Cook stoves powered by methane generate far less soot than those fueled by wood.
That’s because this resident of rural India is cooking on a two-burner stove powered by methane rather than wood. The methane is produced by a small-scale “digester” located just outside her home. (In the digester, manure from the family’s livestock, stabled nearby, is broken down by bacteria and converted to methane.)
And because she is cooking with methane, not only are her walls cleaner – so are her lungs, and those of her children and husband.
At least as importantly, she no longer needs to spend three to four hours every day – seven days a week, 365 days a year – gathering wood.
That means that instead of her having to collect firewood, build a fire and get it hot enough to cook, she can make the family’s breakfast with the flick of a switch on the methane stove. This time savings in the morning allows her children to get to school as classes begin, rather than several hours into the school day.
Improving Indians’ standard of living while not harming environment
The methane digester that powers the stove provides remarkable benefits compared to the traditional wood-fired stove; it:
- Digests manure that otherwise would have released methane directly into the atmosphere. Although burning converts methane into carbon dioxide (CO2), methane itself is 23 times more powerful at trapping heat than is CO2.
- Allows trees and shrubs to continue storing carbon, rather than being cut down and burned as cooking fuel. Those avoided emissions, once tallied and verified, can be sold as offset credits that pay for the digesters.
- Boosts families’ standard of living without any increase in carbon emissions.
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Great stuff! Now include weeds into the feedstock, and you have a general purpose problem solver!