Collaboration with Government of Ethiopia, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre and Network (HoA-REC&N) will place Stoves in Refugee Camps and Urban Settings

(Project Gaia) Babington Technology announced today its donation of almost $100,000 worth of especially adapted field feeding equipment to Project Gaia, Inc. for testing in refugee camp and urban commercial and institutional settings in Ethiopia. For over 25 years, Babington Technology has been a leader in safe, clean and efficient liquid fuel combustion technology and “heat-on-the-move” field feeding systems. Babington’s burner technology serves as the common heat source platform for field feeding programs across every branch of the U.S. Military, including the Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, FBI, Reserve and National Guard Units, and disaster relief organizations as well.

Project Gaia is a U.S.-based non-profit organization with partners and affiliates in Africa and around the world. Its mission is to popularize clean-burning, low-carbon fuels, especially biofuels, in developing and emerging economies. Project Gaia is partnering in Ethiopia with the Ethiopian Government, the Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre and Network (HoA-REC&N) and with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ethiopia Country Office (UNHCR), to implement a pilot study with the Babington cooking appliances.

The Babington appliances, manufactured in Rocky Mount, NC, are being air freighted to Ethiopia. They will be deployed in the Pugnido Refugee Camp, one of five camps in the Gambella region. Established in 1986, this camp currently houses over 62,000 refugees coming primarily from South Sudan. All five camps house upwards of 270,000 refugees, many of whom have arrived since December of 2013. The majority of these new arrivals are women (80 per cent of the adult population) and children (70 per cent of total population), including some 13,700 unaccompanied or separated children.

The cooking appliances will be used in four separate school kitchens that prepare food for elementary and junior secondary school children.

Several of the appliances will be deployed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, for research and demonstration purposes. These will be located at the new HoA-REC&N center at the Gullele Botanical Gardens and at Project Gaia’s partner organization, GAIA Association, at Bole Medhanialem. HoA-REC&N and GAIA are working with stove designer and manu-facturer Astrat and Helawi Engineering Partnership PLC (A&H), which will provide support to Babington to adapt Babington appliances to local needs. A&H is supported by a grant from the Climate Innovation Centre (CIC) funded by the World Bank, the Netherlands and others and administered by HoA-REC&N.

The first shipment of appliances is composed of two Powered Multi-fuel Burners (PMB), a Multi-Function Cook Station (MFC) with griddle and stockpot accessory, a large double boiler for cooking corn-soya blend, and two burner main-tenance kits. A second shipment of stoves will be sent to Ethiopia later this year.

The Babington appliances burn any liquid fuel and fuel mixture cleanly, including heavy fuels like diesel, biodiesel and even bio-oils. Fuels compromised with water may be burned as well.

The superior efficiency and performance of Babington appliances are attributable to the Babington Airtronic Burner, which uses a unique liquid atomization principle invented and patented by Robert S. Babington, the company’s founder. The Airtronic burner creates a superfine mist composed of submicron-sized particles produced at very low pressure, which burn like a gas when ignited. The small particle size means that any fuel can be burned with no smoke, odor or carbon monoxide.

The burner is has been used by the U.S. military for almost two decades. Babington estimates that more than 200 million meals have been cooked with this burner.

Babington’s core product portfolio consists of the Airtronic Burner, Tray Ration Heater, Powered Multi-fuel Burner, Field Sanitation Unit, Quiet Griddle, Convection Oven, Stock Pot Station and Tilt Skillet. The company continues to innovate and commercialize new products. Its Disaster Relief Mobile Kitchen Trailer (DRMKT) was developed for first responders to provide mass feeding in emergency situations. It was used by the National Guard on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and in Haiti following that country’s devastating earthquake.

Babington’s new partnership with the Government of Ethiopia, UNHCR, HoA-REC&N and Project Gaia demonstrates Babington’s commitment to continued innovation of its technology to make it available to the world. Adaptation and deployment of this burner creates the opportunity for greater energy access, as new fuels or fuels used in new applications, especially for cooking, are made possible by this burner. READ MORE / MORE