[Stoves] The logic of clean stove development
Philip Lloyd
plloyd at mweb.co.za
Thu Jun 4 03:27:48 CDT 2015
The concept of developing a design by a process such as:
1) The cook tells the distributor what they want.
2) The designer makes the stove do what the distributor 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 distributor at a site.
5) The finished stove that will do what the distributor requests will come with instructions and, perhaps, a recipe book to be delivered. Then the individual skills of the cooks take over.
Is basically sound. However, I am not at all certain that the distributor is the key person at stage 1. The distributor should have marketing skills, not designing skills. I think it is more important that the designer should understand what the cook needs, and should then enquire of the distributor if he thinks he could sell such a design. If the answer is “Yes”, then the lab needs to test the design to make certain it works to achieve the needs of the cook.
In the first stage, it helps if the designer has quite a lot of skills in cooking, so that he/she can interrogate “the cook”. Then, of course, the designer needs to work with several cooks in the community to get a good idea of the range of their needs, what fuels they use, what they cook and how they cook it. Only then can she/he come up with a design that comes close to the needs of the community.
So I suggest a better logic would be:
1) The designer works with the community to understand what they cook, what fuels they use, and how they cook.
2) The designer develops a preliminary design (and cost of production) which he checks with the distributor for “saleability”
3) If positive, then the designer works with suppliers and possibly the community to find materials that will work best
4) The lab tests the stoves for the purpose of determining the ones that will get closest to meeting the cooking needs of the community in an efficient and clean way
5) The distributor test markets the stove, and reports back to the designer any flaws that the cooks have identified.
6) The designer tweaks the design to overcome the flaws and reduce the cost of production
7) The lab retests the improved design
8) The distributor sells hard
Prof Philip Lloyd
Energy Institute
Cape Peninsula University of Technology
PO Box 652, Cape Town 8000
Tel:021 460 4216
Fax:021 460 3828
Cell: 083 441 5247
lloydp at cput.ac.za
From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Dean Still
Sent: 04 June 2015 01:37
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Regenerative Capitalism (Jock Gill)
Dear Frank,
No, the stove design information is needed from many equally important sources and hopefully adds up to the evolution of a successful product. In India we had cooks, distributors, manufacturers, funders, engineers, retailers, and community representatives on the stove design committee. The committee designs the product, oversees the development and the long term growth of the project.
Each constituency has different perspectives, as you can imagine. Many types of tests, including sales,etc. are used that give information to the committee. This was outlined by Baldwin in "Biomass Stoves", 1987.
Best,
Dean
On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 11:53 AM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com> wrote:
Dear Dean,
Very interesting. So its the distributer that communicate to you, the designer, what the cook wants? I can understand the limitations on cost and weight, size etc. but to have little contact with the cook on these other decisions I would think that could create some misinformation. Perhaps that is why so many stoves in the past have been turned into flower pots? Distributors playing a big part in these decisions - I never would have guessed.
Well I am just pigeon holed into the testing sectioned. :)
re-done…
1) The cook tells the distributor what they want.
2) The designer makes the stove do what the distributor 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 distributor at a site.
5) The finished stove that will do what the distributor requests will come with instructions and, perhaps, a recipe book to be delivered. Then the individual skills of the cooks take over.
If the process is such we deal directly with the distributor them it may be necessary to bring the cooks in at the end to verify the distributor got it right.
Regards
Frank
Frank Shields
franke at cruzio.com
On Jun 3, 2015, at 11:25 AM, Dean Still <deankstill at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Frank,
I think that it's very important to add the distributor to the list when thinking about creating a new stove. The distributor, from the very start, helps to define the product and adds a lot of 'reality' to the process. In India, we met with a group of distributors to learn about what they could sell and their inputs were extremely important in the development process. They said that the stove needed to cost less than 5 dollars, that a woman needed to carry two of them a mile to her home, and that 2,000 needed to fit on a truck.
I would get the distributor on the team before doing the other work.
Best,
Dean
On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 10:21 AM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com> wrote:
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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