2008 Updates
(Updates are purposely delayed by 4-6 weeks from the end of each month)
April
In April, members of the student team from Berkeley course ER291, guided by instructors Ashok Gadgil and Susan Amrose, applied for and were awarded a sizable grant from the Sustainable Products and Solutions Program of the Center for Responsible Business at Haas Business School, with Prof. Gadgil as the PI. The grant will be used to explore and strengthen supply chain options for the Berkeley Darfur Stove, and support some R&D to more carefully measure the stove's performance in laboratory setting. Some students also began discussions about building a lab at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to measure carefully the emissions and performance of stoves. The lab will allow rapid feedback from design modifications as we continue to develop and improve the stove.
As a preview to next month's update, the Darfur Stove Project was recently featured on KQED's science, Environment, and Nature show "QUEST." The show aired on 5/20/08 and can be seen online.
Emissions from the Berkeley Darfur Stove are captured and quantified using an instrumented fume hood at Approvecho.
March
In March, our student team took the Berkeley Darfur Stove to Approvecho Labs for initial emissions testing under a fume hood. At the lab, they were also able to perform several common benchmark tests to compare certain aspects of the BDS to a wide variety of stoves. This testing allowed us to identify a few design improvements that could further increase the efficiency of the stove. At the same time, the students have also begun to map out a detailed supply chain and business plan for mass production. In March, we participated in the filming for a special segment of the popular science show, "Quest," from local PBS TV station, KQED. This segment is tentatively scheduled to air in May 2008.
February
Team members Jimmy Tran and Howdy Goudey assemble a Berkeley Darfur Stove from a flat kit using low-cost hand tools.
In February, we assembled several more stoves for testing and display using the flat kit and hand tools. The process is quite easy to learn and very few tools are required. Many aspects of the design lend themselves to either hand assembly of rapid automated assembly, depending on the needs and resources of the assemblers. In parallel, the student team has continued to develop a novel simmer test that could be used for rapid quality control in the field. They have built a low-cost portable wind tunnel to reliably test wind performance and are continuing to improve our knowledge of stove performance in the lab. We have also published a report detailing the development and testing of the Berkeley Darfur Stove, available here. This report includes the results of performance testing and a full description of the Darfur Cooking test, developed to mimic relevant cooking conditions in Darfur.
January
In January, we have begun to assemble and test different simple low-cost tool kits for easy stove assembly in the field. These different tool kits will allow assemblers in Darfur to produce metal stoves from flat kits with and without access to electricity. We have also built our first stove using the new flat kit design and incorporated several new design features to make the stove more stable without sacrificing performance. In addition, we have a new team of four dedicated graduate students who will refine the Darfur Cooking Test to enable rapid quality-control assessments of stoves mass produced in the field. The Darfur Cooking Test was first developed in 2006 by the Darfur Stoves Project to measure the fuelwood savings of the Berkeley Darfur Stove compared to the three-stone-fire while keeping true to the food and cooking style, pots, and wind conditions found in Darfur. Robust quality control is essential to ensure that performance does not degrade during mass production, and standardized and rapid performance testing is an essential part of such quality control.
Next page—2007 Updates
