[Stoves] cook stoves for Cameroon

[Ronal W. Larson]

Crispin cc stoves:

	I find nothing believable in any part of this message.  Can you supply a cite or two?


	That is - which char-making stove was being used for food storage?  Where?

	That is - what document have your read that said slash and burn produces “masses of char”?  I read something very different on Dr.  Christoff Steiner’s biochar.com site, where he strongly promotes slash and char instead.  I recall 20-25% vs 1-2%.

	That is - where did you ever read that replacing slash and burn in favor of slash and char “will produce starvation”?  Or you’ve seen it personally where?

	That is - where did you read that slash and burn produced the Terra Preta soils?  

	That is - how do you explain slash and burn is practiced all over the world - and almost none have soils similar to the Terra Preta soils.  Where do you know that good anthropocentric soil exists that was from slash and burn - and not slash and char?  Japan?

	That is -  can you (or Cecil) supply the published work you claim he observed?  Where in the Amazon?  While at it, remind Cecil he promised something to me on this list about half a year ago on his recent stove survey work.  I am still anxious to know whether the survey asked users whether they would like to make money while cooking?  And whether they would prefer to leave the stove for half an hour or more at a time?   

	That is - can you cite anything from the modern published work on reproducing Terra Preta soils in Brazil (not elsewhere) by Cornell’s Dr.  Johannes Lehmann, and his students Drs.  Julie Major and Christoph Steiner?  Or of anyone?  (You can find dozens of Lehmann related papers free at http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/publications/index.html

	That is (verily) - how many biochar papers have your read to support your view that there is no proof on char’s effectiveness in soil?  Anything by Nat Mulcahy of World Stoves?  How about reports put out by Cool Planet - or hundreds of papers at dozens of biochar conferences?

	That is - you have seen two char-making stoves that outperform three stone fires - which were they and by how much?. Have your read on this list within the last month of the Kirk Harris TLUD stove - that had apparently the best stove performance that Aprovecho ever tested?  (plenty of turn down ratio, high efficiency, low emissions, etc.).  Probably a stove failure in your mind because it is too small to sit on.

	That is - which are the stoves you have found that have performed better than TLUDs?

	In case anyone missed my point - I found nothing below of value to the discussion trying to help  Huck Rorick and the Cameroon.  I can’t prove it, but I suspect Crispin haven’t tested any TLUDs - since they clearly would all fail the test procedures you have proposed in your CSI work.  If f I were a TLUD producer, I would certainly not submit one for testing knowing the char would not even be weighed.  Perhaps Crispin can prove me wrong on this last point by sharing the results of a few TLUD tests he has made or caused to be made.

	Lastly, if anyone can explain Crispin’s antipathy to charcoal making stoves (while he has supported illegal char production in the bush for job creation reasons), I would be most appreciative of hearing.  Off list is fine.

Ron



On Sep 18, 2014, at 1:23 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> Dear Philip
>  
> “I said that stoves which were intended to be used for cooking that then wasted a lot of the fuel as char would probably be thrown away.”
>  
> Observation has it that they make good stools and food storage containers. The Rocketworx stove from Durban has a dished bottom for exactly that purpose. When it is not in use it is a good stool.
>  
> >Perhaps you can change people’s habits enough for them to want to make char. 
>   
> People practicing slash and burn agriculture already produce masses of char which is created by burning stumps. They char well into the ground. No digging , far more char than a stove will ever produce and it is part of the current indigenous practice.
>  
> Giving up slash and burn agriculture will produce starvation. The soils are poor as the nutrients are all in the canopy. Slash and burn created the terra preta soils along the Amazon river over a period of 20,000 years – about 0.1mm per year. Cecil Cook, who studied one of the Amerindian tribes in Brazil, says the soil patches which were used for slash and burn are the most productive because they were already the most productive – not that they were unproductive and then made productive by adding charcoal. The char is a consequence of slash and burn. Whether it helps or not is highly debatable which is why there are so many claims and so little evidence. We all, verily, wait patiently for proof of concept – that stove can improve the soil.
>  
> >Perhaps they will want to sell the residue as fuel, or add it to their land to improve the soil. But these are big ‘perhaps’, and, given the effort most users of fuelwood have to go to in both rural and urban settings to acquire fuel, I have grave reservations – backed up by some experience.
>  
> It is more likely that people will try a new wood burning stove than that they will transform their living and farming systems to accommodate stoves that require more fuel than their open fire. I have fortunately seen recently two stoves that both make char and outperform, on a mass consumed basis, open fires. That is indeed progress.
>  
> It is also good to note that there are a few stoves around (not all TLUD’s and not all chopped fuel burners) that are as clean as fan stoves, with good power control and CSI 3-Star performance for PM and CO. There has been a lot of progress in the past three years.
>  
> Regards
> Crispin in Auroville (what an amazing place)
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