Hy
Stovers.
I was a “listener”
in the stoves list for some time; we (me and my group) are from now on full
participants.
A few words to
introduce my group, our project and myself. (We hope to have a web site running
in one or two months with more info)
Me: My name is
Roberto Escardó, 63, married for 35 years now, three children, all married, four
grand-children (Two pairs of female twins!!) I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I am
an Industrial Engineer, and my career was in Operations (manufacture,
construction), the last 15 years mainly as a Project Manager.
I was born and
raised in the Andean South (Patagonia) where I come back as frequently as
possible for trekking, horse riding and skiing.
Our group: Growing up!! A physician, (specialist in respiratory
diseases and epidemiology), an old (me) and two thirty-something engineers, one
Ph. D. (next week) in ecology, one Forest Engineer (The last two females), a
couple NGO´s interested in the protection of native forests. (The Patagonian
Andes forests are the only ones in temperate climate in the Southern
hemisphere), other people interested and ready to sign on.
Our project:
KUTRALDUM (Nice name: Kutraldum means “making fire” in mapundungun, the language
of Mapuche people)
Our mission: Made
available to the native and poor population in the Patagonian Andes efficient
wood stoves.
The Patagonian Andes
extends from Neuquen (38º S lat) to Ushuia (52º S lat), something like between
the south of Colorado to Calgary, in the Rockies, but in the southern
hemisphere: Same daylight, similar climate, a bit windier.
Some
facts:
1) Natives and poor
population (our objective) use three stones fires indoors for cocking, heating
and lighting. For some groups (mostly natives) wood is an abundant resource, for
others (urbanized poors) is scarce.
2) Respiratory
health is our main concern. We suspect IAP is similar to those measured in
Africa or India, but due to longer exposure times we have a greater risk of
COPD. We do not have strict epidemiological data, but available data confirms this
suspicion.
3) We must consider
both cocking and heating and solve, one way or other, the lighting aspect.
(Daylight in winter is less than eight hours and in winter 75% of time is
cloudy, > 6/8 of clouds) A wood gas light perhaps?
4) The Chilean
Patagonian Andes region has the same characteristics and the same native
population. We expect to work in collaboration with them.
We had done some
preliminary work: Some data collection and analysis, a pair of rockets stoves.
We are now concentrated in funding and plan to begin been “operational” in two
months.
END
NOTES:
1)
Thanks a lot to all Stovers, we have learned a lot just
browsing the list, and we are sure of your future help (A lot will be surely
asked)
2)
Special thanks to Dean Still for making available to us
Aprovecho literature, to Paul for her encouragement.
3)
A question: (candid answers requested) is my English easily
understood? (My sons speak English much better than me, I can made it corrected
if necessary)
4)
Second question: We are metric people: Do you bother if we
use only metric units or do you prefer we use English/American ones? (It is no
burden, I have a nice Java applet running in my PC capable of doing even the
most strangest unit conversions)
Yours
truly
Roberto E.
Escardó
Araóz 2689 1425 Ciudad de Buenos Aires
Argentina
tel: +
54 11 4834 6190
robertoescardo@arnet.com.ar
