[Stoves] Clean coal burning stoves Re: History of clean Chinese stove development.
Paul Anderson
psanders at ilstu.edu
Tue Sep 15 16:22:53 CDT 2015
Ron, (to website)
You make good points. But the devil is in the details, or in the
realities of our world.
1. If the monitors of the Stoves Listserv want to enforce the
definition that we can only discuss biomass fuels and related stoves, I
will comply. However, until such a ruling is debated and stated
clearly, I contend that writing and talking about coal as a cookstove
fuel is informative and we all need to be aware of its pros and cons, as
well as the occasional mentions of LPG and kerosene (paraffin). See
more below.
2. As much as I agree with you and the EPA on the issues of climate
change and CO2 increases in the atmosphere (being bad), there are very
very very few of us (off grid, etc, etc.) in the developed countries who
do not have a positive (bad) CO2 footprint every day. By sending an
email from Illinois, I use electricity that has some mix of power that
comes from fossil fuels. The EPA will leave me alone. They should be
after the big fish who emit much CO2.
3. An impoverished household in Mongolia or elsewhere that can cook and
heat cleanly (health-wise) with coal is another truly small fish
regarding its CO2 footprint. We should not be working or advocating
against them having coal-burning stoves that are CLEAN for their health
(CO2 is not poisonous). That is so, especially while we affluent folks
run around in automobiles and heat much larger homes to probably warmer
temperatures and also lavish ourselves with air conditioning, with so
much energy derived from fossil fuels.
4. One household is one small amount of CO2 that could be justified,
but would 100,000 households be a different story? Or 10 MILLION
households, as could easily be the case if China turned to using the new
coal-stove design now in use in Mongolia? That could be a lot of CO2
increase. But it would be a lot of CO2 if those became LPG burners.
Fuel supply is crucial. We cannot deny people the opportunity to cook
their meals or warm their homes because "acceptable renewable" fuels are
not available. Crispin, do you have numbers (CO2, black carbon,
methane, etc.) about the climate impact of the new coal burners _in
comparison with _the climate impact of the old-style coal burners? How
much better (lower climate impact)? Is that improvement not sufficient
justification to stimulate (financially bolster) the transition from the
old to the new coal burners? Ron, could that improvement be the
realistic goal, or should the short term goal be the abolition of all
coal burning stoves?
5. The GACC certainly embraces clean burning LPG and natural gas, and
would like to have clean-burning kerosene stoves. The GACC
/_*either*_/ must condemn those "advanced" fossil fuels and their stoves
*_OR _*embrace coal with clean-burning coal stoves. To leave LPG in
and exclude coal is hypocrisy that must be addressed at the GACC Forum
in November. Either all cleanly burned fossil fuels and their stoves
must be acceptable to the GACC, or no fossil fuels should be in the GACC
discussions and programs.
We know (and are grateful) that leaders in the GACC and WB and EPA do
read the Stoves Listserv, although they seldom comment. The comments
in #5 above should have some reply by the end of October so that the
issue will be addressed at the November Forum, either with or without
GACC's agreement with #5. Fossil fuels with GOOD stoves are either ALL
IN or art ALL OUT. At the Forum, certainly the World Bank and other
financial backers of the Mongolia success will be advocating for coal to
be included, along with the attendees from Mongolia. Other supporters
should be those who work with LPG, natural gas, and kerosene, otherwise
they face opposition to the continued inclusion of those fuels in any
GACC programs. To exclude them would be like making them automatic Tier
1 or Tier 0 (bad) stoves and fuels.
It will be interesting to see who rises to advocate exclusion of all
fossil fuels and stoves. Being selective of some and not other fossil
fuels is not allowed. All in or all out!!! Or does climate change
trump family health?
Paul
Doc / Dr TLUD / Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
Email: psanders at ilstu.edu
Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website: www.drtlud.com
On 9/15/2015 1:33 PM, Ronal W. Larson wrote:
> Paul cc list
>
> Well - I have to disagree.
>
> Our EPA has declared that CO2 from all fossil fuels is a pollutant.
> That was held up in the US Supreme Court. Most of the world agrees
> that fossil fuel CO2 needs to be eliminated and that is what COP21 in
> Paris is about.
>
> Per the latest IPCC documents, we have to get off all fossil fuels.
> And so I hope that GACC will stay away from endorsing any coal, oil,
> or natural gas consuming stove. Those fuels don’t need the help of
> this list or GACC. Biomass can supply all those forms of energy
> anyway - in most cases cheaper where biomass cook stoves are now in use.
>
>> Additionally the guiding words for this list emphasize it is for
>> biomass. [“_*Our site is dedicated to helping people develop better
>> stoves for cooking with biomass fuels in developing regions.”]*_
>
> Ron
>
>
> On Sep 15, 2015, at 6:01 AM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu
> <mailto:psanders at ilstu.edu>> wrote:
>
>> Dear ALL, (post todrtlud.com <http://drtlud.com/>website)
>>
>> EVERYONE should carefully read Crispin's message (below). I cannot
>> substantiate his comments about specific stoves, and we will hope
>> that Prof. Lloyd will send references about the Scotch Method.
>>
>> Otherwise, I am IN TOTAL AGREEMENT WITH CRISPIN. Read each line,
>> soak it in.
>>
>> Concerning the stoves in Mongolia, of course I am delighted that:
>>> all but one of them is a TLUD.
>> But that is not the issue. The issue is that low grade coal is able
>> to be burned cleanly in sufficiently inexpensive cookstoves for the
>> climate and culture. Note that those Mongolian stoves have an
>> important function for household heating, helping to justify the
>> higher costs of stoves with heavier metal. The probable financial
>> assistance ("subsidy" to the purchaser) can be justified in the clean
>> air accomplishments that benefit not just the impoverished people,
>> but also all of the wealthy who want clean air both locally and
>> internationally (global air quality issues are important).
>>
>> The Mongolian stoves are not being proclaimed as being for tropical
>> areas where the stove constructions and costs need to be different.
>>
>> About coal as fuel for stoves and home heaters: Coal needs to be
>> included in the fuels for cookstoves WHEN COUPLED WITH CLEAN-BURNING
>> STOVES. When that is the case, the only major "negative
>> characteristic" is that coal is a fossil fuel (being carbon positive
>> to the atmosphere). Well, that also applies to LPG !!!! which is a
>> very highly regarded fuel for clean cookstoves. Double standards
>> are not acceptable. This issue needs to be addressed!!!
>>
>> And it should be addressed at least by the time of the GACC Forum in
>> Ghana on 10 -13 Nov where a resolution or statement or declaration
>> (or whatever groups do) could be officially made about the
>> acceptability of coal as a cookstove fuel WHEN USED IN CLEAN-BURNING
>> STOVES.
>>
>> None of the above is against fan-assisted stoves or natural draft
>> TLUDs. Instead, the effort is to get coal and
>> the*_appropriate_*coal-burning stoves added to the list of
>> contributing solutions to the world's cookstove problems.
>>
>> Comments please to the Stoves Listserv.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> Doc / Dr TLUD / Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
>> Email:psanders at ilstu.edu
>> Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072
>> Website:www.drtlud.com
>> On 9/14/2015 10:45 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear Paul
>>>
>>> That linked document has this to say: “For biomass cooking, pending
>>> further evidence from the field, significant health benefits are
>>> possible only with the highest quality fan gasifier stoves…”
>>> I don’t know who invented that idea – it is traceable to Kirk Smith
>>> (Bangkok, Nov 2010) but I think the concept that ‘the only really
>>> clean stoves are fan assisted gasifiers’ is older than that. Maybe
>>> it emerged from Berkeley. It doesn’t matter.
>>>
>>> It is not true.
>>>
>>> Is that clear enough? How else can we say it? It is not true that
>>> the only really clean stoves are fan assisted gasifiers. This
>>> caution is also contained in the statement, “It is not true that the
>>> only really clean stoves are fan assisted or ND TLUD pyrolysers.”
>>>
>>> The most expensive externally funded improved stove replacement
>>> programme in the world is the Mongolian urban ger stove programme,
>>> funded by the US-based MCC through the MCA-Mongolia account, the WB,
>>> the Asian Development Bank and the City Government of Ulaanbaatar.
>>> There are a large number of additional players including Xaas Bank,
>>> carbon trading funders and national Ministries.
>>>
>>> Assiduously examining a large number of stove options, and creating
>>> an advanced testing laboratory on a shoe string, incorporating a
>>> test method that predicts reasonably the field performance (field
>>> testing proved to be nearly impossible, even for LBNL, which tried
>>> hard) a set of stoves that are well over 90% cleaner than the
>>> baseline stoves (several >98%) was selected for distribution. Not
>>> one of them is fan assisted and not one of them is a pyrolyser save
>>> in the sense that all coal stoves are pyrolysers. Certainly it is
>>> true that all solid fuel stoves are gasifiers. Quibbling will not
>>> change the fact flames burn gas.
>>>
>>> A lot of people worked hard to bring this together and pull off the
>>> biggest clean-up of a major city’s air ever accomplished without
>>> changing the fuel – because the fuel was/never/the problem. It is an
>>> excellent fuel and burns so cleanly the stove comparison chart would
>>> have to create two more tiers to fairly accommodate them. The fact
>>> that this achievement is still ignored continues to stain the ICS
>>> community. The reason for this is obvious: coal is supposed to be
>>> the demon fuel that cannot be burned cleanly. Millions of people are
>>> going to burn coal for a long time to come – deal with it. Burn it
>>> properly.
>>>
>>> These super-clean stoves originate from Turkey, China and Mongolia.
>>> The producers pay no attention to anything going on in the “TLUD
>>> world”, even though all but one of them is a TLUD. It is
>>> unfortunate that the fictions that “solid fuels cannot be burned
>>> cleanly”, and “only fans work”, and “coal cannot be burned cleanly”
>>> because it contains “pollution” are repeated by those who should
>>> know their field better. Making these statements makes the speaker
>>> look like a disconnected amateur. Modern Austrian fireplaces are
>>> cleaner than most very improved stoves and they are made of brick
>>> for heaven’s sake. They are not even ‘stoves’. The Russians are
>>> building ‘bell’ heat exchangers that are brilliant.
>>>
>>> The IC stove community has to start living in the present.
>>>
>>> Here is a test of the laboratory air at the SEET lab and the
>>> emissions of a cross draft stove (currently reproduced exactly by a
>>> small local welding shop in Ulaanbaatar):
>>>
>>> [[ Image deleted from copy of message.]]
>>>
>>> These two Dusttraks were compared with each other before this photo
>>> was taken. They agreed within 2 micrograms at a concentration of
>>> more than 400. The one on the left is brand new, brought by LBNL
>>> (Berkeley) measuring the ambient air (195µg/m^3 ) and the one on the
>>> right is from SEET Lab sampling directly from the chimney (0µg/m^3
>>> )./That/is a clean stove.//The dirty air going into the stove is
>>> being cleaned by the fire, while burning wet lignite: 50% volatiles
>>> (AD) and 26% moisture.
>>>
>>> It is high time to admit that coal and indeed wood can be burned by
>>> a number of methods extremely well. No fuel has a monopoly on
>>> cleanliness. The concept of a ‘dirty fuel’ is archaic and was never
>>> correct. It was always a misconception.
>>>
>>> Equally incorrect is the idea that ethanol, for example, is a ‘clean
>>> fuel’. I have just seen a test of an ethanol stove that doesn’t come
>>> close to meeting the South African kerosene stove test requirement
>>> at high power or low. This is quite common. Most ethanol stoves are
>>> not very clean when it comes to CO. They literally can’t hold a
>>> candle to the stoves sold in Ulaanbaatar that burn lignite. Why? Bad
>>> combustion.
>>>
>>> What’s next? China of course. And India. Why should their stove
>>> programmes be held back by errant preconceptions originating within
>>> the ‘clean air’ and ‘clean stove’ communities? If the clean air and
>>> clean stove communities can’t keep up with reality, others will step
>>> in to lead. Projects are not going to be willing to spend $50m on
>>> junk science claims. Or $500m.
>>>
>>> Paul, you are correct to ask for references. The method of burning
>>> coal “TLUD” is called the ‘Scotch Method’ in South African and goes
>>> back over a century. I believe Prof Lloyd has some sources for that
>>> because he was thinking about the problem in the mid-70’s.
>>>
>>> Regards to all
>>>
>>> Crispin
>>>
>>> In case you have not seen this, micro-gasifiers have received some significant recognition (ESMAP + GACC 2015 publication, page 90).
>>> https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/21878/96499.pdf
>>>
>>> “*The most exciting technology trend in the biomass cookstove
>>> sector is*
>>>
>>> *the growing range of forced draft and natural draft gasifier
>>> stoves*. These stoves have shown the greatest
>>>
>>> potential to improve health and environmental outcomes, at least
>>> under
>>>
>>> laboratory conditions.” (ESMAP 2015, p. 90).
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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