BLACKWELL: A new stove captures heat from burning wood and turns it into electricity. What started as an alternative to a camping stove has turned into a powerful solution for developing countries. Gary Tuchman has more in this week's "Start Small, Think Big."</s>GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If you need a reminder about the importance of fire, just go camping. Inventors Jonathan Cedar and Alec Drummondf decided their old camp stoves weren't cutting it.</s>ALEC DRUMMONDF, BIOLITE: The problem with liquid fuel and I've had this experience, is that they are very finicky.</s>TUCHMAN: So the two outdoorsmen created the Biolite stove. It captures heat from burning wood and turns it into electricity.</s>JONATHAN CEDAR, BIOLITE: We connect these two wires, this huge ball of clean flame comes out of the stoves, and that was really the genesis, right? We had clean combustion driven by its own electrical generation.</s>TUCHMAN: The generated energy can charge electronics through a USB port, but it also powers a fan that pumps oxygen to the flame, making it more efficient and creating less smoke. That clean flame also energized the business when they learned about the damaging effects of smoke.</s>ETHAN KAY, BIOLITE: Nearly half the worlds cook on smoky open fires which leads to nearly two million deaths annually.</s>TUCHMAN: The inventors went back to work and created at home stove.</s>CEDAR: Coming to understand that there was a much broader global need for clean cook stoves was real impetus to try and drive this towards being a business rather than just a project.</s>TUCHMAN: Prototypes are currently in use across India and Africa. Biolite hopes the same technology that has caught on with campers will catch fire across the world.
A Stove That Makes Electricity