[Stoves] Fwd: [geo] Fwd: Scary tipping points

[Ronal W. Larson]

Lists:

	This message I just sent to a different list could be of interest to the other two lists where I place most of my time.

	Thoughts on how biomass stove cooking, biochar, electricity, and solar may all work out in the next few decades?

Ron


Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Ronal W. Larson" <rongretlarson at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: [geo] Fwd: Scary tipping points
> Date: August 23, 2014 at 12:42:16 PM MDT
> To: Andrew Lockley <andrew.lockley at gmail.com>, Geoengineering <geoengineering at googlegroups.com>
> 
> Andrew and list
> 
> 	1.  I found Andrew’s first mention on “scary tipping points” interesting, but was not going to respond until Andrew turned the subject to cookstoves.  Because of my long term interest in PV,  however, I earlier sought and found the Telegraph’s (July 28, 2014) base material from Citigroup:  
> 	http://tecsol.blogs.com/files/citi--rapport-%C3%A9nergie-08-14.pdf
> The 10% of that report on PV is backed up by a much longer 2013 PV article by same author:
> https://ir.citi.com/2kNY%2bEwkqKWZyfvy2LsQnHjRB5MYkqf8duslCBaL1XHgDsHFitjI4A%3d%3d
> 	I support Citi’s very positive view that solar (mostly PV) is (finally) happening rapidly.  I support Mark’s view (below) that this is positive - not a “Geo” problem.
> 
> 	2.   Re stoves:  Andrew said today in part:  “…cooking stoves, …..  a big source of BC and won’t be affected by a transition to solar.”
> As a first moderator of a now 19-year-old (biomass) cooking stoves list, I feel a need to respond (only here from a “Geo” perspective):   First, it is true that the BC contribution from stoves is big, but that from diesel trucks is considerably larger.  Both sources need to be improved and can be.  Biomass cook stoves have the advantage of avoiding fossil emissions - which is good.  But most are harmful in a public health sense (almost 4 million stove-causedt deaths a year) and the production of charcoal for cooking is rapidly ruining many of the world’s natural forests (illegally generally).
> 
> 	There is a growing use of charcoal-making stoves - with a major reason for that growth a “Geo” reason - char placed in soil (biochar) is a CDR technology.  This can possibly lead to a wedge - but we still haven’t got real growth started there.  Design improvements appear regularly and there is still hope - as such stoves certainly save time and can conceivably save money for cooking - a major expense for the very poor.  Their main disadvantage is they are batch.
> 
> 	3.  The main reason for this note though is to pick up on the last part of Andrew’s short remark.  That is - there very well could be a cook stove transition to solar.  This topic obviously is of interest to the stove community, but should be for all of us, since half the world is cooking on inefficient stoves and that needs change.  The last part of my message is an August 8 Science editorial on Andrew’s solar/cooking topic, by Berkeley Prof. Kirk Smith (who I have visited several times).  It is included below in full, quoting from Kirk’s own blog this month.
> 
> 	Before going to that blog and Kirk’s Science editorial (actually two are below), let me offer several observations - based on my overlapping interests in stoves and climate:  
> 
> 	-  Most biomass cook stove users cannot now afford solar (or other) electricity for lighting or cell-phone charging - usages that can be solved with a few watts.  Cooking will require at least hundreds of watts.  Subsidies may well be appropriate (advocated by Kirk), but they seem unlikely in most countries.  This is to say that cooking with biomass is apt to be with us a long time - mostly for economic reasons.  
> 
> 	-  More attention should be on solar cookers - less costly and better than any cooking alternative - in a climate sense.  As with solar electricity, there is an intermittency issue, but we should be developing and encouraging hybrid approaches, using solar whenever possible, but not solely.  (Big international solar cooking conference in Sacramento a month ago.)
> 	
> 	-  Cooking with liquid fuels is another important option. These need not be fossil.  Some can be made with charcoal (for “Geo” purposes).  See the second Kirk Smith 2002 editorial (below) on this fuel side of cooking (Kirk has changed his focus - but not his very worthy motivations).  The company “Cool Planet” has a potential fuel/biochar role here.
> 
> 	-  I am hoping that char-making stoves will help show the “Geo” sequestration advantages of biochar - and thereby advance multiple wedges.  So, if subsidies appear for remote electric cooking to replace biomass cooking, I urge the same for “Geo” approaches to cooking (that will mostly have a biochar character).
> 
> 	-   Kirk is urging electricity, not solar electricity.  But solar electricity is by far the cheapest approach for small amounts of electricity and cheapest in many developing countries for large-scale electricity.  Biomass is apt to be cheaper than solar when emphasis needs to be on 24-hour availability, ability to follow load, and costs.  There is reason to believe that generating electricity using a biomass pyrolysis approach can be cheaper than a combustion approach - especially if we factor in the global need for CDR.  PV has many proponents (including me) for climate reasons - but none I know of for CDR.
> 
> 	-  In sum, I am suggesting here that Prof. Smith has overlooked a possible strong competitor to replacing cooking via biomass by cooking with electricity: charcoal-making (CDR) stoves.
> 
> Ron
> 
> Apologies for length, but this seems to be a new topic.  The remainder of my portion of this note is from Prof. Smith:
> 
> 
> Every Year of the Horse, it seems, I publish an editorial in Science.  The second in the series came out today -- In Praise of Power -- why electric cooking needs to be part of the strategy for reducing the health impacts of household air pollution from solid cookfuels in poor countries.  And, conversely, how considering the associated health benefits would greatly expand the benefit package used to justify electrification investments in poor countries.    This includes more conventional electric cooking appliances, such as the rice cooker and hot water pot, but also leap frog technologies, namely induction cookstoves.  Not clear yet how much they can penetrate into rural areas as electricity becomes reliable, but recent evidence in India and China indicates the potential may be great.  
> 
> This follows my 2002 editorial, attached, In Praise of Petroleum, which made the same point about LPG that provision of clean cooking services to the poor with fossil fuels would have a minimal impact on greenhouse gas emissions globally, and potentially immense health benefits.
> 
> Below is the new editorial, which can be downloaded in full from the website below.  As always with such venues, the editors take many liberties with the text and I hope you find the result at least coherent.  (for example, they added the question mark to the title of the previous one, it actually coming out as "In Praise of Petroleum?"   At least they did not do so this time, but they did refuse to reference the old one for some unfathomable reason.)  I also apologize that they do not allow acknowledgements of those who provided comments on previous drafts.  And only a minimum of citations.  Thanks to those of you that provided comments and have done some of the work related to this that was cited in my original.
> 
> Best/k
> In praise of power
> – Kirk R. Smith, Science, vol  345: 603, Aug 8, 2014
> 
> The importance of energy for development is underscored by the United Nations declaration of
> 2014 to 2024 as the Decade of Sustainable Energy
> for All. Among the goals is to provide universal
> access to electricity and clean cooking. Each
> laudable in itself, the two goals actually overlap.
> About 2.8 billion people in developing countries
> rely on biomass for cooking, a number that has
> not changed in 25 years. The consequence of the resulting
> pollution is an estimated 3.9 million premature
> deaths annually. Over the decades, development
> organizations have focused on improving the efficiency
> of cookstoves that use local biomass fuels, and more
> recently on trying to reduce the resulting exposure
> to household air pollution. However, it
> is extremely difficult to burn biomass cleanly enough to meet guidelines to protect health.
> 
> To supply the 1.4 billion
> who do not have access to
> electricity, most attention
> has focused on supporting
> relatively small, albeit
> critical, household uses,
> particularly lighting, but
> there are other important
> benefits. It is sometimes
> ignored that electricity
> is part of the solution for
> clean cooking. In the rich
> world, electric cooking
> devices include a wide
> range of appliances that are starting to appear in poor
> areas, such as rice cookers, water pots, microwaves, and
> specialized devices often tailored to local foods. These
> do common tasks conveniently and efficiently with no
> household pollution, and can be expected to become increasingly
> important as electrification progresses. Rice
> cooker production in China, for example, has grown
> annually at more than 20% over 15 years.
> 
> The availability of inexpensive portable induction
> cookstoves—a leapfrog technology that is safer and
> more efficient than traditional electric or gas stoves—is
> shifting the balance more toward electric cooking. This
> is occurring mainly in cities because of cost and power
> availability, but these constraints are changing as electrification
> expands and prices for induction stoves fall with
> scale. In India, more than 20 domestic and international
> companies are selling these stoves, and the projected
> growth rate is 35% a year for the next 5 years; in China,
> annual sales are more than 40 million.
> 
> More must be done to boost the growth rate of electric
> cooking, such as targeted subsidies and the development
> of appliances that are designed and priced for rural areas.
> Ecuador, for example, is working to install induction
> stoves in every household in the country. Along with advanced
> biomass combustion, biogas, liquefied petroleum
> gas, natural gas, and other clean fuels, electric cooking
> needs to be directly incorporated into modernization
> plans for the world’s
> poorest people.
> 
> For those worried about CO2 emissions from power plants,
> consider that modest
> efficiency measures that
> reduce 3% of electric
> power consumption in
> rich countries (which
> are also largely supplied
> by coal) would “free”
> enough electricity to
> supply half of all biomass
> households with induction
> stoves. New supplies
> of electricity would produce
> far less than a 1%
> increase in global CO2
> emissions.* It is not the
> cooking of the poor that
> threatens the climate.
> 
> Switching from solid to clean forms of energy can bring
> more health benefits than nearly any other modernization,
> including clean water and sanitation.† It is too early
> to tell whether induction cooking can be successfully promoted
> in biomass-using rural areas, but not too early to
> predict that electric cooking appliances will be attractive
> to people as electricity becomes more reliable. Although
> in one sense the most mundane of energy issues, given
> that billions do not use modern fuels in their households
> and suffer great impacts on health, welfare, and the local
> environment as a result, finding solutions for providing
> electricity has important implications for global health
> and sustainable development.
> 
> Kirk R. Smith is a professor of Global
> Environmental Health at the
> University of California,
> Berkeley, and
> a visiting professor in the
> 111 Program at Peking University.
> 
> ---------------------------
> 
> Kirk R. Smith, MPH, PhD
> Professor of Global Environmental Health
> Director of the Global Health and Environment Program
> School of Public Health
> 747 University Hall
> University of California
> Berkeley, California, 94720-7360
> phone 1-510-643-0793; fax 642-5815
> krksmith at berkeley.edu
> http://ehs.sph.berkeley.edu/krsmith/
> 
> 
> 
> To unsubscribe from this list go to:https://calmail.berkeley.edu/manage/list/reminder/climate@lists.berkeley.edu
> 
> https://ir.citi.com/2kNY%2bEwkqKWZyfvy2LsQnHjRB5MYkqf8duslCBaL1XHgDsHFitjI4A%3d%3d
> 
> On Aug 23, 2014, at 7:15 AM, Andrew Lockley <andrew.lockley at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Forwarded at Mark's request.
>> 
>> The rebuttal is interesting, but doesn't directly consider the issue of cooking stoves, which are a big source of BC and won't be affected by a transition to solar.
>> 
>> A
>> 
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: "Lawrence, Mark" <Mark.Lawrence at iass-potsdam.de>
>> Date: 23 Aug 2014 14:32
>> Subject: Scary tipping points
>> To: "andrew.lockley at gmail.com" <andrew.lockley at gmail.com>
>> Cc: 
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Hi Andrew,
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> I read your post “The scary tipping point nobody talks about here” on the Google Groups discussion.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Your concern is that once we switch from fossil fuels to solar, we will suddenly no longer have the emissions of SO2 which are contributing to the current “masking” cooling effect (which is of the same rough magnitude, but in the opposite direction, as enhanced CO2 since pre-industrial times).
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> This is a valid concern.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> However, at the same time, there are other short-lived climate-forcing pollutants besides SO2, which warm instead of cooling. In particular, black carbon (in soot), methane and ozone add up to a total warming which is comparable to CO2 (and thus offsets the planetary mean of aerosol particle direct and indirect cooling). A lot of soot and other SLCPs comes from diesel buses and trucks, and from biofuel and biomass burning, and in some places still from power plants, and of course major sources of methane are leakage and emissions during coal and oil mining.  All of these should also get replaced by solar, so that we should simultaneously see a reduction in the warming by the other SLCPs, which on a planetary average will roughly balance the “unmasked” warming due to reduced SO2 emissions.  (Of course these are regionally differing, so it is only the planetary average that is balanced, but while the total global warming is still < 1C, that’s not going to be very noticeable in weather patterns in most places.)
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> So we can confidently and comfortably head towards the “solar power revolution” that you envision without worrying about it causing a sudden call for SRM implementation.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> I hope that helps clarify things.   I would appreciate if you could post this on the google groups on my behalf (I have misplaced my password and am leaving for vacation tomorrow).
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Thanks for your contributions at the CEC14,
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> --mark
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
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> 

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