A Cuban grandfather built a handmade stove for cooking with wood and coal using only an empty gas cylinder, a fire extinguisher, and dirt, in a video posted on Facebook by the account "Lauren Vlogs" that starkly summarizes the energy crisis facing the island.
"In Cuba, gas costs more than thirty thousand pesos. So my grandfather made a stove that looks like gas using a small canister, a fire extinguisher, and dirt," explains the author of the clip, which lasts one minute and twenty seconds.
The device operates by harnessing natural airflow: air enters from the bottom, ignites the small unit, and produces a high-powered flame in about a minute.
"It's designed to work with charcoal and finely chopped firewood. It makes use of air in such a perfect way that in just a minute it already has incredible strength," describes Lauren Vlogs in the recording.
The procedure involves filling the small container with soil to a certain height, placing rods through some openings to support the central tube, and covering the exterior with more soil to protect the materials.
"What do you think of the stove I invented? It looks like a torch," says the old man as he shows the final lit result.
The author of the video points out that it is the same grandfather who previously made a homemade antenna out of a can, and expresses her hope that the invention "will help many people around the world."
The ingenuity of this Cuban is not an isolated case. The liquefied petroleum gas crisis in Cuba has pushed thousands of families to return to alternative cooking methods, in a situation analysts compare to the Special Period of the 1990s.
The price of gas in the informal market —up to 30,000 Cuban pesos— starkly contrasts with the state average salary of just 6,930 pesos per month, which is equivalent to about 13 dollars at the informal exchange rate, meaning that a gas cylinder can cost between one and four times a worker's monthly salary.
The shortage is not just about price. The regime suspended the distribution of liquefied gas in Santiago de Cuba and the eastern provinces since January 2026 due to a lack of supply, and over 100,000 homes in Matanzas have been without regular supply since January 2025.
As a temporary measure, the State attempted to expand the manufactured gas network in Havana, but it only serves about 284,000 people, roughly 16% of the capital's population.
On private platforms in dollars, the 10 kg cylinder is sold for 29 dollars, options that remain equally inaccessible for most Cubans who also face power outages of up to 20 hours a day that make cooking with electricity unfeasible.
Other documented cases of popular ingenuity include a young man from Cumanayagua, Cienfuegos, who turned old rice cookers and empty cans into charcoal stoves, and stoves made with casings from Russian washing machines filled with clay.
The state-run press even went so far as to present charcoal as a "green alternative" in February 2026, sparking criticism because for most Cubans, it is not a voluntary choice but a consequence of the crisis.
"Cuban ingenuity knows no bounds. Never," wrote Lauren Vlogs in the video description, a phrase that encapsulates decades of daily survival under a dictatorship that has been unable to guarantee even fuel for cooking.
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