Learn3 - Patsari stoves

For this post I'm sharing the project of Victor Berrueta, my uncle. He's been working with indigenous groups all over Mexico for as long as I remember. He did his master helping Mayan indigenous groups in Chiapas to have a solar drier for coffee which improved their food production.

Now, he's still working in the project he did his PhD on: Patsari Stoves.

The problem: Many indigenous groups still cook using a fire inside their houses. The way they do it wastes a lot of wood as the heat is not controled. The smoke of the fire causes big health problems, specially to women.

Proposed solution: To build up a cheap and easy to build stove that increases wood efficiency and that uses local materials. (it's in spanish but you can see some pics here: http://www.stoves.bioenergylists.org/es/user/31/track)

Project Results:
1. Development of the Patsari stove “concept” with four
stove models adequate to different conditions of end-users. All models come with optimized combustion chambers, chimney, and high-quality sealed metal pans (“comales”) for clean and efficient cooking. We have designed a one-entry stove model for households that combine fuelwood and LPG; a two-entry model for fuelwood-only users, and one model for tortilla-making small enterprises.
2. The stoves have shown: 60% savings in fuelwood consumption; 70% reduction in IAP and 60% in personal exposure; concrete health improvements in respiratory illnesses have started to be doc**ented. Users are very happy with the stoves and are even retrofitting their kitchens with larger gains in public
health.
3. Selling of 1,500 cookstoves directly in the Purepecha Region, and 2,000 in five other regions of Mexico, through partnerships and agreements with other institutions. Up to this moment we have trained 100 stove builders, from which 10 are already operating stove businesses. The project has also supported 2 small enterprises (metal and pottery workshops) plus 70 women-led tortilla making SME (tortilleras).
4. Development of an integrated approach for the implementation of clean and efficient cookstove programs, including health concerns.
5. Integrated Monitoring of Cookstove Impacts. The monitoring studies cover environmental and technical aspects (actual fuelwood savings, technical performance of stoves), social aspects (users preferences and attitudes), global impacts (mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions), and health concerns (indoor air pollution and a comprehensive a****sment of health impacts).
6. Project up scaling and impact on public policy. The project was critical to place cookstoves within the agenda of the Environment, Health and Social Development Ministries. The project approach is currently being replicated in four other regions within Mexico and has been used as the basis for dissemination programs in other Mexican states.

Conclusion: Saving energy can improve health, reduce environmental impact and foster rural development. Well done uncle!


More info about the project (English):http://www.t4cd.org/Resources/ICT_Resources/Projects/Pages/ICTProje...
Project webpage (spanish): http://www.gira.org.mx/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&a...