ETHOS 2007, Seattle, Washington, USA Jan 26-28, 2007
Crispin Pemberton-Pigott, Larry Winiarski and Charlie Sellers Test Tom Reed's Woodgas Stove with a Combustion Analyzer.
ETHOS 2007 in Seattle was a stimulating and inspiring event. Many thanks to the ETHOS executive committe for organizing it and to the 120 attendees, some who dragged stoves on airplanes to the event. There were many high points during three (for some four) days of meetings which I am sure will be discussed in these forums and on the web for weeks to come. To list a few:
Stove Demonstrations:
See Untitled Images of the Stove Demonstrations
Paul Anderson's "Lily" alcohol burner and the Petromax Brytelyte alcohol lamp were demonstrated and shown to be very clean burning.
The latest version of the Philips fan stove was demonstrated and lived up to its promises as being the cleanest burning wood burning stove at the event.
Aprovecho demonstrated two of their institutional stoves and Alan Berick showed off his energy efficient cooking pot.
Project Gaia demonstrated their Dometic alcohol twin burner.
The Anderson family demonstrated a selection of clean burning gasifier stoves from a natural draft "Chipenergy grill" burning cherry pits and chips to a small fan powered rice hull burning Juntos B and the Reed Woodgas stove burning wood chips.
Crispin probed all the stoves with a portable combustion analyzer and performance was discussed as stoves were stoked, adjusted and tuned.
Stoves on Display:
We saw a real-life versions of Crispin's Maputo Clay Stove (MCS) for charcoal, a Hot Pot (Solar Heat Energy) solar cooker, a Winiarski steam boiler and engine and a selection of rocket stoves. Displays were enhanced this year with video and computer animations.
UCODEA (Uganda) showed us a video of their production facilities and program for wood (rocket) and improved charcoal stoves.
Ken Goyer had a running display of images from Uganda and AID Africa.
Food, Agricultural and Soil improvement techniques related to household energy:
Laurie Childers gave us a tour, history and update of reforestation, water conservation and KCJ production in an area of Kenya including water-conserving trees, sand dams, and results of 23 years of tree planting.
Dr. Karve displayed an interesting selection of ARTI technologies for plant production and energy conservation including solar dryers, low cost greenhouses and water tanks using bamboo, compact biogas, strip growing crops with seawater, and feeding crops with sugar.
ETHOS Committee on Standards and Methods:
Tami Bond organized and led an extended discussion on the possible formation and role of ETHOS technical committee(s) to develop, review, or adopt methods, standards and practices for building or testing stoves. This has started a process which should help promote understanding and definition of how we build and test stoves for diverse environments.
The technical committee discussion was partly prompted by a PCIA Stove Performance Guidelines Meeting held Jan 25 to consider stove performance and emission thresholds for stove selection to meet WHO standards. At that meeting the water boiling test (WBT) as currently used was challenged as a basis for measuring performance or emissions. An ETHOS Technical Committee is a possible mechanism for resolving issues of this kind.
Technical Program
The formal program was full of fascinating reports on stoves work.
(See program http://www.bioenergylists.org/en/ethos2007program )
The presentations will be available on the ETHOS site within a few weeks.
Publications:
In the printed information for sale or circulation at the meeting were:
An advance copy of the "Comparing Cookstoves" by Aprovecho for Shell Foundiation and Partnership for Clean Indoor Air.
"Place-Based Education Workshop Guide" by HELPS International for Partnership for Clean Indoor Air.
Video of Aprovecho's Rocket Institutional Stove.
"Forests Forever" Trees Water People Newsletter, Fall 2006,
ETHOS 2006 conference proceedings,
and other organizational brochures and information.
Links to these publications will be provided on the Biomass Cooking Stoves website as they are made available.
Thanks again to all for a productive and entertaining meeting.