Haiti Update - Biochar Stoves in Haiti

You may have heard stories about deliveries of rice and other food commodities in Haiti that are unusable because people do not have stoves or fuel to cook with. Nathaniel Mulcahy, CEO of WorldStove LLC, has set up a workshop in Haiti and is making clean, fuel flexible, pyrolytic cook stoves that also happen to make biochar - potentially a boon for Haiti's eroded hills and fields. Information about Mulcahy's progress is hard to come by, as he has virtually no email access. Nathaniel tries to keep up communication via mobile phone and twitter messages at http://twitter.com/worldstove. You can also find updates and pictures of his work at the WorldStove Facebook page.

If you would like to help the WorldStove effort, you can make a donation that will go directly to Nathaniel's work through the International Lifeline Fund.

And here is some news from the Biochar Haiti subgroup of the Biochar Offsets Group on LinkedIn by Victoria Kamsler, Chair, Biochar Offsets Group:

"As you may have heard, just two days after the earthquake struck, Nathaniel Mulcahy of WorldStove was on the ground and hard at work making and distributing stoves in Haiti. Dave Sleuwaegen of Meldynique Solar was already there; they had projects in Haiti and the Dominican Republic well underway when the quake struck, and their team has been in meetings with President Clinton and the Haitian Minister of the Interior. Another member, expat Vickens Moscova, has organized a fundraising dinner cruise out of New York on February 27. The cruise will benefit Dave's Biofuel and Food project for Haiti.

"Recently, a remarkable thing happened in our Biochar Haiti subgroup. Nathaniel has been down in Haiti with member Vijay Jahangir, Director at International Lifeline Fund trying every way possible to get the large donation of stoves (in Minnesota) and wood pellets (on the panhandle in Florida) down to Haiti where they are waiting for them. Member Hoi Trinh of ILF has been working the phones in DC to get this moving, but like everything else on the way to Haiti, the stoves were stuck. Finally, Vickens Moscova hooked us up with a contact at International Relief and Development who offered to ship everything to Haiti for us. By the time you read this, the stoves may be on their way.

"Photo: WorldStove institutional cook stove in Haiti. Courtesy of Nathaniel Mulcahy."