[Stoves] Fuel and Forestry etc.

[Ronal W. Larson]

Crispin and list:

  I have again added “stoves” back in. Your following is valuable in the discourse presumed for the ETHOS meeting.

 Re #1:  I still think it would be relatively easy to run the tests with a maximum percentage allocation of time specified by the manufacturer (and reported).  At the present time, I discount any test that doesn’t tell me something about time involvement.  Another approach is to just have the tester report the percent time away from the stove.

Re #2:  We are talking here about a “Consumer Report” issue.  Until something better is reported, the stove report could include anything about lifetime warranties (or left blank if none exists.  I hear about stove lifetime of a few months.  A valid stove test should include something - even an estimate of lifetime.

Re #3:  I still think stove testers could add something on expenses - even if for only one hypothetical set of fuel and char prices  (but a simple Nomagram chart or two could do the job.  If you don’t know an annual costing, a test report user is flying in the dark.

Re the CBD - thanks.  I will try to get to it.  I can sort of understand rules to protect forests, but plugging LPG seems weird.    Better to turn the non-renewable biomass renewable.

Ron


On Jan 23, 2014, at 3:43 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Ron
>  
> Very good questions, and the Social Science people were really on top of those things. You would be impressed with the list of issues they raised.
>  
>    1.  Time spent tending the fire.  Maybe report test results for emissions and efficiency with different allowed times for tending?  Of course trying to bracket what happens in the real world.  My observations on the present test procedures is that they are unrealistic by encouraging no departure from adjusting the fuel.  How do your test procedures (now or projected) handle this issue?
>  
> Because the stove tests conducted in the lab are done quite ‘attentively’ we are not in a position to measure our own performance – that’s unfair. However things like the attention requirement (and fuel preparation time which you didn’t mention) are evaluated during focus groups. This is not a chase for a number, it is an assessment of whether the cooks, when using the new stoves, are bothered (or not) by how the stove runs. This means that an increase in attention time might be more than offset by some highly desirable feature. Instead of trying to put numbers on everything, we just ask them what they think about the stove and what it is like to cook on. They can rate things from 1-5 and Cecil produced a spider chart of features which was in fact very useful for visually determining what people though, overall, about a stove.
>  
> So the short answer is that Acceptance-related questions are addressed in focus groups.
>  
>    2.   Some measure of expected stove lifetime.  (maybe both years and cycles)
>  
> This is notoriously difficult. One way that works (so far) and was tried successfully in Mongolia is the producer is told that the stove must last x-years and they have to guarantee them, replacing broken parts for free. Then we are not tasked with testing durability at all. It becomes instead something guaranteed by the manufacturer or distributor.
>  
>    3.   Annual cost of cooking with a particular stove.  This to include lifetime, efficiency, and the sale of char.  Maybe a way to include also health impacts?
>  
> We are not in a position to determine this, though projects are. In other words, it is not a matter for the test lab which just measures things. We would be able to provide all the numbers upon which such a calculation is based. Because local circumstances have very different economics there is really no point in the lab doing it. Simon Bell, the small industries coordinator, would take that up with the market aggregators who are creating the distributions chains.
>  
> Please see also my message to Candela as it contains discussion about char and offset calculations that are relevant to your interests.
>  
> Regards
> Crispin

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