[Stoves] GACC Stove Summit is LIVE NOW Thurs

[Ronal W. Larson]

Crispin and list

	Paul Anderson and Ranyee Chiang had messages related to this sequence.  I’ll respond separately to those.

	More below.  New responses labeled with a “ ’ “ prime.


On Nov 22, 2014, at 2:03 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> Dear Ron
>  
> >This is mostly to ask for more data.  
>  
> OK
> >>…LPG is the most expensive…
>             [RWL1:   Nothing like this was stated or implied during the webcast.  Can you provide some cites?
> 
> Cites of what? Is anything contested about this? LPG is a compressed gas sold at a pressure above 4 bars which requires that all aspects of its containment and sale (tanks, hoses etc) meet national or international standards and in the case of tanks (all the large ones) inspection every year by a qualified pressure vessel inspector.

		[RWL1’:  I would have appreciated anything (any cite) in print on cost per MJ, per meal, per year.  I (we all) need numbers on all aspects of LPG.  Anyone?


>  
> South Africa has 28 National standards dealing only with LPG stoves and fuels and distribution equipment. 
>             [RWL1a:   Anything there that should impact the future of what this list should be discussing?  Any specific cite?
>  
> I don’t think so. If you want to go into LPG stoves and fuel supply, bring money. It is not a game for the small player.

		[RWL1a’:  I still am not sure what to believe, until I hear something quantitative.  Anyone?

>  
> ‎Greenhouse gases from charcoal making? Seriously? Is that what caused the 0.001 degree rise in the average global temperature over the past 18 years and one month? We should perhaps recall that wood literally grows on trees and is made of 90% CO2 (on a mass basis). Unharvested, unused wood rots to methane. What is the comparative GHG number?
>             [RWL3:   a)  Are you denying the Kirk Smith claim on char-making providing a lot of (unnecessary) GHGs?   A cite?
>  
> I am not sure what you are after here. I know you to be provocative so I will assume there is nothing behind these questions. The fact is that Water vapour and CO2 and methane are GHG’s. Do you need a citation for that?

		[RWL3a’:  I am after how bad char-making is in the field.  I am pretty sure that Kirk was referring to a lot more than your three GHGs.  Anyone able to say how bad char-making can be?   (See a later note for one source.)  My point here is that GACC should be especially active in discouraging charcoal-using stoves - because of the illegal manner in which most is produced.


>  
>                         b)  The .001 degree needs a cite.  
> I think you can look at the GISS temperature chart at woodfortrees.org. I am sure you are aware of the issue of the lack of an increase in the average global temperature in the past 18 years. It has been talked about since at least 2005.  CO2 goes up, temperature doesn’t. Why? James Hansen promised it would.
	
		[RWL3b1’:  Woodfortrees was basically a useless cite (or maybe someone else can show me the .001 C cite there.)   I urge others to look at  http://www.skepticalscience.com/no-warming-in-16-years.htm, with huge (repeat huge) oceanic temperature rise.  The issue is how much is the imbalance between incoming and outgoing energy - not an 18 year term for surface temperature (that had higher average temperature than any for a long long time).


>  
> Focussing on 18 years air surface temperature for only one of a dozen different energy imbalance measures is not very helpful.  
>  
> Well let’s look at that. What do you mean by ‘helpful’? You mean the inconvenient truth is that CO2 goes up (a lot) and temperature doesn’t is ‘off message’? I am not ‘focussing on 18 years’ I am stating a fact. The global temperature trend, starting now and looking back until the trend is non-zero, comes to 18 years and one month. This is hardly controversial.

		[RWL3b2’:   Point 1:  You ignore the other dozen measurements (Arctic Ice loss, Antarctic ice loss, glacier ice loss, ocean acidity rise, ocean height rise, etc.)   Your approach is called cherry picking.  I repeat that 2014 is predicted to be the highest temperature in the modern record.  I say “not very helpful, because 97% (??) of those qualified to offer expert opinion are saying that there has been no (repeat no) cause for lack of very serious concern.  Only a very few deniers still are claiming that nothing serious is happening.  
	What statement did I make about controversy?


>  
> I see something almost every day on 2014 likely having the highest global temperature in the last 100-150 years.  
>  
> And why not?  It is a fact – the temperature has been rising at a rate of 0.6 degrees per century for about 200 years. The longest period without any rise has been the last 18. This is likely to undermine the value of stove program CO2 offset trading credits, do you agree? The CO2 sensitivity is not what it was assumed to be. I am sure you are aware that the estimated temperature rise for a doubling of CO2 concentration was almost cut in half by the IPCC in February this year. That cut the value of CO2 offsets in half.
>  
> Focussing on the ‘highest global temperatures in 150 years’ is not helpful. The temperature 800 years ago was significantly above what it is now. Focussing on the resins why would by helpful.

		[RWL3b3’;  I consider the “200 years” a really misleading statement - since almost everyone starts the main proof of anthropocentric causation as really starting in 1970, and using what you maybe meant with your cite (http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:60/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:60/plot/hadcrut4gl/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:360/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:360/trend)
	shows 0.6 C just since 1970 (44 years, not 200) and there clearly was a temperature rise pre-1970 also.
	You ask whether I agree about your erroneous statistic influencing stove programs.  I say no way, but it is certain to be a claim by the oil companies and their denier supporters.
	You also state that the temperature 800 years ago (1200’s) was significantly above “what it is now”.  I challenge you to support that number with a cite.  Mine is http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period.htm.  Roughly 1 degree lower than today, when computed over the entire globe.  A plot is at my cite.
	You suggest that focussing on the [sic] reasons would be helpful.  I look forward to that.

	[RWL3b4’  You claim “The longest period without any rise has been the last 18.”   That is a really weird statement,  I suggest you look at the major drop between 1940 and 1970.  And why?  Arguments include more impact of sulfur as coal use grew a lot.  Also maybe more  el ninas rather than el ninos?  Also maybe Atantic Multidecadal Oscillations? (and/or Pacific?).  These all apply to the last 18 year period.  If you provided a cite once in a while, you wouldn’t be making such outlandish statements.


>  
>                         c)  The issue about making char in the field is mostly one of illegality - generally not re-planting.  Are you arguing that present char production is sustainable on average?
>  
> Charcoal production varies in sustainability from place to place. Where is it illegal, generally speaking, it is unsustainable. Where it is legal and regulated, like South Africa, Swaziland, Rwanda and Haiti, it tends to be sustainable. It used to be sustainable in Chad before it was made illegal. Now it isn’t.

			[RWL3c’: Suggesting that Haiti’s char production is sustainable is amazing.  Your cite for that?   I’d appreciate a cite for all four of your countries.  I’ll use Kirk Smith as one reference on how bad char-making is in the field.  Might be legal in a few places, but I’d sure like to have a cite I can read about any place in the world where char-making in the field is sustainable.
	Look at:  http://ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/fennia/article/view/7644
			http://www.harvestfuel.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Moving-Toward-Sustainable-Production-of-Charcoal-in-Sub-Saharan-Africa.pdf   (Table 1 answers some of the questions I asked above about how much worse emissions are than H2O, CO2, and methane.)
		and many more by googling for “unsustainable charcoal production”.


>  
>                         d)   Don’t understand your last question on “comparative GHG number.  Can you rephrase?
>  
> What is it you don’t understand? See the comment above: water vapor, CO2 and methane are GHG’s.

		[RWL3d’  See my reference to Table 1 just above.   Just CO is worse than CO2, and there are many other emissions out in the bush.


> 
> The old saw about 'fan stoves' was discussed here a couple of days ago…
>             [RWL4:    I have heard this from more than Prof.  Smith.  I don’t recall this topic “a couple of days ago”.   Anyone able to give a specific cite?
> 
> Please see the archive here on fan stoves being the only clean way to burn biomass (Kirk says, and has said, for a number of years).

	[RWL4’:  Can anyone help me find an  “archive”  cite for this?  I looked.   



	[RWL5a’:  Crispin has chosen to not respond to my comment #5, which I think give fairly strong rationale for fans.  I said:

[RWL5:  a)  One benefit of a fan stove (at least with TLUDs where is where I see them promoted) is having a fine control on power output.  Especially able to get larger TDRs.  I have heard $ numbers like a $5 increase (the fan/blower itself costing less than $2 for Paul Olivier’s quite low cost system).

	Anyone else have a rationale for stove fans?   Is this above wrong? 



	The next section Crispin commented on was a continuation of part 5, not 4	

>             b)   Being part of the “TLUD crowd”, I have to remind you that being able to sell the produced char is unique in the stove world.  
>  
> There is no need to remind me – I am on the look out for ways to turn that into a viable business. As you probably know I am not really a stoves person, but a microenterprise entrepreneur having created something like 15,000 work rural opportunities. I see selling charcoal as a great business opportunity. I doubt that it can be done by bringing wood to a city and making charcoal and selling it back to a rural community – we have discussed that before. I put numbers on it and challenged you to provide alternatives which you did not. It is unviable.  It may however work by taking agri-waste products and making something to sell. I assume it will work for rural Indonesia where sugar making (not cooking) is a major need for energy. In particular candle nut shells are strong enough when charred to ship a considerable distance.
	[RWL5 b1’:  Another request for anyone to remind me what Crispin is talking about, when saying “I put numbers on it.”  I need a date.  Apologies if I failed to respond.  Maybe you are referring here to a wonderful rebuttal of your views on transporting wood and charcoal by Dr.  Paul Means of Burn Design.  I thought I was pretty clearly supportive of his views.
		There is no evidence that you understand anything about biochar in this response.  Long distance transport is not part of that when we are talking TLUDs.  Candle nuts sound perfect for TLUDs which are producing char for use as biochar.
		My understanding is that the Indonesian stove testing program that you have caused to exist doesn’t even measure the char produced in a TLUD.  Sounds pretty hard to make a char-making stove sale in Indonesia - and this is a stoves list, not sugar making


>  
> Making money is more important than saving money for many of us.  
>  
> That’s possible.

	[RWL5b2’:  Saving money is not part of any stove measurement program I am aware of.  Or even the saving of time when cooking (and time saved can be money earned).  For those in the ISO mod effort going on,  I add these data requests for those who are looking at mods to stove testing programs.  TLUDs are apparently being screwed in the test programs, when the whole element of time used during cooking is not being considered.  Readers who have not seen testing going on would be amazed at how little time is spent away from tending the fire - not even close to the real world.



>  
> Using the char as biochar rather than selling it will make more sense for many (and is now being done in several char-making stove programs.
>  
> I think you will have to show the business case for biochar. Lloyd Helferty is working hard on that in Ontario.

	[RWL5b3’:   Also Nat Mulcahy, Art Donnelly, Paul Anderson (I think) and others.  The business case from my perspective is easy if carbon credits are available for carbon dioxide removal (CDR).  Numerous stove programs are already getting a similar carbon-based subsidy - and deserved - as the users of improved stoves certainly didn’t cause our carbon problem (although of course you deny [above] that there is any such problem).

>  
>             You are perhaps saying that biomass for stoves is in perpetual short supply.  
>  
> I said nothing of the sort. The UNFCCC however has a predisposition that a lot of biomass is ‘unsustainably harvested’. This is not the case in Indonesia virtually everywhere. There are rules for determining whether or not harvesting is sustainable.
	[RWL5b4’:   I want to go on record as agreeing with the UNFCCC.  My understanding is that Indonesia is also a country that many are worried about.  
Can anyone provide a cite to support Crispin’s “virtually everywhere” for Indonesia?   My first cites (plenty available via googling for "deforestation indonesia statistics” ) are
 http://www.redd-monitor.org/2013/12/11/indonesias-rate-of-deforestation-has-doubled-under-the-moratorium/
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/29/rate-of-deforestation-in-indonesia-overtakes-brazil-says-study
	Yes, there are plenty of places talking about sustainable harvesting.  The emphasis on sustainability exists because it ain’t happening in most countries.


>  
> Not true if we start planting instead of stealing feedstock.  The world will be a much better place with a big effort at reforestation.  On can have (must have) both increased stock and increased flows.
>  
> This is easily accomplished on paper and quite difficult to achieve in practice in Africa. The issue is the ownership of land. Otherwise known as land rights. People will not protect land over which they have no control and from which they derive benefit at no cost. See “tragedy of the commons” in the UK.
> 
	[RWL5b5’:   Totally agree.   The main reason that we have mainly unsustainability.  TLUDs with carbon credits can help in this regard - because the credits will depend on proving sustainability. 
	The main reason I am in the stove business is from working for USAID in Sudan - ruined by charcoal production.

  

> >>‎The improved stove sector is being taken over by the LPG and electricity sector. It will involve massive, beyond imagination loans to poor countries for infrastructure and it hinges on saving a claimed 4+ million ‘premature deaths' per year.
>             [RWL6:   This is key.  This is the subject of my next message.  I am not yet ready to agree on “taken over”
>  
> Well, watch this space I guess. The ANSI team at the ISO meeting fought very hard to prevent the name of the Standard not to be changed from Clean Cookstoves and Clean Cooking Solutions, harder on that than anything else actually. Now we know why. They have a plan that goes far beyond improving biomass stoves. At the Guatemala meeting the issue of whether this was a biomass stoves standard (which it was clear most people thought they were working on) or ‘all domestic cooking stoves and all energy supplies’.  It was made perfectly clear by ANSI that they wanted to had a new international standard covering all cooking appliances, including electric induction heaters, hot places, LPG and so on. I am not sure they realised that there are already hundreds of regulations on these appliances. It cause quite a stir in the WG’s.
	[RWL6-1’:   I guess you are accusing the ANSI team of protecting LPG.  I hope others who were there will comment on this accusation.   Given Kirk Smith’s comments on needing to reduce the 4 million annual deaths, I find ANSI’s position on comparative testing to be quite reasonable.
	Even if there are “hundreds of regulations” for LPG devices - I doubt many of them compare LPG and biomass stoves.  Anyone know of any?  I presume “WG” means Working Groups.  Like Paul Anderson,  I hope we can hear from others who were in these WGs.


>  
> or “behind imagination loans”.  But yes the rationale is all on saved lives.  We on this list have not been making the needed case for not  being “taken over.”
>  
> I warned a few weeks ago that there were forces much greater than the biomass stove interest group intent of using the cooking stove vehicle for their own purposes. I only received two (flippant) replies which may indicate the incapacity of this group to affect the future of their own ‘industry’.

	[RWL6-2’:   I hope someone can provide a cite for “few weeks ago”.  I wasn’t listening carefully at last week’s GACC meeting, but I heard nothing sounding like “own purposes”.  There was talk by Kirk and some others about LPG, but the majority of the talk was about biomass stoves.  More on this in my response to Paul’s message today or ASAP.
	But thanks for giving a little data on the ISO meeting  (and to Ranyee for today giving guidance on how to learn more).


> 
> >>How much investment will be required per life saved?  How does this compare with other opportunities to save lives? We will soon find out, I am sure.
>             [RWL7:   I am not aware that anyone has made this investment calculation.  
>  
> If they have not, that is shameful.  How can you spend hundreds of millions of $ without knowing what the payback is? It is akin to spending that sort of money using a test method that has never been reviewed to show that it is telling us what we want to know. As you know, this is particularly upsetting to me as I have had to witness the waste of so much effort by so many people who were sincere and expectant.

	[RWL7-1’:  I don’t know anyone on this list who should take blame - as we never talk of LPG.   But if GACC is listening, I hope they will respond.  From here on is similar to what I want to respond to Paul and Ranyee on - so this #7 response will be short.


>  
> I guess that the sellers of LPG should have little trouble finding the necessary funding - not needed from GACC.  Anyone know?  
>  
> The LPG vendors are not in a viable business situation outside certain particular locations and scale of sales. Outside that, they want subsidies.
	
	[RWL7-2’:  I hope we can get some cites on this.  Suppliers of LPG are part of the largest industry on earth.  I agree they will probably claim a need for subsidies, and there will be plenty of people arguing against more subsidies to any fossil industry.  I will.


>  
> What I remember from the finance part of the discussions was that funding would be heading to stoves, not the ability to add more LPG.  I think LPG burners are quite inexpensive already - and not much need for R&D.  (True?)
>  
> It would be informative for anyone interested in LPG rollouts to look at Egypt, South Africa and Indonesia.  There are very particular circumstances in which it works without subsidy. For general use in a poor population, it is out of the question.

	[RWL7-3’    OK.  Sounds like an important part of the needed study.  I heard nothing on this in the GACC video - which is all I wrote about (and all I am responding to today).


>  
>  The issue seems to be on cost and assuredness of supply.  But I need help here.  Anyone an expert on where the funding is apt to come from if LPG is really a major goal of any country?    
>  
> See above. LPG’s ‘last mile’ is not only the problem of getting a stove to the cook, it is the perpetual problem of getting the full tank the last mile, again and again. It is not legal to take an LPG cylinder in many forms of public transport. The idea that this is a substitute for improved wood stoves is misplaced.
	
	[RWL7-3’:    Possibly so - but Kirk Smith is a very smart scientist and as expert as anyone I know on how bad cook stoves can be.  I’ll wait to hear his part of the story.  I do not consider Kirk an expert on char-making stoves - and especially on how good they can be if they get serious scientific attention.   I am basing my hope in part on Alex English’s statement that his conversion of a moving grate boiler system from natural gas to wood chips lowered the system emissions.  TLUDs can play an unrecognized special role here.


>  
> The average wood-consuming stove user is apparently apt to have more than one stove now.  Having and using a wood-version isn’t going to stop even if LPG stoves are in 100% of all the world’s homes.  There is plenty of work for this list.
>  
> Well, we hope so, but it would not do us any good to support the meme that solid fuels are ‘inherently dirty’ and that LPG is the final solution. It is contradicted by the evidence. Why is this not known in the hallowed halls of Berkeley? Are they not keeping up?

	[RWL7-4’:  I repeat that Berkeley is as good as they get on stove inadequacies.  I don’t know how well they are following char-making stoves.  But we pushing those should acknowledge they certainly are in the model-T stage.  We have a long ways to go.  I’ll be happy when I see the first computer simulation (only needs be of the upper combustion area, with optimized turbulence and swirl) that agrees with experiment.  The combustion journals are full of such detailed simulations - and I still haven’t seen one for anything resembling a TLUD.


>  
>             I am pretty sure that wood-consuming stove proponents will fail if they imply that saving any of the 4 Million lives is not worth the expense.  
>  
> I haven’t heard anyone say the expense is unwarranted. The question is, how much and how much benefit. One of the strangest aspects of this argument in favour of ‘non-solid fuel solutions’ is the assumption that stove emissions have to be vented into the room. In order to improve indoor air quality – add a chimney! Good grief why is this so difficult to imagine?  There are only a few places (very concentrated populations) where IAQ would not be greatly improved by chimneys alone. One does not need ‘a fan stove’ to dramatically reduce exposure to indoor PM.
	
	[RWL7-5’:   More coming on this.  I have seen “solid-fuel”stoves that did not need venting.   Most natural gas stoves in the US are not vented.   My issue is stamping out fossil fueled stoves - especially coal - not “solid-fuels”.


>  
> I doubt many believe that a switch to 100% LPG (or electricity) is going to happen in the near term.  There remain plenty of things on this list to do.
>  
> Agreed. It will not happen soon because it would be a terrible waste of money compared with the other benefits that could be obtained for the same money spent on other health things. Chimneys are not expensive. Is that the problem? Too cheap? Too effective? Too easy?
>  
> We need a frank discussion about this. But not having invited to the table, who will present these options?

	[RWL7-6’   Disagree totally on “terrible waste”.  Most everyone reading this is using natural gas or electricity - for several good reasons.  It is not out of the question to try to do better - with a (char-making) stove type that is already producing wonderful combustible gases (that your system of testing could but doesn’t handle).
	Compared to a stove,  yes - a chimney can be a killer cost.  No reason, in my limited experience with chimneys and hoods to think they are:  “Too cheap? Too effective? Too easy?”
		Ranyee has today invited us into the discussions.  I see no reason to think the dialog is closed.  We should be pleased we have someone as skilled as Ranyee in this ISO process.   More on this next - after reading what she asked us to read.

Ron

>  
> Regards
> Crispin
>  
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