"Kyoto box" wins startup funding

A box designed to improve the efficiency of using firewood to boil water in developing countries won $75,000 in funding from sustainable development charity Forum for the Future last week.

The Kyoto Box - which costs about €5 to make - uses a greenhouse effect to boil 10 litres of water in two hours, far more efficient than a standard fire.

Kenya-based entrepreneur Jon Bøhmer of startup Kyoto Energy said the box is targeted at the three billion people who use firewood to cook and has the potential to deliver huge environmental and social benefits.

"We’re saving lives and saving trees," he said. "I doubt if there is any other technology that can make so much impact for so little money."

The design consists of two boxes, one inside the other, with an acrylic cover that absorbs and traps the sun's heat. Black paint on the inner box and silver foil on the outer help concentrate the heat while a layer of straw or newspaper between the two provides insulation.

Bøhmer has developed a more robust, longer-lasting cooker in corrugated plastic, which can be mass-produced in existing factories as cheaply as the cardboard prototype, and he intends to produce 10,000 to use in trials in ten countries, including India, Indonesia, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Liberia.

He believes the box will halve the need for firewood, saving an estimated two tonnes of carbon per family per year.

The trials will generate data to back an application for carbon credits, the crucial element which will make the project worthwhile financially as the scheme is a commercial one and the boxes will be sold.

Profits will be used to fund production of a suite of other products which offer solar-powered solutions for villagers in the developing world: a torch; a plastic bag which heats and cleans water; and a smokeless cooker which burns biomass.