Smart Gas Cooking Seeks to Break African Cities’ Dirty Charcoal Habit
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
By Megan Rowling
The widespread use of charcoal for cooking in African cities can cause devastating damage to forests up to 300 km away, scientist Sebastian Rodriguez-Sanchez found while working on energy and agriculture issues in West Africa.
So in 2015, he co-founded a business to try to fix the problem by weaning people off charcoal – made by smoldering wood – and onto bottled gas, a fuel common in his home country of Mexico.
So far, efforts to introduce cleaner stoves that burn less fuel have been led mainly by aid agencies working in rural parts of Africa and Asia – and have had limited success. But a new push by businesses targeting urban areas aims to shift the dial.
Photo courtesy of Russ Keyte.
Source: Reuters (link opens in a new window)
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