Cooking over an open wood fire may be a once in a while activity for most Westerners, but for almost half of the world population, cooking over an open wood-fueled flame is a daily task, and the practice has serious health, social and environmental consequences.

Two Ballard residents are part of a non-profit looking to change that with a stove fueled by seeds.

Sarah Doherty and Tad Anderson are members of Jet City StoveWorks, and they have been working since 2012 on a project that could dramatically affect the lives of people in Tanzania.

Anderson was an associate research professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington and spent 25 years with the department. He retired four years ago with the goal of devoting his time to working on climate issues and a range of other community-based projects.

Doherty earned her doctorate in atmospheric science at the University of Washington, and Anderson was one of her advisers. Doherty stayed at UW and is now a senior research scientist and associate professor in atmospheric sciences.

Jet City has developed a clean-burning stove that is fuel by the seed of a hearty, spiny plant called Jatropha. It grows abundantly throughout the Southern Hemisphere and Sub-Sahara Africa. The plant is inedible and is used primarily as a hedge to pen in animals and for erosion control to border agricultural land plots to deter critters.

Seattleites, David Otto and David Covert, designed the stove. Their stove is called Jiko Safi (“clean stove” in Swahili), and it produces very little smoke relative to the open fires currently being used. Jatropha seeds contain oils that when burned produce a smokeless flame. The stove is designed to volatilize the oils in the Jatropha seeds, allowing the flame to burn the gases from the seeds and not the seeds themselves. It is highly efficient and uses two-and-a-half cups of seeds for a one-and-a-half-hour burn. The lack of smoke makes it safer to use inside enclosed dwellings, but it also has a chimney that can be used to pipe the smoke outside. To help make it more adaptable to woman and families, Jet City designed the stove with the traditional local cooking practices in mind – with a single pot – so individuals can cook the way they have always cooked.

The goal of the project is to establish sustainable businesses that manufacture the stoves in Tanzania and provide woman and families with an alternative to cooking over open wood fires. In fulfilling their goal, Jet City hopes to abate three major issues that arise from wood burning cooking, the first being the prevention of disease and premature the death.

Much the time cooking is done in enclosed, poorly ventilated spaces. Exposure to smoke causes acute illnesses like asthma and kills over two million people a year. According to the World Health Organization, 21 percent of lower respiratory infection deaths and 35 percent of chronic obstructive pulmonary deaths are attributed to indoor burning of fuels like wood or coal. Young infants and children are especially vulnerable to chronic smoke exposure. Also, chronic smoke inhalation is the leading cause of death for small children in Tanzania.

Another factor attributed to social and environmental problems is the gathering of the wood. On major social issue is the risk of sexual assault while gathering firewood. Wood is scarce in the regions where wood stoves are the primary cooking method. Woman and children walk long distances to gather their cooking fuel, and while on the trail they are at risk for assault. In 2009 Physicians for Human Rights reported that 91 percent recorded sexual assaults in Farchana happened while women were outside of camp collecting firewood. Another problem is that children end up helping out at home with gathering wood. They end up missing out on class time. Some stop going to school completely.

Scarcity of wood is also linked to the larger problem of global deforestation and climate change; because wood is the sole source of fuel for such a large number of people, it is consumed on a large scale. A 2012 paper from “Energy for Sustainable Development,” reported that the burning of biomass (wood/dung) and coal in inefficient stoves accounts for 15 percent of global energy use. The practice releases large amounts of black carbon and carbon-based greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, both of which warm climate. Since the Jiko Safi stove is highly efficientand produces virtually no smoke (aside from start up), its use would result in trees being saved and fewer climate-changing emissions. Indirectly, the trees saved would help in absorbing climate-changing emissions and climate-warming carbon dioxide.

However, a problem lies in people adapting to the new stove.

The introduction and implementation of ways to help third world populations has been problematic for many organizations, and Jet City hopes to find a route to introduce their stove to people in Tanzania that is community-driven and sustainable.

“There is a bad reputation of westerners going in and trying to solve African’s problems. I think we are proceeding in a way that doesn’t feel like that. … We are trying to not walk in and say ‘Here’s your problem and here’s what you need,’” said Doherty.

They plan to introduce the stove by offering the design to small-scale manufacturers in the communities. Once established the manufacturers would be self-sustaining. They would also provide jobs that strengthen the local economies.

“We are hoping to get it to where it takes off on its own, and we walk away. Our role from this end is really to try and take the engineering of this stove and transfer the design and technology to local people and work with them with funding to support the start up.”

Through this route the stove and its use is embedded in the community and more likely to replace the traditional open wood burning practice.

Doherty and Anderson said that the biggest problem moving forward with the project is bringing the stove price down and then finding people who are willing to buy or volunteer to use the stove.

The stove costs $38, which is too expensive for the population. Doherty said that $30 is the price Tanzanians are willing pay to try the stove. Jet City is working with manufactures to bring the cost down. So far there are about 200 stoves being used.

To garner funding to support the start up in Tanzania the team needs data that shows their stoves have a positive impact on the lives of users. Doherty said they are currently recruiting woman and families who would use the stove for free in exchange for being involved in surveys. Jet City hopes to collect data to determine how health and social aspects of the users lives change from the use of the smokeless stove.

“The biggest obstacle is cultural adaption of a new way of cooking and preparing food, and so much of culture and family life evolves around that and it’s tough to get people to buy into a new way of doing it,” said Anderson.

“It’s fun to do science and do research about the way things work, but to actually be able to do something where you see an tangible result where other peoples’ lives will be improved in a very immediate way is pretty exciting,” said Doherty.

“It’s a chance to make a contribution on a big issue, especially with a climate connection,” said Anderson.

For more information visit http://www.jetcitystoveworks.com, or visit their fundraising page on Indiegogo: http://igg.me/at/jetcitystoveworks.