[Gibbon1]

The rocket stove reminds me. I've seen lots of stuff on low tech 'improved' cook stoves for people in developing countries. I think women in those countries would be happier served with a pressure cooker and a two burner induction stove running off solar panels. All horrible high tech, but actually cheap commodities in practice.

[Karrot_Kream]

An induction hob with a single ring/burner takes anywhere from 1.3-1.8 kWh of energy. It's almost impossible for the type of person that would benefit from a rocket stove to have access to a solar setup which could generate that much energy. Moreover, most of the time these families/individuals are impoverished enough and/or live in places with bad enough infrastructure that even gas for a gas stove isn't available. In these situations, biomass rocket stoves make the most sense.

(Cooking actually takes quite a bit of energy unfortunately and is probably one of the hardest human activities to make carbon neutral. Luckily there's a lot of low-hanging fruit to tackle first before the question of cooking efficiency comes up.)

[ashtonkem]

My fairly large solar setup provides a max of about 6.5kW under ideal circumstances (which isn't always when we need to cook, FWIW), but it's far far beyond what a typical woman in developing Africa could afford.

[Gibbon1]

Run the numbers. 400-500W of solar provides enough energy per day. Two 150ah batteries can handle the peak load.

[zo1]

I live in, arguably a good part of Africa, and even here it would be a stretch. Infrastructure and "throw money at the problem" type solutions don't work great in rural areas even if you have local communities buy in and assistance.

You're better off just giving poor people here free electricity, which a lot of places do.

[ClumsyPilot]

In these places thats a lot of money, and have much, much higher priority items for such investment

[adrianN]

If I were someone who would benefit from a rocket stove, I'd likely sell the six solar panels and the induction stove and use the fantastical amounts of money I make that way to pay for my children to get an education.