforts. The health benefits of being able to heat water without smoke contaminating children's lungs are well documented. There is no electricity to provide these millions of poor, starving, fresh-water deprived people. There are no electric ranges. There are no supplies of gas or kerosene.

mmntech: Things really are this simple. Why aren't you using them?

[mike_ekim]

Rural electrification - another way to trap people into consumerism.

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.

[galeso]

mmntech, you are so wrong. The reason this is a bad idea is people will take carbon credits for this when the box will replace renewable resources like firewood and cow dung. Where is the CO2 reduction?

[unknown unknown]

Looks something like the solar oven my science teacher had us build back in 5 the grade. Same materials even, except for the plexi glass.

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.

[unknown unknown]

typo
should be "back in the 5th grade"

[tadbittipsy]

$52 for a couple of cardboard boxes, tinfoil and a piece of plexiglass... Are they kidding us. At least it could be made out of wood, foam board or something a little more enduring. And by the way these things do work, but I think people are missing the point. Most third world countries use dung for fuel, yes it may not be the greenest fuel, but with a little tinkering we could give them much a much more fuel conservative stove and it would not be as flimsy as a piece of cardboard. You try handing these out to the poor in this country and they'd look at you like your crazy. I can't believe they got $75,000 for this, you give me that money and I'll come up with something much more practical. We used to make little stoves out of aluminum for camping and they worked just fine and cost around $15 to $25 worth of materials. Now someone want to give me some cash prizes???? Anyone???

[rollcage]

The cardboard model is just a prototype. If you reread the 11th paragraph, you'll see that the actual production model will be made out of recycled plastic bottles so that if is more durable. Bohmer says that it will boil 10 liters of water in two or three hours, which isn't all that bad. It should be able to reach a temperature around 300 F (not as hot as an oven, but enough to bake a meal over a longer period of time). In places like Africa, the concept should work especially well, it's not like they don't get a lot of sunlight...

But $52 does seem a high price, maybe the price will come down after production starts?

[TogetherinParis]

There is a genius named 'Tinny' at a company called minibulldesigns dot com. Tinny makes great stoves out of discarded bottles and cans. He has forgotten more about combustion than the rest of us will ever learn. His shop is run by wind power up in Maine. (I'm not making this up.) Use that $75,000.00 to take a dump truck full of dung up there to his shop and he will show the poorest of the poor how to cook more efficiently and more economically than all the PhD's at MIT ever could.

Good Will Hunting
(yep, me).

[Callbird]

Read again. The stove costs five dollars, not fifty two dollars. For $52, they will be " 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")"

[skoaljohn]

This guy should get an honorary Eagle Scout award or at least the Copy-Cat merit badge... It's called a "cardboard box oven". The Boy Scouts have been making them for 30+ years...

[celticbrewer]

thank you! 75k for stealing an idea... gotta love it

[William Crow]

Polluters...you mean taxpayers.

[mangcamej]

Uh. Did you guys even read the article? It only costs $5. Yeah, thats right, $5. Check the 5th paragraph. The whole so-called "Kyoto Family" costs $52 but that includes not only the Box but a solar flashlight, solar water bag, and efficient turbo cooker, whatever that is.

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.

[TogetherinParis]

The fact of the matter is that rural electrification, rural telephonication, public education, and paving highways and rural roads has uplifted the lives of millions of Americans who would have otherwise been mired in poverty as desperate as any in the 3rd world. It is called 'good government' and such development by 'good government' pays dividends, but it is an idea wasted upon graft-twisted elites of most third-world countries and those tools among us who make their excuses for them.
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.

[chris72sax]

Or just bomb the crap out of them.

[Carrick1973]

@TogehterinParis
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.

[Wei_Zhu]

Wow. This is very cool.

[chris72sax]

This idea is wonderful. Carbon credits make so much sense. They make so much sense, that they should be voluntary. Surely everyone who is worried about losing their job and their country want to be shaken down once again to provide for people who's only skill is screwing and making babies when they cannot even provide for themselves. I'm sorry, not this time. The well has run dry. I'm calling their bluff on man-made climate change. You notice how everything is a crisis, "act now to stave off impending doom." "We need to invest in 'GREEN' technology." BS, the truth is that they are already invested in green technology and nobody is buying it because it's not economically viable unless it is massively subsidized by the taxpayers. Alternatives will have their day, but that will happen when they can compete with other technologies. We don't even know which ones will be viable and I don't want government choosing for me, I can figure that out for myself.

[idfubar]

"...to provide for people who's only skill is screwing and making babies..."

Wow; what a humanitarian!

[Dr_Zinj]

As previously noted, not a real new idea.

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.

[galeso]

flathead50, no electricity? Ever hear of solar panels? You should have attacked the cost of supplying electricity, it would be much more than the $52 solar box.

Can the solar heater heat water high enough to make it safe to drink?

[Joe Real]

if the problem with the water is microbial contamination only, then the solar heater will effectively sterilize the water.

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.

[flathead50]

galeso,
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?

[samhuff]

One saving is that cow dung is best used as fertilizer. The next it allows women and girls time to do something else than gather firewood, which may include wealth generating activities which may allow girls to attend school, which should reduce population growth in the long run.

[idfubar]

How compatible is such a cooker with the typical African diet in the places the cooker will be deployed? I would assume that not all people eat slow-cooked food; it's conceivable dietary staples might require rapid delivery of heat for a short duration rather than sustained heat...

[perumula]

Would have been nice to know if the box upper flaps have to be oriented in some precise way to bring the temperature up to boiling for water. Is the material really just aluminum foil? Could have used a bit more detail here.

[gill1980]

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...