[Stoves] more on ocean acidification

Sat Aug 10 10:20:21 CDT 2013

Paul,

In your responses below who are “we” and what resources do “we” have to accomplish the goals that we put forward in this discussion? We are not playing God here. Nor do we have the resources needed to carry out sweeping solutions. “We” are many individuals, organizations and institutions attempting to improve health and the environment. 

GACC is only one of those organizations. Even though GACC has more resources than most the budget is well short of what is needed to solve the problems that we identify and attempt to solve. GACC should be seen as a coordinating and networking organization that has limited resources to follow a defined strategy. You will find the strategy that GACC is attempting to follow in an 89 slide presentation on their website. http://tinyurl.com/ke4fyms The GACC website is still very “clunky” at best but it does contain answers to the questions you pose. I know that it is easier to put a question on a list rather than study anything but you just need to be willing to wade through it. 

As you look at the GACC information recognize that it is only one organization and it does have limited resources (personnel, budget etc.). Like its predecessor, PCIA, it attempts to network participants in stoves development and dissemination worldwide. They attempt to leverage the efforts of the thousands of us who never have, and probably never will,  receive funding from GACC or its predecessors. I suspect that you are in that category. Let’s make use of, and help direct, what they have to offer.  GACC is a participant in this discussion and welcomes constructive suggestions and criticism. 

During the development of GACC the UN Foundation invited about 30-40 of us to participate in a Fuels task subgroup that spent weeks online and on conference calls attempting to formulate strategies for GACC to follow with regard to fuels. I hosted and coordinated that group. Initially many of us who primarily work with solar or biomass resisted the idea of including  fossil fuel, but the practical reality is that we need to address all fuels – solid , liquid and gaseous -  to find ways to use them safely and efficiently. We concluded that regardless of the distribution of solar or biomass resources we also need to make the use of fossil fuel cooking appliances healthier and more efficient. 

A note on acidification. Our estuaries in the Pacific northwest have become acidic, or at least less alkaline, so much that shellfish are significantly affected. Oysters must be raised in artificial basins until their shells are hard enough to withstand the acidity of the ocean. This was reported for the Chesapeake Bay and other areas a few year ago. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130509154600.htm

If you don’t like what’s going on in health and the environment then don’t just complain about it, do what you can to change it. That’s why I host this list.     

Tom

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Paul Olivier
Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2013 12:14 AM
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] more on ocean acidification

See comments below.

On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 10:45 AM, Tom Miles <tmiles at trmiles.com> wrote:

Paul,

Perhaps you missed the discussion late last year when a major study including BC was issued. Tami Bond, one of our number and a co-author, made a presentation for us at ETHOS in January. There is no question that BC is a major concern for “climate disruption” and health. It is not either biomass or fossil fuels. Improvement is needed for both. 

I did not frame the issue in either-or terms. But should we be burning coal to cook a meal in areas where biomass is abundant? Should we be trying to improve and promote coal stoves in areas where biomass stoves make a lot more sense in terms of global warming?

Tami’s notes for her Saturday evening Keynote address including the Dec 2012 study reference are at: http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/ethos/proceedings2013.html

The study was, “A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010.” Lim et. al December 2012. 

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2812%2961766-8/abstract

Household air pollution from solid fuels is listed in the comparative risk assessment as #4 globally. Tami  described the BC impacts of kerosene and biomass and the impact of stove design on the evolution of BC and its persistence in the atmosphere. 

I will ignore your disparaging remarks about GACC. The reality is that we are all GACC. 

I asked a question about the policy focus of the GACC with no intention of being disparaging. I asked this question because I am left with the impression that the main focus of the GACC is the health of a cook as she cooks a meal. Hopefully I am wrong. If all poor people in the world could afford bottled gas through a series of national or international subsidies, would the mission of the GACC be fulfilled? Does the GACC put the use of fossil fuels such as coal on the same footing as the use of biomass fuels such as rice hulls? Would a clean-burning coal stove in the eyes of the GACC be just as acceptable as a clean-burning biomass stove in areas where both coal and rice hulls are available? Also what is the policy of the GACC with regard to biochar? If biochar is not combusted in a stove but incorporated into the soil, would this be understood by the GACC as a huge inefficiency in the transfer of heat to a pot?

We should be mutually supporting individual and collective efforts to  solve the myriad of issues to the extent that we can. 

I am happy to support whatever makes sense in terms of both human health and the health of the environment. What is the position of the GACC with regard to global warming, climate change, and ocean acidification, and how does their position with regard to these important issues impact their choice of the stoves they seek to promote?

Many thanks.

Paul

Tom

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Paul Olivier
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2013 7:59 PM

To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] more on ocean acidification

Tom,

Please explain a bit more why you raise the question of black carbon? Do you do so mainly from the point of view of human health? Or do you have other environmental considerations in mind? As you know, many scientists maintain that black carbon warms the earth. Are you not going in the direction of another contentious issue that some might consider to be unrelated to stove design?

Many parts of China have both coal and biomass. In such areas should we try to develop more efficient coal stoves? Or should we try to put a lot more emphasis on biomass stoves? Would it not make sense to develop stoves that are low in black carbon and at the same time do not create CO2 from non-renewable sources such as coal? Does the GACC ask such broad questions? Or does it operate out of sort of philosophical vacuum where issues like black carbon, global warming and ocean acidification are unrelated to stove design?

Let us imagine an area in China where there is no biomass at all: no rice hulls, no rice straw, no agricultural or forestry residue of any kind. And let us suppose that in this barren landscape there is nothing but coal. Here I concede that it makes sense to focus attention on developing more efficient coal stoves.

Many thanks.

Paul

On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 8:52 AM, Tom Miles <tmiles at trmiles.com> wrote:

Black Carbon (BC) is a another compelling and totally related reason for developing improved biomass and fossil fuel stoves. A study published yesterday estimates that more the 80% of black carbon from China is from fossil fuels. A significant portion of that is from coal burning stoves. They recommend developing more efficient coal stoves. These tasks are all relevant and identified as part of the strategic work plan of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC).

Tom

Source Forensics of Black Carbon Aerosols from China Bing Chen, August Andersson, Meehye Lee, Elena N. Kirillova, Qianfen Xiao, Martin Kruså, Meinan Shi, Ke Hu, Zifeng Lu, David G. Streets, Ke Du and Örjan Gustafsson Environ. Sci. Technol., Article ASAP

DOI: 10.1021/es401599r

Publication Date (Web): August 08, 2013

Copyright © 2013, American Chemical Society http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es401599r

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Paul Olivier
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2013 6:42 PM

To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] more on ocean acidification

Dean,

Are you saying that topics relating to global warming, ocean acidification and the benefits of biochar do not influence how we go about designing stoves? Should they be biomass stoves or fossil fuel stoves? Do we place all on a equal footing as long as they are clean-burning? If we build biomass stoves, should these stove be burning or producing biochar? How can we design a stoves in a theoretical vacuum?

Thanks.

Paul Olivier

On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 7:15 AM, Dean Still <deankstill at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear All,

I'd like to remind the List that the moderator has politely asked that we return to the topic of stoves. 

Best,

Dean

On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 3:48 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Ron

I was going to reply but after subtracting the ad homina, speculations, straw men and loose assertions there was nothing left in the message. 

The problem you will continue to have with me is I have read the ‘Skeptical Science’ playbook on how to handle skeptical criticisms of AGW. It was a document put together by the Team (as you know) and promoted to the compliant as a way to communicate – a style, if you will – of how to handle people who were ‘off message’. 

There is actually a new one issued by some political group in the USA which I read this past week. It is pages long.  It includes specific instructions for example to always mention ‘climate disruption’ as it is harder to dispute and refute than ‘global warming’ now that there isn’t any. It suggests ways to undermine and weaken the appeal of speakers who are presenting contrary evidence that undermines the catastrophic side of AGW (can’t have that). The vast majority of CAGW skeptics concede a human role in global warming, but assert that it is tiny and to date, undetectable. The instructions are to try to try to paint skeptics as ‘denying’ all human influence on the planet then offers various pejorative comparisons that can be made so as to cause consternation for the skeptic or those listening to them.

The instructions from your buddies at SkS include always pooh-poohing the credentials of any author cited, always trying to paint the skeptical correspondent as ‘alone’ in their understanding, always insert some mention of how settled things are with the ‘majority’ of ‘reputable’ scientists and so on and on. We have seen it all before.  

You are quite good at following the party line but it does not (at all) address the fact that there is no such thing as ‘acidifying the ocean’ when the number of anions is reduced through a process called neutralisation so it is less alkaline. I will not matter if my mother ‘wears army boots’. Facts are facts. Peer-reviewed bunk is still bunk. As you will have noticed by now I am completely unimpressed by Letters1.

As the CAGW fear-mongering system falls apart country after country is bailing out. 

As Fred says (I cannot say it better myself): 

“…hundreds of billions of Euros have been squandered, wasted, flushed down the Great Greenie Composting Toilet because Public Policy in Europe was highjacked by a group of political power craving environmentalists and grubby, funding desperate scientists who realized their First Class ticket on the Fame and Gravy train could be realized by abject fear mongering about human influences on the climate.

“A disgraceful period in human history, one that will not be treated well by future historians.

Think of how much human good, human happiness that money could have purchased. 

“Think of how much real science, not the frothed up, torqued up, glued together hockey sticks or photo shopped polar bear pictures that currently disgraces the scientific community could have taken place if the science funding had not been hijacked by a small gang of morally vacuous scientists that are only good at creating hysteria and performing kindergarten level research.”

Kindergarten level research. What have I been calling for over the past 6 years with respect to stove testing?  Surely everyone knows by now. I am calling for the peer review, the independent assessment of stove test protocols so that they are validated and the results they give can be believed.  The resistance to this at every level has been amazing and not without consequence. 

For one, I have learned never to trust that a spreadsheet has no errors in it. I compliment whoever is working on the PEMS hood spreadsheet. The April 2013 version contains more than 100 fewer systematic errors that the 2010 version. But is still has not been independently reviewed.

WBT 4.xx has not been independently reviewed for precision, accuracy and conceptual relevance.

Now Ron, you have been most vociferous about how this or that aspect of climate science information has been brought forward in articles that ‘were not peer reviewed’ even if they were true. How about giving up on trying to humiliate and marginalise me on this list (or elsewhere – who knows) and put your energy into demanding that the GACC, the WB, the EPA, the Universities of Illinois, Colorado and Berkeley and anywhere else submit their protocols to competent authorities for independent review?  Actually the WB has its project protocols reviewed…well, they should continue to do so.

The stoves world is awash in bad test results and invalid claims and money trading hands on the basis of them.   We cannot change things overnight, but by implementing this rule that you favour so highly a major contribution to the field of domestic energy can be attained.

It will not matter (here) if there is a record short summer in the Arctic <http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/08/according-to-this-dmi-temperature-plot-the-arctic-has-dropped-below-freezing-about-two-weeks-early/#more-91293>  or photos of stack emissions are faked <https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NOv_4-KeeKI>  or SkS takes in on the chin with a Godwins Law parody <http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/07/inside-the-skeptical-science-secret-tree-house-bunker/#more-91202>  or even if US winter temperatures continue to plunge <http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image15.png> . 

I don’t like trumped up CAGW claims about what ‘it causes <http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm> ’. I don’t like trumped up or trumped down stove performance results.

Let’s work together and bring some proper science and engineering to the planet of stoves. I know you’ll want to help. We all do.

Thanks
Crispin

1 For those who do not know what this means, it is English for ‘letters after your name’ signifying formal recognition of capacity, knowledge and /or authority. Examples are BA, P.Eng etc.

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-- 
Paul A. Olivier PhD
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Dalat
Vietnam

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-- 
Paul A. Olivier PhD
26/5 Phu Dong Thien Vuong
Dalat
Vietnam

Louisiana telephone: 1-337-447-4124 (rings Vietnam)
Mobile: 090-694-1573 (in Vietnam)
Skype address: Xpolivier
http://www.esrla.com/ 

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-- 
Paul A. Olivier PhD
26/5 Phu Dong Thien Vuong
Dalat
Vietnam

Louisiana telephone: 1-337-447-4124 (rings Vietnam)
Mobile: 090-694-1573 (in Vietnam)
Skype address: Xpolivier
http://www.esrla.com/ 

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