Now that we’ve launched our first online fundraising campaign for our Biomass Energy Efficiency Program (BEEP) in Rubaare, Uganda, folks are stepping forward to ask us some good questions, like, what distinguishes TCP’s BEEP program from other cookstove projects out there? (see our answer below.)
Although we’ve spent the last two years exploring and learning from the successes and failure of many projects, we know that there will be missteps along the way.
We will do whatever we can to minimize the failures (we’ve purposely stacked our Board of Advisors with experts measuring progress!) and we will report back to you, our investors and supporters, whenever things go wrong and right.
So keep the questions coming, keep track of our progress, call us out when we mess up, and share our successes when you see them!
Kim
Editorial note: The question and answer below have been edited for clarity only.
The question posed was: “… how much change do people have to go through, to benefit from TCP’s stated goals?”
Dear X,
I love it when donors (thank you!) are engaged and ask questions because it gives us a chance to better articulate our work. Perhaps we should be doing a better job of addressing these questions on our website, too. Hmm. Something to think about.
Let me try to answer your question the following way:
1. One of the great benefits of having an active blog that reports on the issue we are involved in on the ground is that it gives us a chance to talk to, analyze, participate, and report on stove projects from around the world. Having a “reporter’s” hat on gives us the ability to ask tough questions, too. This has given us the opportunity to learn why some succeed where others fail. It also has allowed us to build relationship with the top people in this field. People who have decades of experience over us.
This extensive research has helped us come up with a few conclusions that guide our project in Rubaare.
- Make it as easy as possible for people to adopt the new technologies and fuels. This is a fundamental tenet of our project. In Brooklyn or Burkina, people are obviously very attached to cooking traditions. Which means that, even if they can reduce fuel consumption or emissions, they’re not necessarily going to adopt the technology/fuel if it fundamentally alters the way they cook their meals, the way it tastes, and gives them additional chores in the food preparation. There are several good examples of this. For example, there are certain home cooking stoves that require cooks to chop the wood into very small pieces, which is an added chore. Another type of cookstove (TLUDs, top-lit up-draft) requires the fuel to be ground and densified into pellets. This is not practical in rural areas, of course. The list is long.
- Taylor the cooking stoves to meet local needs. In Ethiopia, for example, they are extremely fussy about how to cook their famous injera bread. No cookstove program can succeed if it is not especially tailored to include local gastronomical idiosyncrasies. In Burundi and other parts of West Africa they like to cook crouching, close to the ground. In Latin America, they like to cook on waist high “planchas.” You get the idea.
- Economics are a very powerful incentive. If people can see how adopting new technologies/fuel will save them time and money, then that’s half the battle. You also have to make it as affordable and easy as possible for them to switch.
- Don’t get married to one technology. One thing that trips projects up is that sometimes improved cookstove project implementers try to get the client to take up a certain type of stove because it “performs” better in emissions and combustion scales than another. The lesson here (which we learned from ILF) is that it’s better to have a stove that is 5 or 10% less efficient if it means the number of adopters increases in order of magnitudes. This happened on the fuel side in Goma and elsewhere where they tried to roll out a briquette that was sustainably produced but too smoky and too susceptible to humidity. (We learned this from the project in Virunga.)
These are some of the fundamental ideas that guide the Rubaare project in phase 2 where we plan to roll out to the community. For starters, we see the REF school program (BEEP) as being integrated as much as possible into the community cookstove rollout program. We would like to make sure that the fuel produced by the REF program works in the cookstoves we deploy across the community. This will be a challenge on the technology and fuel side. But at this point it’s impossible for me to say with 100% certainty that it’s going to work. Fuel for institutional cookstoves may not burn well in the type of community/household cookstove we end up with.
I think the main distinction between our program and traditional improved cookstove programs is that we’re the only ones thinking about integrating efficiency and renewables across the entire energy supply chain.
One other thing I would add is that, although we are focused on efficient technology and renewable solid biomass fuels, we are also open to all technologies that deliver sustainable and renewable energy. And while I haven’t seen solar cookstoves program that I’ve been impressed with, we certainly are agnostics when it come to incorporating new ideas. In fact, the school setting may be a perfect place to try these! But I do know already that they can’t replace the schools woodburning or charcoal-burning stoves.
I should clarify that the main obstacle we’ve seen in the solar cookers is that most folks in the developing world get up at the crack of dawn to go to work. The absence of sunlight makes it difficult for a family to cook breakfast. Also, in urban areas, where the whole family sometimes leaves the house for work, school, etc., it’s hard for them to leave the food cooking outside safely.
I hope this helps answer some of your questions. But don’t hesitate to come back to me with more questions!
And thanks again for supporting us!
Warm regards,
Kim
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