[Stoves] Regenerative Capitalism (Jock Gill)

[Frank Shields]

Dear Crispin and Stovers,

Crispin writes:

> Which is the most important, the most significant, the most influential factor creating the final products? The cook. 

The process goes like this:

1) The cook tells the stove designer what they want.
2) The designer makes the stove to do what the cook wants.
3) The lab helps the designer with gap measurements, suggested materials that will work the best etc.
4) The lab tests all the stoves for the purpose of determining the ones that will work best for the cooks at a site.
5) The finished stove that will do what the cook requests will come with instructions and, perhaps, a recipe book. Then the individual skills of the cooks take over. 

The only job of the cook is to tell the designer what they want. Then all is left to the designer and the lab (scientist) to make what the cook wants. If the cook likes the stove the process went well.  If we bring the cook into the picture after they have told the designer what they want then we are bringing in another -huge- unnecessary variable we must get control of. To get control of it we will need lots of cooks (N values) to use in testing each of the stoves being developed. 

If the final product fails or is not widely accepted by the cooks then it means there was a lack of communication between the cook and the designer. Perhaps the cook likes food cooked in a smoky environment. Then the designer must design a stove where that will happen in a safe manner. But if we bring the cooks back into the testing part of stove development we make the process unmanageable and a lot of stove designers will have stoves that will not see the light of day.    To be able to keep the cooks out of the process after they have told the designer what they want we need do a lot of work on Step 4 above. And that process starts with understanding the biomass they use as fuel. 

Regards

Frank








Frank Shields
franke at cruzio.com


> On May 31, 2015, at 12:07 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Stovers and Discussants (if you are not stovers)
>  
> Samer indirectly asks if this: “…centric approach serves the 'poor' or the 'environment'.”
>  
> Consider this: steel sheeting is made without no anticipation of the products that will be formed from it.
>  
> A stove designer forms a product from steel sheets, limited by his or her understanding of what might be possible using it. 
>  
> Nature produces a variety of fuels with different properties and strengths with no concern as to what possible fire may consume them.
>  
> A cook buys the stove and creates foods unimagined by the stove designer or the steel maker. The cook uses the fuels in ways unseen in natural fires. The cook makes the fire and the stove sing and dance, performing the required actions, producing the right amount of heat, light, and food.
>  
> Which is the most important, the most significant, the most influential factor creating the final products? The cook. Without understanding the needs, desires, intentions and skills of the cooks, how is it possible to design a stove or fuel, or combination, that will do what is needed? It is not possible.
>  
> Homogenizing the production and broadening the footprint of distribution of improved stoves carries great risks, mostly the risk of failure to adopt. Similarly the introduction of subsidized fuels has multiple intended and unintended consequences.
>  
> With this in mind we should recognize there are two large scale agendas at work. 
>  
> The first is those who would replace the stoves with products that are far more efficient and flexible, attractive to own and worth investing in for comfort and pleasure with reduced PM and CO emissions and which make better use of the available energy carriers. 
>  
> The second is that group which seek to remove solid fuels altogether from the kitchen, promoting as they do and will, electricity, LPG, natural gas and light fraction liquid fuels.  Their byline is 'to provide clean cooking solutions to those who have traditionally been forced to burn solid fuels'.  The implication is that there are no 'clean-burning' solid fuels which rather sets their agenda against that of the first group.
>  
> Old-timers may remember the contribution by Liz Bates (former editor of Boiling Point magazine) remarking on the improvement in the lives of cooks in Sudan who received subsidised LPG stoves and fuel. LPG is a wonderful solution to IAQ problems, but does LPG address all the social and material needs of the users of fire?
>  
> Let's ask Cecil.
>  
> Regards
> Crispin
>  
> ===============
>  
> Dear Jock,
>  
> I found the article very stimulating. Of course, there is much that can be examined in terms of how the global stoves 'industry' is developing. For instance, if one examines the topics discussed at the ETHOS meetings year in and out, there are moments when clear shifts in what is being discussed (and who discusses) occur. As I read it, the broad trend has shifted from concerns of design, implementation, and marketing in context, to global markets (e.g. carbon credits, international testing standards, advocacy).
>  
> This trajectory will have foreseeable benefits for energy-oriented bilateral agreements, mass manufacturers of stoves, NGOs/corporations that will tap into carbon offsets, and laboratories authorized to certify stoves, etc. Along with this is a strong *claim* that this global market-centric approach serves the 'poor' or the 'environment'.
>  
> I wish to stay way from simple dichotomous arguments of global/local, top-down/bottom-up, standardized/pluralism, or laboratory/field, but certainly the 'regenerative capitalism' approach you suggest might demand a reconsideration of this trend towards standardization, scale, and donor-driven markets? What alternatives might your approach suggest?
>  
> Your thoughts on this matter are appreciated!
>  
> Best,
> Samer
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