Design for Mongolia
“Pollution—and the associated disease and death—is one of the biggest problems facing Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and up to 70% of that pollution comes from coal-burning stoves in their ger [1], or yurts. When I was a student, our engineering capstone team was given the challenge to create a heating system for Mongolian ger that would eliminate the need for coal stoves. It had to be low cost and consume very little energy. This was especially important because the system was being designed for the ger districts, or the low-income population of Mongolia. Also, our sponsor was hoping that the project would garner good will and improve their relationship with the Mongolian government, so… no pressure.”
Developing an insulation system was doable; it was primarily a matter of choosing a material and figuring out how to put it on the ger (of course, this is looking at it with 20-20 hindsight—in the middle of development, it seemed a bit more daunting than that). After testing several different materials, we elected to use radiant barrier (basically shiny bubble wrap) and an air gap between their existing layers of felt. Cost and simplicity pointed to using a small, electric space heater as the heat source. It was a simple design, which made me nervous that maybe it was too simple—was it really going to work? As engineers, we had made models predicting a successful system, however, none of us were experts about Mongolia, its people, or its culture, so it was difficult for us to determine the adoptability of our system—and if people don’t utilize what you create, it’s the same as if it doesn’t function at all.
In our design, radiant barrier goes between layers of felt that create the walls of the ger.
Nearly all Mongolians in Ulaanbaatar recognize that pollution poses a serious health risk to their families and want to see change. Although it’s their main fuel source, many agree that burning coal should be banned [2]. With those statistics, we felt a little better about Mongolians being on board to adopt our system. But as humans, we aren’t always very good at doing what’s good for us—I kept thinking back to a man in Morocco who was asked what he would do with more money. His answer was, buy more food, and then better tasting food…all the while his TV was playing from the satellite dish [3]. Even if people know what’s good for them, they are going to invest in what they want. What do people spend their money on when they don’t have money? Would they want this heating system we were creating? Would they think it was too “space age” looking? Or would they not give it any credit at all because, when fully installed, you could hardly tell it was there? Would they be excited or skeptical? We did everything we could to find out more about Mongolian culture and their needs—we read articles, found people who had been to or were from Mongolia, contacted other universities who were working on similar problems in Mongolia, and even connected with a NGO who was working to solve the same problem. But we still felt like we didn’t have the complete picture—so we decided to go to Mongolia to test our design in their environment and see how the people responded to what we came up with.
During those tests in Mongolia, we made some important discoveries—like that it’s not uncommon for mice to live under ger. Our floor insulation design had to be mostly redone because we hadn’t thought of rodents living under people’s floors and the damage that they would cause to the insulation. We also discovered that the clear plastic we had selected to cover the single, round window in the ceiling turned out to be a lot weaker than the thick plastic that some Mongolians were already using, so we adopted their plastic into our plans.
The original floor design was insulated with foam; however, we had to make some changes because it wasn’t very rodent proof!
But perhaps the most valuable information we gathered there were people’s reactions to our system being installed in their homes. Because the context of the project was to reduce the overall pollution, we hadn’t given too much thought to user experience (besides making sure it stayed warm inside of their ger!) But it turns out that what we thought was a very simple solution made a big difference in their lives. Being able to remove their stove from the center of the one-room home opened up a lot of space, and that was pretty apparent. However, less apparent to those of us who had never lived in a ger was the extent to which the radiant barrier blocked the wind; several families commented on how they appreciated that. Nice little details that make life that much more comfortable.
The big difference is that using an electric heater allowed them to keep their ger at a comfortable temperature without having to wake up in the middle of the night to stoke the fire; they could sleep all night and wake up to a warm home! And while it can be hard to get people on board to a “save the world” campaign, it’s easy to sell a good night’s rest. They could control how warm their home was with no effort, and THAT was exciting to them.
So there we go! We made a solution that works towards solving a social problem and it also solved individual inconveniences that people were excited for! We could end there, and it would be a happy story—but there was one more big, unexpected win that could have some major impacts.
We learned so much from the Mongolian people - and learning from them was key to the success of this project.
After removing the coal stove, the air inside their home felt cleaner. This is another aspect that we hadn’t really considered—our sponsors (including the government) cared about reducing the overall pollution in the city, so we were concerned with how much pollution left the ger into the atmosphere. We didn’t think too much about the impact it would have on the atmosphere in the home. Our measurements inside of Mongolian homes showed that the pollution inside of the home was a bigger problem than we thought. With the traditional coal stove as the heat source, the PM 2.5 concentration inside the home nearly quadrupled the pollution outside. The very young and very old—the most susceptible to pulmonary complications—stay inside the most. When the pollution gets too bad, schools close and urge students to stay inside—however, for low-income students living in ger, that could be even more dangerous than going out. But with our design, the air inside of the home was actually cleaner than the outside air for most of the day. Our design makes their homes a safer place to be.
Testing is being continued on a larger scale through the winter in “Phase 2”. National government leaders have partnered with our sponsor to continue this project. If the data comes back positive, “Phase 3” will roll out with 10,000 ger being retrofitted.
Ultimately, the whole experience was eye-opening and educational. We learned so much from the Mongolian people—and learning from them was key to the success of this project. I learned that when we design something, we really need to consider the user aspect and learn everything we can about the stakeholders. Both of those are best accomplished when we engage with the market. When you’re on the same page as the end user, even small and simple designs can make a big difference in the world.
Editor’s Note: Ivy Running was one of the team members recently featured in a speech by President Worthen during the 2019 University Conference and on the BYU News Website. Check out the video here.
[1]“Mongolia; Heating in Poor, Peri-urban Ger Areas of Ulaanbaatar,” Asia Sustainable and Alternative Energy Program, The World Bank Link
[2] ASTAE/World Bank: Baseline Fuel Consumption, Heating Stove, and Household Perception Survey, December 2007.
[3] “Poor Economics; A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty,” Abhijit B Banerjee and Esther Duflo.
