A cook stove is a very basic stove heated by burning wood or fossil fuels and they are the most common way of cooking and heating food in developing countries. Relative to developed nations, developing countries consume very little energy and yet 50% of what they do use goes into cooking - the average family spends around 20% of their income on coal, wood and other fuel sources.

Beside the high expense, one problem with cooking over an open fire is the increased health problems brought on by the smoke. Replacing the traditional 3-rock stove with an improved one and venting the smoke out of the house through a chimney can dramatically contribute to the improved health of these families.

Engineers Without Borders UK work to date:

Placements:

• SELCO: A volunteer's blog documenting his improved cooking stoves placement in India in 2009

Research:

• Smokeless Stoves - Engineers Without Borders Sheffield
• Breeding a Better Stove: the Use of Genetic Algorithms and ComputationalFluid Dynamics to Improve Stove Design - H. Burnham-Slipper, M. Clifford, and S. Pickering (EWB Research Conference 2009 presentation)

Bursaries:

• Increasing Access to Cooking Stoves in Nepal - Nigel Vaz

Other interesting links:

• Successful Organisations in the Developing World
• Boiling Point - an energy publication with strong emphasis on stoves
• Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG)
• Appropedia - Cook Stoves
• Practical Action's Practical Answers - Stoves and Ovens
• Solar Cooking Archive

(If there are other things you would like to see on this webpage then please contact us)