Himalayan Rocket Stove: More fire, less wood and saving a million trees

A big metal box with a small, pull-out tray is what Russell Collins' Himalayan Rocket Stove looks like. To those of us living down south or in west India, it won't seem like 'rocket science', but pahadis will find it similar to traditional bukharis they use in winters. And similar it is, playing the dual functions of a heater and stove, but with an important difference – it's far more fuel-efficient.
 

The issue of harvesting trees in the Himalayas

"There are about 10 million (one crore) homes in the North Indian Himalayas (Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir) and Nepal. On an average one house uses 1,000 kg fuelwood a year, almost the equivalent of one full tree as per North American firewood calculators. With this stove I'm reducing the usage to 20 per cent of bukharis," says Collins.

As per the Environment and Forest Ministry's 2011 report on state-wise fuelwood consumption, among Himalayan states Himachal Pradesh uses 12.14 lakh tonnes of fuelwood per year, Jammu and Kashmir uses 13.94 lakh tonnes, Uttarakhand uses 25.66 lakh tonnes, Arunachal Pradesh uses 4.02 lakh tonnes, Assam uses 114.21 lakh tonnes and the remaining north-eastern states use 52.74 lakh tonnes.

As those collecting the wood are generally women and children, Collins sees it as not only ecological, but also as saving "time, labour and health-risks. An expense they'd rather not pay, given an efficient option".

Customising a stove for Himalayan homes

Highly efficient, the rocket stove design, which is known worldwide, uses small sticks or dried animal dung for combustion. In many regions these materials are easy to procure requiring no felling of mature trees.

But currently, says his website, it's a great issue throughout the Himalayas. Hence the need for greater efficiency.

What gives his improvised version -- consisting large, clay donuts stacked and enclosed in the metal box -- 90 per cent efficiency versus a traditional bukhari's 15 per cent is that it traps heat far more effectively and enables complete combustion of fuel.

"The height of the stove is critical, but we had to keep it as low as possible because in the Himalayan context for the cook, who sits low to the ground, to be able to reach the stove, and family members sitting around it to be able to see each other over the stove that's usually placed in the middle of the room". As bukharis are only used in the winters, the stove is designed to be dismantled.

He's received feedback that when it's "-10°C outside, the Himalayan Rocket Stove is able to maintain the heat inside homes at 25°C".

Green curiosity and rendezvous with Sonam Wangchuk

Collins, who lived in an alternative community in Australia during his twenties, fell in love with Spiti 25 years ago. "There we built our own infrastructure, including homes, power and sewerage, and also grew our own food. But the community comprised of people wanting to escape the urban chaos, whereas the beauty of Spiti was that were continuing to do what they had been for thousands of years".

Since then, he's been bringing back Australian tourists with his boutique travel company Yak Trak and taking students to innovator Sonam Wangchuk's award-winning school SECMOL (Student's Education Movement of Ladakh).

On one such visit in 2013, Collins was introduced to a "big" rocket stove that Wangchuk had built for his students and got inspired to make one that would meet the needs of Himalayan homes. Three years and seven failed prototypes later, Collins finally nailed it. Test production began last September at the LEDeG (Ladakh Ecological Development Group) in Leh and concluded in November. "As I didn't have access to the high-tech insulation here, I innovated using clay and puffed rice," says the man who picked up the Mr. Fix-it attitude from his father who was an engineer.

The basic Himalayan Rocket stove costs Rs.10,000 – Rs. 15,000. But Collins says, "Locals will recover the cost in two years; they anyway spend Rs. 10,000 each year on wood for bukharis". Another version with the water jacket that can store and heat 18 liters of water without additional fuel costs Rs. 20,000. He's also developing one that will enable phone charging and lighting. The stoves come with a one-year warranty.

Smokeless stove, an accidental innovation

While experimenting with material for the Himalayan Rocket Stove, Collins realised that if he leaves out the metal box and adds "a few rudimentary materials like straw (to give strength to the structure of clay donuts that we use) and puffed rice" the design could work as a smokeless stove. Something that would tackle the problem of household air pollution, which as per World Health Organisation (WHO) kills about 4 million globally and 1 million in India.

"Clay soaks up heat, but puffed rice creates air pockets, making it insulating that enables us to burn the smoke itself. Burning smoke is the science behind all smokeless stoves, but what I've done is made it incredibly accessible using cheap, easily available materials. Hence it's viable even for us to teach people how makes the smokeless stoves for free. The least expensive one, belonging to an Indian company, costs $25". They've already conducted workshops for locals at Ladakh, Chandigarh, Dharwad and Kanha.

The road ahead

Wangchuk also believes that rocket stoves are the need of the hour. He says, "In Ladakh, 70 per cent use LPG and the remaining 30 percent use wood and dung. Studying the costs at SECMOL we found that dung or wood, which are produced locally, combined with the efficiency of rocket stoves are quite competitive given the rising prices of LPG that's trucked over treacherous roads".

But he worries that only the rich will purchase the Himalayan Rocket Stove. "The cheaper ones available at Rs. 800 are inefficient, but people at that level of income won't understand the difference. Smokeless chulhas should do well; I hope they gain popularity. Even so, people are irrational and maybe lazy to build their own chulhas. They should adopt innovative marketing ideas like training some local entrepreneurs to make the smokeless stoves and sell them for a small price".

Collins is currently working with a lean team of two in Chandigarh and has tied up with a manufacturing partner who has a busy factory with dozens of workers. They've received orders from Himachal, Ladakh, Darjeeling, some north-eastern states and Nepal. Collins says, "We hope to deliver 2000 units over the next 12 months and save one million trees over the next 10 years, thereby also reducing CO2 in the atmosphere and black carbon on the glaciers". He plans to protect the brand with by patenting the name and logo, and offering great quality, but won't patent the technology. "It will get copied anyway and I also believe in open source movement. I was able to do this only because the rocket stove design isn't patented".