[Stoves] One cent solutions or solutions worth their weight in gold

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Frank

Please consider that you are testing a stove-fuel combination, not only a
fuel. If you fix the device and vary the fuel, fine. But that is not a test
of the fuel's emissions. Stoves produce emissions in combination with the
fuel, not fuels alone, unless there is something inherent in the fuel like
mercury or uranium.

Suppose you tested diesel in 15 different gasoline engines. The differing
emissions will tell you nothing about the potential of diesel until you put
it into a diesel engine. There is nearly no use fixating on how low the
emissions of diesel burning in a gasoline engine can be.

On the other hand, there is no reason not to take an available fuel (natural
or man-made) and develop a stove that can burn it well (like those who
developed much cleaner diesel engines in the past decade). 

I appreciate that one can tune the fuels to have various properties but in
the end, the stove is the thing that has to cope with fuel properties. 

When it comes to TLUD's there is of course no such thing as 'the only type'.
Even if 10 of them work pretty much in the same manner, that is not ruling
out others that are much better and handling certain fuel types.

Stove emissions are not inherent in the fuel. They are the result of the
'product' i.e. (stove x fuel).

In many cases it is far easier to adjust the stove than to adjust the fuel,
Richard's magnificent efforts notwithstanding. Beware.

Regards
Crispin