CLEANCOOK Sweden AB (CLEANCOOK) produces ethanol and methanol (clean-fuel) stoves for markets where people traditionally cook with firewood, charcoal, and kerosene stoves. CLEANCOOK owns tooling/equipment for manufacturing and product patents. Production is outsourced to a partner company in Kenya. So far, 80.000 cleancook stoves have been provided, which correspond to 23 million accident-free user-days, mainly in Africa. The CLEANCOOK stove technology is based on a pressureless canister concept which has been used in Europe and the USA by Dometic Group, for more than 30 years.
More than 3 billion people worldwide use solid biomass for their cooking, such as charcoal and firewood. However, cooking on solid biomass not only dirties kitchens with soot, it also kills. WHO reports that 4 million people die prematurely from illnesses related to air pollution caused by emissions from inefficient stoves and solid biomass-based cooking. The CLEANCOOK concept leads to cleaner ambient air in cities, courtyards, and homes, eliminating smoke and improving health.
Deforestation and emissions from inefficient fuel combustion, such as soot and greenhouse gases, also have major negative impacts on the environment. Calculations show that up to 20% of global climate change can be attributed to cooking and heating with solid biomass and kerosene in the developing world.
Collecting firewood and lighting up charcoal and wood stoves are time-consuming tasks. Additionally, women and young girls collect firewood frequently risk molestation and sexual assault. Cooking with alcohol fuels is fast, safe, easy, and affordable and eliminates the need for collection of firewood. By using clean fuels such as ethanol and methanol, families, and especially women, have more time for schooling, working/entrepreneurial activities, and other household tasks.
Cooking with alcohols such as ethanol and methanol in pressureless stoves is much safer than any other open flame stove use. A large number of fires and kitchen accidents today originate from handling the stoves, fuels (especially kerosene), and pots. To date, CLEANCOOK has not had a single accident.
Ethanol can be affordably, locally produced from crops and their byproducts, like molasses and other typically wasted resources not needed/used in the food chain. Farming and ethanol distillation and distribution generates employment and income in local communities, as well as increasing food production. Alcohol fuels are available as a global commodity and are shipped economically and efficiently around the world, no different than petroleum fuels. This means alcohol fuel usually can be distributed using existing infrastructure.