>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Wood fiber has about the same energy density as carbs, so it is essentially cooking a hamburger for your electronics <img class="smiley" src="http://cdn.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/teeth.gif">

Burning wood isn't exactly "Green" though, so this is a clever marketing angle that is mostly untrue.

Edit, did some googling, and found their electrical output is about 2Watts (not enough to power most light bulbs), and they cost about 130 bucks. Those kind of cost to power ratios are WAAAAAAAAY out of touch of the needs of third world counties, you need kilowatts before you have any real needs met. If you ran this 24/7 for a year, the annual cost of electricity...not including the burning material is 7.42 dollars per KWH. The average cost of electricity in the US is about 10 cents per KWH, marking this as a third world solution is pretty shitty.


Actually, they have a bigger HomeStove as well, and neither it nor the CampStove are really meant to have a primary purpose of generating electricity - the main purpose is to cook things, and the surplus electricity is a nice side effect. According to this page: http://www.biolitestove.com/homestove/homestove-technology/ , the reason this is better than a regular fire or older rocket stove is fewer CO emissions (eco-friendly) and less smoke (health hazard) for cooking the same meals.

In India, there are tons of people with mobile phones, but the power grid is not reliable and there are frequent rolling blackouts. Of course, people could just wait for power to come back to charge their phone, but if you are cooking at the time, why not use the stove?

I think the high price of the CampStove is meant to help lower the price of the HomeStove for these other markets.