Re: ATprojects - Greeings from PNG

["Paul S. Anderson" <psanders@ilstu.edu>]

Steve and Stovers,

Steve in PNG sent me a great message that I am sharing with the whole 
list.  He describes his situation and I think that many of us could have 
some input to him.

Steve, you have stimulated me to get my Juntos stove info into an Internet 
format soon.  I will let you know when it is available.

Apart from wood, you did not tell me what are the main biomass materials 
available for fuel.  For the Juntos Stove, I am looking for "chips" or 
small pieces of biomass.  I need to get some air flow from the bottom, so 
plain sawdust or tiny particles (rice hulls) probably would not breathe 
well enough.  Need to experiment.   But small twigs (broken to 2-3 cm 
lengths) should work fine, if reasonably dry.

Meanwhile, let me say that I would like to work with you to see if the 
Juntos stove (or variations of it) could be part of your solution.

Paul

At 12:22 PM 2/26/02 +1100, ATprojects Inc. wrote:
>Ref: ATp001637
>
>Dear Paul
>
>Thank you for your emails of the 22nd and 23rd of February.  First of all I
>would like to access the pictures of the stove as I didn't get them the
>first time around.
>
>As you will see from our web site, ATprojects is involved in a number of
>rural base programs here in Papua New Guinea.  We are currently considering
>what our approach will be to our stove development programme and that is
>one of the reasons why I have been so interested to monitor the stoves
>mailing lists, it has proven very useful to us.
>
>As I am sure you are aware there are many people involved in this type of
>research and development  and I don't see it as being that useful that we
>start our own research and development program, surely we should be able to
>benefit for the work already being done by others.
>
>ATprojects actually operates from the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua
>New Guinea, that is to say we are located in the Central Highlands of the
>country and our climate is in fact rather cold and not very humid, which of
>course is quite different to the coastal areas of Papua New Guinea.
>
>In terms of what fuel is in common used here, if we were to focus on the
>rural areas of the Highlands then we wood would clearly be 95% of the fuel
>used. Only a very few people who have access either to a regular income or
>a reasonable level of cash cropping would have moved on to kerosene stoves.
>
>
>The use of other fuels such as gas in the rural areas is pretty much non
>existent.  Even in the five or six major urban centres in the Highlands,
>firewood is still a very common fuel, although more and more of the
>slightly wealth here urban residence do use kerosene.
>
>There has been some efforts made by the local fuel companies to introduce
>gas cookers, but really this is only having a small impact.
>
>Papua New Guinea has a long history of development projects that have tried
>to introduce different types of stoves and fuel.  Perhaps twenty years ago
>there was a government sponsored project that was heavily backed by a
>number of large international donors that tried to introduce charcoal.
>
>However, I think it would be fair to say that this was a complete failure.
>The roots of this failure were grounded in the fact that the stoves were
>not only expensive and beyond the reach of most potential users, but they
>were inappropriately designed.  Another problem was clearly that there was
>no base for the supply of charcoal.  Local businessmen did not see this as
>a way of generating a good return on their investment and charcoal fuel
>just was not available to the urban dweller.
>
>As I said earlier, ATprojects is very interested to look at stove design,
>but we think that what ever stove is introduced in PNG it has to be
>marketed to the end users and the problem here is that while Papua New
>Guinea maybe potentially not a poor country this is not reflected in the
>standard of living of most of our urban residence.
>
>The average urban wage here would be somewhere around US$700 - 800 per
>annum per family and given the current massive devaluation of our local
>currency it is unlikely that an average family would be able to invest any
>more than say one tenth of this into purchasing an asset like a stove.
>
>In terms of rural families, this annual figure is much lower in fact we
>have recently spent some considerable time working in one of the supposedly
>richer coffee growing areas and we believe that from our discussions with
>local families that their level of income per annum for a family is
>something in the order of a US$150 per year.
>
>Obviously out of this they have to purchase things such as store food,
>clothing and other traditional obligations.  So they have little or nothing
>to invest in stoves.  In terms of non-store food, they are totally relying
>on what they grow in their gardens and while firewood is not in abundance
>it is at the moment and I stress at the moment still fairly readily
>available.
>
>I would be very interested to discuss any stove design that you think may
>be appropriate to our situation.  If you feel you need more information
>please feel free to contact me.
>
>Regards
>
>
>Steve Layton.
>
>The information contained in this email message is intended only for the
>addressee. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use,
>disclose, copy or distribute this message or the information in it. If you
>have received this message in error, please email the sender immediately."
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>ATprojects is based in Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province. We work with
>both district and provincial governments, churches, rural communities and
>other NGOs in the Eastern Highlands Province. Our aim is to enable rural
>people to use appropriate  technologies which give them more control over
>their lives and which contribute to the sustainable development of their
>communities.
>
>For more information on our work go to http://www.global.net.pg/atprojects
>
>This email may be confidential and/or privileged. Only the intended
>recipient may access or use it. We use virus scanning software but exclude
>all liability for viruses or similar in any attachment.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------a

Paul S. Anderson, Ph.D.,  Fulbright Prof. to Mozambique 8/99 - 7/00
Rotary University Teacher Grantee to Mozambique >10 mo of 2001-2003
Dept of Geography - Geology (Box 4400), Illinois State University
Normal, IL  61790-4400   Voice:  309-438-7360;  FAX:  309-438-5310
E-mail: psanders@ilstu.edu - Internet items: www.ilstu.edu/~psanders


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