[Stoves] CO monitoring seeking practical analogues in local testing methods for the 90% of the rest of us

[Richard Stanley]

Crispin, 
Great idea on possible use of pyrethrum residues in briquettes to drive off mossies when 'super-dried' next to stove, just  before use. These are the kinds of resources we all need and we are all just on the tip of a very large iceberg in our knowledge base.....Will introduce it to our forthcoming producers conference with all due reference to you. Hopefully by the way, your contact in Mozambique Apolinario Malawene, will bring along your scissor's press as well. 

On another note the idea of introducing carbon monoxide testing came up in a recent discussion with my colleague Rok Oblak.  
While Rok stressed the global numbers on CO poisoning, from such as the WHO, and the consequent need for briquette producers to have their briquettes tested, my own experience told me that however important an issue it was,  it would be well nigh impossible to manage monitoring through any one center in any one nation... My immediate reaction was therefore how to provide a testing method which can be implemented on site by the local producer. 

Sure you have the meters and the manufactured brands out there in the industrialised nations,  but is it first not impossible to find an local indicator --a plant, an  insect,  common chemicals, selected local biota and / or other naturally occurring indicators of basic levels of CO emissions in the "safe"--"risky"--- "critical" range for human exposure? (the analogues can be developed through local institutional testing and calibration to their instrumentation later on...
I ask this because it is not enough to push in a few CO meters out through a few dozen institutions unless you want to front the cost the politics and the institutional posturing of doing so over the long haul...

 Briquetting is now widespread and rural  and emissions are of course based on the stove , the cooking method and the briquette blend---all of which vary so much as to make centralized monitoring impossible. 

So, lets flip over the top down development model once again, and move it into the actual producer consumer reality where it  has a s chance of sticking. These are the people at risk for the supply of their own product..so lets get the solution to them

Now who of the great minds on this list can come up with a practical easily replicable and calibrated process with relatively easily available resources for the 90% of the rest of us...

Over to you all, It will not only make a great contribution to our own work but a great thesis for the concerned under grad team or grad student for that matter.

Richard Stanley
www.legacyfound.org

======================

 
On Oct 14, 2010, at 3:38 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:

> Dear Richard 
> 
> Isn't Tanzania one of the stomping grounds of the people producing
> pyrethroids (from a small bush)
> http://gomestic.com/gardening/five-plants-that-repel-mosquitoes/
> and
> http://www.beyondpesticides.org/pesticides/factsheets/Synthetic%20Pyrethroid
> s.pdf
> 
> It seems from the latter that pyrethroids have the potential for many other
> unintended consequences. No doubt someone will find in drying briquettes
> something to regulate.
> 
> I fully appreciate the need to make low density briquettes from available
> bio-wastes - I even manufacture a small machine for this purpose but I think
> it is a great idea.  But consider the implications for the objects of
> Cecil's Soc-Anth doctoral research in Motto Grosso.  It is also a little
> humorous to think of him telling people surrounded by fuel to start
> collecting and processing it for their own benefit. They would rather go
> digging for azure-blue honey.
> 
> Could you not add a little chopped pyrethroid bush to the briquette so when
> it burns it kills mozzies? It only takes a pinch and the rooms are well
> ventilated already. Perhaps there is a happy medium.
> 
> Regards
> Crispin
> 
> 
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