[Stoves] Joburg city news: Improved stoves for traders

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

From: James Robinson [jamesrobinson77 at gmail.com] 

http://www.joburg.org.za/index.php?option=com_content
<http://www.joburg.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6838&
catid=88&Itemid=266> &view=article&id=6838&catid=88&Itemid=266

 

This article is typical of how the main stream media treat technical issues
for popular consumption. Unfortunately it is slightly inaccurate to the
point of being misleading, even dangerous.

 

"These imbawulas will help us a great deal because they do not produce
poisonous gases [like] the normal imbawulas. The good thing about these
imbawulas is that they burn faster, so this means we will be able to serve
our customers quickly," said Mashele.



This is likely to be interpreted by readers to mean that carbon-monoxide is
not produced by the imbawula (mbaula) which is definitely not the case. As
so many people are poisoned by CO each year, the interpretation might be
good for the stove business or product adoption, but people will probably
think they can use the device indoors with closed windows.

 

There is also some confusion about the word 'carbon'. It reads, ".stoves,
that cut poisonous carbon emissions" meaning that 'carbon emitted is
poisonous'. This of course refers both to the CO but also to the
oft-repeated meme the carbon dioxide is a 'pollutant' and therefore must be
'poisonous'. Oh well.  Obviously they mean carbon-monoxide which is
poisonous, but they then indicate it doesn't produce any. Arghh!

 

There is a link at the bottom of the page to
http://www.joburg.org.za/index.php?option=com_content
<http://www.joburg.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4308&
catid=120&Itemid=201> &view=article&id=4308&catid=120&Itemid=201 which is
the Basa Njengo Magogo fire lighting method page. James Robinson and Vinny
Molapo have done quite a bit of work measuring the emissions improved
mbaulas (emabaula) and there are reliable methods that produce relative
reductions in CO and PM2.5 both with the BNJ lighting method (almost a TLUD)
and better air hole placement.

 

Regards

Crispin

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20110711/8c72515e/attachment.html>