Introduction to Appropriate Technology and Appropriate Cooking / Cooling Technology

Erik Sjödin, 2014

- British economist E.F Schumacher conceived of the concept “Intermediate Technology” after visiting Burma in 1955.

- Schumacher defined intermediate technology as technology that, in terms of capital intensity, labour intensity, and scale is somewhere in-between technology in the western, industrialised, world and technology in so called developing countries. He argued that intermediate technology is what developing countries need, rather than the same technology as in the west.

- In 1973 Schumacher published "Small is Beautiful" in which he argued against Keynesian economics and the idea of growth based on fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources.

- To get on he argued that we need and economics of permanence. This, he further argues, implies a reorientation of science and technology. In short scientists and technologists need to produce methods and equipment which are:

- cheap enough so that they are accessible to virtually everyone;- suitable for small scale application and; - compatible with man’s need for creativity.

- Schumacher further discuss various, in his opinion, desirable properties of technology under headings such as "technology with a human face” and “appropriate technology”.

- In the chapter "Technology with a Human Face” Schumacher argues that it would be better if people were more directly involved in production, instead of “doing jobs that are not directly productive, or just killing time more or less humanely”. In 1973 Schumacher estimated productive time in society to be about 3.5% of total time. While he argues that the drift of modern technological development is to reduce production time towards zero, Schumacher entertains the idea of it instead being increased six-fold, to 20% of the time:

Small is Beautiful, Chapter 10 - Technology with A Human Face.

- In the 70's intermediate technology, technology with a human face and other labels for alternatives to industrial technology were brought together under the umbrella of "appropriate technology".

- Some of these labels were:

Capital-saving technologyLabor-intensive technologyAlternate technologySelf-help technologyVillage-level technologyCommunity technologyProgressive technologyIndigenous technologyPeople’s technologyLight-engineering technologyAdaptive technologyLight-capital technologyDemocratic technologySoft technology

- In 1983 OECD defined appropriate technology as technology with "low investment cost per work-place, low capital investment per unit of output, organizational simplicity, high adaptability to a particular social or cultural environment, sparing use of natural resources, low cost of final product or high potential for employment.”

- Appropriate technology is usually focused on solving problems in developing countries or in rural farming areas. In these contexts appropriate technology focuses on solving problems with extreme poverty, starvation, unemployment, and urban migration. However the underlying concepts of appropriate technology are equally valid in developed countries and in urban areas.

- “The goal of Appropriate Technology (AT) is to increase the standard of living for the developing world without condescension, complication, or environmental damage. Typical AT inventions are more labor intensive, require fewer resources, and use low cost or readily available materials wherever possible. Special attention is paid to the social, cultural, and ethical aspects of the communities the technology is intended for.” [Source: Listverse]

- Today appropriate technology is a less well known and used term, it is often replaced by the concepts of open source technology, do-it-yourself technology, and sustainable technology.

Examples of appropriate technology:

The Mukombe "tippy tap" for washing hands won the 2013 Stockholm water prize.

“The universal nut sheller requires less than $50 in common materials to make, lasts 25 years, and just one sheller can serve the needs of a 2,000 person village.” [Source: Listverse]

2.6 billion people lack access to toilets. Every year two million people die because of water contaminated by human feces. Peepoo is a bag that you pee or poo in. The bag removes dangerous bacteria and converts the pee and poo into fertiliser.

“The Hippo Roller is a simple tool for transporting water from distant watering-holes back to homes and villages – an alternative to the traditional 5-gallon-barrels-on-heads approach. The product itself is similar to a barrel with a handle that you push ahead of you like a steamroller’s drum, and has a capacity of 90 liters / 24 gallons. That’s nearly a 5X increase in productivity.” [Source: Listverse]

Heating and Cooling

- Heating and cooling are two of the most energy requiring and labour intensive human activities.

- Around 3 billion people cook and heat their homes using open fires and simple stoves burning biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal. [Source: WHO]

- In parts of the world, people, usually women, spend many hours every day collecting fuel for their cooking needs.

- Every year over 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributable to the household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels. [Source: WHO]

- More than 50% of premature deaths among children under 5 are due to pneumonia caused by particulate matter (soot) inhaled from household air pollution. [Source: WHO]

- Because of lack of refrigeration or insufficient cooling 35% of perishable foods worldwide are thrown away before reaching the consumer. [Source: Dr. Michael Hülsmann, Jacobs University]

- On average, a refrigerator uses 13.7 percent of a home's energy, the largest energy-user behind an air conditioner, which uses 16 percent.[Source: California Energy Commission] Commercial cooling equipment (air conditioning as well as refrigeration) accounts for about 8% of the UK’s total electricity use. [Source: Food Climate Research Network]

Examples of appropriate cooling technology:

“The pot-in-pot refrigerator is made up of two earthenware (i.e. porous) pots, one placed inside the other. The gap between the two different diameter pots is filled with wet sand in order to keep both pots damp. A damp cloth is then used to cover the top, and the finished assembly placed in a shaded, dry, and well-ventilated location. The water in the sand evaporates out through the outer pot and into the dry air outside. This simple evaporative process reduces the temperature of the pots and the perishable contents (e.g. fruits and vegetables) kept in the inner pot.” [Source: Renewable Energy UK]

Root cellar in Rejmyre, Sweden. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Cold kitchen pantry.

Solar ice fridge [Source: Centre Ecologique Albert Schweitzer, Neuchâtel, Switzerland]

Camel transporting solar powered refrigerator with vaccine.

Top loaded freezer used as as fridge, using 1/10th of electricity. [Source: Brian Schulz Oregon Farm and Workshop]

Pressure cooking rice with a parabolic solar cooker [Source: Bart Orlando, Campus Center for Appropriate Technology, Humboldt State University, USA]

Solar cookers in East Africa [Source: Solar Cookers International]

Baking in solar oven [Source: Solar women of Totogalpa, Nicaragua]

Examples of appropriate cooking technology:

Rocket stoves in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 [Source: Global Giving]

Institutional Rocket Stoves in Malawi[Source: Improved Biomass Cooking Stoves]

The depicted haybox cooker was an add-on of the Frankfurt kitchen (1926-1930) by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. A pot without handles can be inserted in to the cylindrical cavity underneath the flap. The lower door opens a storage space.[Source: Wikipedia]

The Fireless Cook Book, by Margaret J. Mitchell, 1909

Flexible bag biogas (methane) digester. Dung from 2-3 cattle is enough for a family’s cooking purposes and to run a gas lamp in the evening. [Source: Afrigadget]

Gas stoves – which have the highest thermal efficiency of all modern cooking stoves – produce the most air pollution in modern kitchens. A 2014 study estimates that 60 percent of homes in California that cook at least once a week with a gas stove can reach pollutant levels of CO, NO2 and formaldehyde that would be illegal if found outdoors. [Source: Low Tech Magazine]