Open fires and primitive stoves havebeen used for cooking since the beginning of human history.They have come in various sizes and styles, having beenadapted to myriad cultures and food preparation methods. Associety has progressed, more sophisticated stove models havebeen developed. Today's modern kitchens reflect themany types of standardized and specialized cooking devicesavailable, from coffee and tea pots to toasters and gas cooktops. But in many developing countries worldwide, the poorstill burn biomass energy to meet their household cookingneeds. These open fires are fairly inefficient at convertingenergy into heat for cooking; the amount of biomass fuelneeded each year for basic cooking can reach up to two tonsper family. In addition, collecting this fuel sometimes cantake an hour a day on average. Furthermore, these open firesand primitive cook stoves emit a significant amount ofsmoke, which fills the home; this indoor cooking smoke hasbeen associated with a number of diseases, the most seriousof which are chronic and acute respiratory illnesses, suchas bronchitis and pneumonia. This report takes a fresh lookat what new approaches might be used to tackle this wellknown yet complex multi-sector issue. Although there areother ways to reduce household air pollution, includinginter fuel substitution and household ventilation, thisstudy focuses mainly on the recently developed biomass cookstoves for developing countries and their financing modelsand sources. Known by many as 'advanced biomass cookstoves,' these new cook stoves generally have betterenergy-combustion properties and reduce fuel consumption byabout half. Such innovations warrant the development of amore serious program to deal with both the emissions andhealth issues resulting from cooking with open fires ortraditional biomass cook stoves.
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