[Stoves] Subsidies for woodstoves (Dr. Karve, Paul Anderson)

Tue Aug 2 11:04:54 CDT 2016

It is an interesting conversation that Nikhil has going. However I think
that the best subsidy a Government can give is in rural restaurants.
www.nariphaltan.org/ruralrestaurants.pdf

When we enjoy eating out why should the poor of the world be deprived of
this pleasure. They do not have a single neuron less than us.

Cheers.

Anil

Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI)
Tambmal, Phaltan-Lonand Road
P.O.Box 44
Phaltan-415523, Maharashtra, India
Ph:91-2166-220945/222842
e-mail:nariphaltan at gmail.com
           nariphaltan at nariphaltan.org

http://www.nariphaltan.org

On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 3:06 PM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I changed the subject line.
>
> Dr. Karve says, " As the fuel used by villagers is not subsidized, the
> government should at least subsidize improved stoves. At least in India,
> the administrative infrastructure exists for supervising such a programme."
>
> I do agree there ought to be some means of supporting the poor who cannot
> afford LPG and electricity just yet and may not have access to it. I don't
> think the administrative infrastructure for supervising a biomass stove
> program is adequate; I have the MNRE and state energy agencies in mind, and
> they have failed miserably in producing stoves that people want.
>
> I am always happy to be proven wrong.
>
> The issue is not as much "biomass" - a  favorite "renewable energy" of
> Amulya Reddy and the rest of the Gang of Four (Goldemberg, Williams,
> Johannsen) - versus "fossil fuels" - Global Green's demon, as if every CO2
> molecule is a Weapon of Mass Destruction. Rather, the issue is the use of
> women's time, and women's preferences. (Men's tastes and budgets adjust; I
> am not willing to accept the gender crowd's whining at face value.)
>
> 1. Are there stoves worth subsidizing? If I were a finance minister - or a
> prime minister (after all, my Chaiwalla PM might have known how to make tea
> on charcoal; there are hawkers around the corner who use charcoal) - my
> question is, "What is the guarantee that people will use these stoves?" My
> thinking should be, "Who does the subsidy go to? Am I going to have to
> subsidize Cooking Cops with their monitors and survey smartphones to
> discover how many trees are saved and how many premature deaths are averted
> in two, five or twenty years? No, I want to help the poor, and my metric of
> success is that "clean enough" biomass stoves ought to be used at least
> half the time by the BPL (Below Poverty Level) families. I don't care if
> they sell the stoves to richer folks, so long as the stoves are being used,
> and give me some comfort (without sending the Cooking Cops) that pollution
> has decreased. (This covers the the first and fourth of my three - er, five
> - reasons for solid fuel stoves not getting much attention except
> technophiles and environmentalists.)
>
> 2. What are the opportunity costs of biomass? Even as a finance minister,
> I might see that husk from rice mills is going to brick kilns and is too
> expensive for making fuel pellets for households. Is there a way to
> subsidize some other biomass fuel? Does that change the land and water use
> patterns that I may have to bother about in terms of tax and subsidy plans?
>
> 3.  Who ought to get the subsidy, for what, and how? The old MNRE method -
> used many parts of the world - was to allocate "per stove" grants (of
> unpredictable amount and unpredictable disbursement schedule) to different
> states in India with "qualified" stove manufacturers. (The famous Gandhi
> Ashram shop is up a couple of miles; I might go check out how they are
> doing with solar stoves that I first saw 50 years ago.) This has clear
> potential for uncompetitive behavior and zero monetary incentive for
> innovation. (My point iii earlier; might also apply to point v) except that
> good programs do take high administrative costs and technical assistance,
> no use skimping on brain power, which is the best "renewable biomass" we
> have).
>
> 4. Finally my old point ii) -  "Difficult or irrational technical
> standards that are unenforceable." I am not a stove designer, but I do take
> the point in Up in Smoke that solid fuel combustion - small-scale, variable
> power, with seasonal or daily variations in fuel quality and cooking
> practices - is more difficult than rocket science. Put in highly educated
> and skilled physicists and engineers without much experience in poor
> people's cooking or living patterns - except from books and conference
> presentations - and you guarantee failure. The poor are too smart to just
> hand over the super-duper PhDs the satisfaction of being right. (Sure,
> those PhDs can amply see what they want to see and then publish paper, like
> the MIT con e-cons I mentioned before.)
>
> I have no hope for experts who spend 40+ years on test standards - and for
> what - instantaneous emission rates generalizable over all woodfuel
> qualities and cooking practices, with the supposed health impacts
> generalizable to all lungs of the past and future? USEPA is not going to
> save mama earth or her children, my sibings.
>
> Give the poor people a break! Drop the standards game except when repeat
> field use confirms that they perform as expected - expected by the designer
> and manufacturer, and more importantly, by the cook. Get a "clean enough
> product" that is used 300 days a year and use 1 tpy. (Or any other metric.
> Yes, some stove experts are very useful, even to a finance minister.)
>
> Then consider this: A one-time $50 subsidy, paid to the user in the form
> of a negotiable voucher to be cashed at any local shop that is qualified to
> handle such transactions. (I think oil companies should start selling solar
> lanterns and advanced biomass stoves; reduces their losses on kerosene and
> LPG.) Stoves qualified should be of various sizes and designs; ideally, I
> would also prefer that they have been used by the larger, richer households
> and commercial/institutional cooks, which would make them an aspirational
> product. Then let the manufacturers compete or get out of business
> (hopefully selling to another manufacturer).
>
> Even so, I suspect small-scale "clean cookstoves" with solid fuels are
> just not the answer for the working poor. Anil Rajvanshi (cc'd here) once
> said something like, "The working poor aren't rich enough to afford the
> luxury of three meals a day." I see that in the Gujarat cities and towns -
> and even some villages that I go to - every single day. It is time to get
> rid of dungcakes altogether, to produce charcoal efficiently, and to
> introduce clean kerosene stoves, plus commercial/industrial stoves and
> boilers, possibly with processed biomass.
>
> By the way, these "stoves vouchers" I suggested ought to be usable on
> gelfuel stoves and gelfuel (or biogas, or any similar biofuel and stove),
> or solar cookers.
>
> And yes, if some NGOs like Lange's have been reliably working in some
> areas where there are no "stove shops" (I have seen many in Gujarat; only
> once in Africa), the subsidy can be delivered to the NGOs, against
> certificate by the user that he has received and used the stove for a year.
> (Double the subsidy to cover pico-PV products; this "improved homes" idea
> is a phenomenal advance over the "improved woodstoves" relilgion.)
>
> Again, any offense taken is the taker's fault.
>
> Nikhil
>
>
>
>
> Nikhil Desai
> +91 909 995 2080
>
> On Aug 1, 2016, at 7:58 PM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> A.D.,
>
> Exactly so!!!!   What could be some plans of action to accomplish this??
> Who are the advocates of such assistance?
>
> 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 8/1/2016 2:28 AM, Anand Karve wrote:
>
> Indian villagers generally use fuel generated in their own farms
> (e.g.stalks of cotton and pigeonpea, dung cakes). Government of India
> subsidizes modern energy sources such as LPG and electricity, which are
> used in the cities. As the fuel used by villagers is not subsidized, the
> government should at least subsidize improved stoves. At least in India,
> the administrative infrastructure exists for supervising such a programme.
> Yours
> A.D.Karve
>
> ***
> Dr. A.D. Karve
>
> Chairman, Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd (www.samuchit.com)
>
> Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
>
>
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