In Haiti, POET has partnered with Project Gaia to replace wood-burning stoves with clean, ethanol-fueled cook stoves. The first 6,200 gallons of POET’s ethanol cleared Haitian customs at the end of 2014. Founder and Executive Chairman of the Board Jeff Broin donated approximately 12,000 gallons of ethanol to jumpstart the project.
Dometic, another partner in the project, is supplying the stoves, which will eventually be made locally, and Novogaz is organizing local distribution in Haiti. POET has selected POET Biorefining – Jewell to produce the ethanol needed to fuel the cook stoves. Project partners gathered in Haiti this past April to develop and discuss a plan to bring U.S. ethanol to Haiti for home cooking.
Project Gaia estimates if every home in Africa, Developing Asia, Latin America and the Middle East that is currently using traditional solid fuels (charcoal, wood and other biomass substrates) would switch to ethanol fuel for cooking it would save between 250 and 550 million forest acres per year. This is equivalent to over half the size of the Brazilian rainforest, or the size of Alaska, California and Texas combined.
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