Beyond Fire, a recently published report by the World Future Council and Hivos (2016) argues that “focusing on improved cook stoves is neither a truly long-term nor a truly sustainable solution to the challenge of cooking.” Their analysis echoes much of our work, indeed they quote from and suggest very similar solutions.

Figure: Comparison of Beyond Fire’s economic modelling results with selected results from Leach & Oduro (2015). The figure below is taken from Beyond Fire, with Leach & Oduro’s (2015) “High Cook” values converted to the same units and superimposed. PV-eCook bars are a combination of Leach & Oduro’s 5% and 20% discount rate modelling. Exchange rate of 1.12USD/EUR, Beyond Fire assume 5 ppl/HH, Leach & Oduro assume 4 ppl/HH. Read more…