Last week, I discussed the rift the Tata Nano has exposed between environmentalist and poverty-alleviation focused professionals, academics and activists - a car that at once represents aspirations of new material wealth for millions of BoP consumers and a potentially enormous source of new CO2 emissions.

But there is another story worth telling here - far away from the Nano controversy, out in the rural Yunnan province of southwestern China, there is Hao Zheng Yi. Transportation issues may not be the first thing on peoples' minds here since, as I've reported previously, one fifth of China's rural population lacks access to electricity. Without reliable energy infrastructure, 80% of people in these regions rely on biomass for heating and cooking, burning wood and straw in ovens as a primary energy source. The negative implications of this practice blur the line between environmental and social concerns, touching on issues of deforestation as well as health problems arising from the indoor air pollution generated by smoke.

What if, Hao Zheng Yi thought, there were a technology that could address this full range of problems and be affordable enough to reach scale in a BoP market?

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