Left: Aprovecho Research Center's Dean Still receives the Ashden Energy Champion Award from England's Prince Charles. Still described Prince Charles as an "impressive man" and said the monarch has been studying cookstoves for 30 years.

A partnership between Cottage Grove’s Aprovecho Research Center and Shengzhou Stoves of China has yielded a product that could transform the way the world cooks. Recently, the world took notice.

This month, the international partnership that has produced the world’s first cheaply manufactured, low-emissions cook stoves received Britain’s prestigious International Energy Champion Ashden Award. Aprovecho’s Dean Still accepted the award from England’s Prince Charles.

The award will bring a prize of 40,000 British pounds to be split between the two entities; Aprovecho will use its share of the winnings to more effectively market its stoves worldwide, Still said.

“This is the most direct, affordable way to fight global warming,” Still said. “But we need millions of stoves to mitigate the problems.”

Aprovecho has hired Ben West, a University of Oregon graduate, to spearhead its marketing efforts. West hopes to increase stove distribution through public relations, a web presence, domestic sales and partnerships.

“Aprovecho is the hub for stove testing,” West said. “If few can do the same with distribution, that would be the perfect situation.”

Still began developing a new stove two years ago, one that would be cheaply made burn wood cleanly and efficiently. In the meantime, Aprovecho developed its Portable Emissions Monitoring System, which fits in a suitcase and was brought to China to test stoves at Shengzhou. The factory’s Mr. Shen, a longtime stove manufacturer, invested $1,000,000 to make stoves using Chinese clay and sell them in India.

“We tried to make this kind of stove,” Still said. “We knew the design, but we didn’t know how to manufacture them cheaply. That’s why I went to China, because of traditional Chinese stove technology. Mr. Shen really wants to help people, and he was willing to take the risk and invest his own money in something he can’t even sell in China (It is illegal to burn wood in China.)”

Still described Prince Charles, who owns the largest organic farm in Britain, as a “real environmentalist.”

“He told me he’s been studying stoves for 30 years,” Still said. “He was a very impressive, kind person. He made me want to come back and double my efforts to make a clean burning stove.”

Still said he promised the Prince a stove that would burn as cleanly as natural gas by this November.

This is not the first time Aprovecho has won the Ashden Award; three years ago, the group’s Peter Grant also accepted an award from Prince Charles for his work on the Rocket Stove in a factory in Malawi.

Still hopes the new stove operation will have a multi-pronged effect.

“It is a way to fight deforestation, to better the health of people that cook with wood indoors and to fight climate change,” he said.  Indoor wood smoke leads to myriad eye and lung problems, Still said. Aprovecho’s new stoves also help families minimize heating costs.

“The new stove can be set up quickly and doesn’t waste wood,” said Miriam Myeni of South Africa. “A burden has literally been lifted from my shoulder as I now don’t have to carry heavy loads of wood from the forest and can cook good food for my children before they go to school.”

Still said families who have utilized his stoves have saved 30 percent of their income in just 11 days thanks to greater wood-burning efficiency.

Still and Aprovecho will be the subject of attention this summer, as their annual stove camp will bring a reporter from the New Yorker magazine to town. Aprovecho was also recently the subject of a BBC documentary about the Ashden Award and their operation.