Ethanol Lantern cum Stove for Rural Areas, by Anil K. Rajvanshi, Director,
Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute, PHALTAN-415523, Maharashtra, India. E-mail: nariphaltan@gmail.com
It is a matter of shame that even 61 years after independence about 60% of rural population in India has no electricity and they use ancient kerosene lantern for lighting. Besides in quite a large number of rural households the only light is from the cook stove (chulha). Lighting which is the basic necessity and a fundamental need of humans is missing from the life of majority of rural population.
Without adequate lighting the lives of these people cannot be improved and India cannot join the developed nation’s league. Besides the poor light output kerosene lanterns also produce soot and other pollutants in the confined space of rural households leading to serious lung ailments. Thus there is a need to develop a light source which runs on locally produced fuel, is environmentally friendly and produces bright light equivalent to that from a 100 W electric bulb.
This paper presents one such lantern running on low grade ethanol fuel which also doubles up as a cooking stove thereby solving the twin problems of cooking and lighting for rural households. Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) is the first to propose and develop a dual purpose lantern (christened lanstove) running on 55-60% ethanol-water mixture.
Link – Ethanol Lantern cum Stove for Rural Areas (pdf)
Globe Award 2009 – Sustainable Research Award (YouTube)
