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A Man, a Stove, a Mission

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Nathaniel Mulcahy’s speaks with the urgency and precision of someone on a mission and with little time.

Although he has patiently and politely dedicated the better part of an hour to our conversation, I know that the moment he hangs up he will be off to complete a million tasks on his to-do list.

Mulcahy has good reasons to be in a hurry. The first one is that he cheated death seven years ago following a really bad accident, so he’s a man on his second chance.

The second reason, which is linked to the first, is that he is determined to bring energy-efficient cookstoves to the world’s 2.4 billion people who sit at the bottom of the world’s energy ladder. They are the poorest of the poor who lack access to modern fuels and must make do with wood, charcoal, and animal dung to meet their everyday energy needs.

A Man, a Stove, a Mission Read More »

UN report Energy for a Sustainable Future is pie in the sky

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OPINION – Do the energy poor, especially those who depend on biomass for their primary fuel have to wait until electricity magically arrives in their home before they can get rid of their three-rocks-and-pot that is killing their children, mother, and wives?

This question was actually bravely posed at the UN last week in a closed door Q&A session held after the release of a report called Energy for a Sustainable Future.

The response given was, literally,”nothing.” Nothing is being done for the energy poor until electricity arrives.

UN report Energy for a Sustainable Future is pie in the sky Read More »

Encouraging partnership on sustainable biomass for Latin America

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Addressing today the newly minted Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a series of promising initiatives. Not surprisingly, the one that really grabbed our attention was the following: Advancing Sustainable Biomass Energy: The U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are inviting interested countries

Encouraging partnership on sustainable biomass for Latin America Read More »

WHO: Boosting improved cookstoves by 50% by 2015 would yield $105 billions/year for energy poor

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Equipping 50 percent of  households that burn biomass with improved stoves by 2015 would cost about $2 billion upfront but would almost immediately yield $37 billion in fuel savings, leaving a net gain to the world’s energy poor of some $35 billion.

Over a ten year period this would generate an economic return of U$105 billion.

WHO: Boosting improved cookstoves by 50% by 2015 would yield $105 billions/year for energy poor Read More »

Green tech, clean fuels for the rich and wood, charcoal, and animal dung for the poor.

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Industrialized and emerging nations are poised to leap into the clean fuel and green technology future, leaving behind nearly a third of the world’s population who is destined to continue burning wood, charcoal, and animal dung using noxious technologies that have remained unevolved for the last 3000 years. What’s up with that?

Green tech, clean fuels for the rich and wood, charcoal, and animal dung for the poor. Read More »

In 2007, Indoor Air Pollution from inefficient biomass combustion cost Peru U$321,123,160

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Peru could have bought every rural poor two energy efficient stoves in 2007 for the equivalent of what Indoor Air Pollution cost the country. That would be U$321,123,160 in 2007, in case you were wondering.

As we discussed last week, The Charcoal Project is leading a research on a global analysis that would put a price tag on the inefficient domestic combustion of biomass as practiced today in the vast majority of the developing world.

The figure mentioned above comes from the World Bank’s  Country Environmental Analysis (CEA) reports published on their website.

We randomly selected the 2007 assessment for Peru.

In 2007, Indoor Air Pollution from inefficient biomass combustion cost Peru U$321,123,160 Read More »

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