First week at SELCO labs

Its nearly the end of my first (6 day - yes we work saturdays) week at SELCO already. Quite a lot has happened.

The massive tree in the middle of the university building

Much of this week has been spent looking into the feasibility of designing an affordable smoke extraction solution for the rural poor. I guess I should give some background to this.

There has been a huge amount of investment into improved cookstoves around the world, it has even become a political issue in many places. Many companies and NGOs have attempted to create scientifically designed "rocket stoves" which burn biomass very efficiently and with reduced levels of smoke and harmful gases as well as supposedly reducing the amount of fuel required. However, there are several problems with these improved stoves and their distribution, which are often overlooked.

There has been a lot of field testing of many types of rocket stoves in urban and rural areas. The reason for differentiation is that cooking habits vary widely in different places and amongst different people groups. Any intervention means changing peoples habits which is incredibly difficult.This is one of many reasons that a "one size fits all" solution is not the answer. It has been proven many times that in real live, the stoves don't come close to their quoted efficiencies which have been measured in a lab or in controlled field tests. In some cases, people who have received these stoves have kept them to use only on special occasions- reverting to their normal 3 stone setup for their usual cooking needs. In some of SELCO's tests in urban areas, users have not understood how to use the stoves properly or their benefits and therefore not been keen to use them. 

After water and sanitation, indoor air pollution is the largest environmental threat to health in developing countries.It is an issue that effects women and children most, but smoke inhalation appears to be a minor issue in the minds of many women who are used to cooking indoors in thick smoke. 

There has been some efforts in the area around Ujire to put improved stoves to use, which have not been particularly successful- but there are still many, many people in this area breathing a lot of smoke.

I've spent a lot of this week looking into cookstoves, but have also been helping others with their projects- testing new solar panels with Vishal, development of some small scale agricultural machinery designs with Seb and looking at small scale biogas collection with Vidyut. 

Me on top of the roof with some solar panels

Seb working on the small scale rice dehusker

We have had time in the evenings to do a few fun things - and have been out for some fantastic meals. My favourite was at a local place called Sapna where we had a delicious 3 course dinner with mango juice for about Rs. 125 each... Thats about £1.50.

We went swimming in a nearby river (much to the upset of our auto-rickshaw driver who later tried to call Seb 3 times to check if we were OK), played a bit of cricket, and taught the Indian guys how to play (touch) rugby.

An evening swim in a nearby river 

Some cricket on the college campus

On monday or tuesday next week I should be going to a place called Gulbarga in the north of Karnataka to check out the cooking setup at a small institution which has asked SELCO to do some consultancy work looking at alternative fuels etc. Not sure how its going to work- and its meant to be a 15 hour trip each way!