Environmental, health and engineering experts from across Oregon will discuss the impacts of fuels and cooking throughout the world at the inaugural Spark Initiative showcase, to be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. today (Friday, May 17) at the University of Oregon's Erb Memorial Union.

UO’s Global Oregon is bringing together designers and researchers from local non-profits and universities to discuss the importance of clean fuel and safe cookware, and what their organizations are doing about it. Participants include Aprovecho Research Center, CREATE!, InStove, Maple Microdevelopment, Stove Team International, StoveTec, the UO, Oregon State University and Oregon Health & Science University.

 “Oregon happens to have a wealth of experts in the field of clean cookstove technology and design,” says UO Vice Provost for International Affairs Dennis Galvan. The Spark Initiative “is a way for the university and the public to discuss the serious implications of traditional fuels and cooking with a global perspective,” he says.

The introduction of healthy cookstoves to developing countries is considered vital by researchers and health officials. University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation concluded in a 2012 study that household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels kills 4 million people around the world annually. More than 4,000 women and children die each day from upper respiratory disease related to indoor cooking smoke, and almost 800,000 children under age 5 die annually from exposure to cooking smoke.

About 2.5 billion people around the world cook meals over open fires fueled by coal, wood and charcoal. In the rural developing world, wood or other biomass fuel is used for more than 90 percent of total energy consumption.

In many countries, much of the native forest cover has been stripped to support charcoal production, and in others, reliance upon wood fuel for cooking has led to increased pressures on local forests and natural resources. Black carbon, which results from incomplete combustion, is estimated to contribute the equivalent of 25 to 50 percent of carbon dioxide warming globally. 

The inaugural keynote speaker for the UO's Spark cookstove event will be Peter Scott, designer and CEO of BURN Design Lab. Scott has designed and constructed nearly half a million stoves in Cambodia, Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti and Kenya. BURN Design Lab is currently working on the development of three new stoves with international organizations such as Mercy Corps, ETHOS and The Paradigm Project. 

“Reliance on traditional wood and charcoal stoves is ravaging forests and bankrupting millions of families in the developing world,” says Scott. “To really tackle this problem, it’s going to take an army of engineers, designers, MBAs, and do-gooders. We need to educate and inspire the millions of people, both young and old, that are looking for an opportunity to change the world, that stoves might be one of the best ways to do it.” 

According to Aprovecho Research Center Executive Director Dean Still, the expertise of university scientists combined with the field knowledge of humanitarian researchers can address the problems of resource use and unsafe cooking methods.

“It is time to come together to make smart decisions about cookstoves,” he says.

“Half of humanity cooks their food daily on biomass fires, and the cumulative impacts of this reality are enormous,” says Fred Colgan, executive director of InStove. “People are dying from diseases that are completely preventable. InStove’s stoves reduce the emissions and the demand for wood and charcoal, which takes the burden off of local forests and protects the cooks and children from the smoke.”

Spark will feature four panel discussions with experts, researchers and beneficiaries on issues of climate change, deforestation, social entrepreneurship, health, indoor pollution and stove science.

See full schedule and more details about Friday’s event, Spark Initiative and partner organizations.

Event Schedule At-a-Glance

- from UO's Global Oregon