Energy Star Rating is not the Biggest Challenge for The Good Stove

As an aid to get focused on this post, let’s review the Energy Star Program. It has expanded nicely since its inception. ENERGY STAR is an international standard for energy-efficient consumer products. It is a broad label – and is continuing to be expanded beyond products to include, not only major appliances, but also new homes and buildings- for any individuals or households that use goods and services generated within the economy.

The program was first created as a United States government program in 1992. This has since been adopted by Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan and the European Union. Products carrying this symbol provide a way for businesses and consumers to save money, and perhaps more importantly, to provide a standard against which energy consumptions can be compared while protecting the environment.

So, now that we better understand Energy Star, we can look more closely at a “new” appliance that is being promoted throughout many parts of the developing world – The Good Stove.

It is no surprise that this product - designed by Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy, Founder and CEO of Geoecology Energy Organisation (GEO) - is located in Andhra Pradesh, India. The purpose of GEO is simple: An Initiative to Mitigate Climate Change through Adaptation.

The original post for this appeared in Dr. Van Cotthem’s Desertification blog.

The intention of this post is not to elaborate on Dr. Reddy’s organization or his mission.

The intention of this post is you focus your attention to photos on his website that show how The Good Stove is being used to “Mitigate Climate Change.” These stoves are an improvement over the austere conditions that exist – not just in India – but in most of the developing world. Even Appalachia (in the US) is better off!

This first link will be a description of his most basic design: The Good Stove Design.

The second link will return to the Good Stove homepage: Good Stove.

The third link will move you a table of the versions of stove that are available. It is actually quite comprehensive: Types of Stove.

The fourth link will take you a photolink: People Who Have Adopted Good Stoves. If you took any time to look through and understand the Types of Stove designs, you will notice that the version shown in this photolink is one of the base models.

Finally, I will ask you to return to the homepage and just go through the site. The exercise is important to put some perspective between the conditions throughout the developing world and our Energy Star partners!

This is just part of the debate about root causes of global warming.