[Stoves] A community of rocket scientists? (Re: Xavier)

Sujoy Chaudhury sujoy.chaudhury at gmail.com
Sun Aug 21 02:21:10 CDT 2016


Dear Nikhil and others in the list.

Although late in the discussion and most must have stopped following this
chain, I would still like to put my "two paisa" worth of thinking down. The
issue for me is why have improved cookstoves not been accepted by the
average poor and is current stove research focussing on this issue

What does the rural and urban poor cook want? The rural and urban poor
wants primarily a reliable and cheap source of fuel to cook the family's
meal and to cook it with the least amount of drudgery. Every woman that
sits down to cook has aspirations of being able to cook with the least
amount of fuss- enough fuel, enough heat and the proposed meals cooked in
the least amount of time and without messing up the cooking space and these
are obviously the criteria that designers use to design cookstoves. This
could have been a simple problem to crack, however in the real world most
poor cooks have   to deal with a number of problems before they can finally
produce their desired meals. The primary issue is the type of fuel and the
quality of the fuel. In a project with urban poor women in Kolkata (
improving the health of mothers and children through reduced exposure to
Indoor air pollution caused by inefficient cookstoves and aggravated by bad
shelter architecture)  , it was found that the cooks had to depend on a
number of fuel types. Kerosene purchase had to be made in cash and was thus
limited. A large part of the fuel used for cooking had to be scavenged (
mostly biomass, packing materials, construction wastes, discarded furniture
etc.). While there was a pattern in the type of fuel being scavenged, the
problem was with the quantity. Meals had to be planned on the type and
quantity of the fuel collected. These cooks needed a stove that could use
multiple fuels and be as clean as possible- a stove that rid them of the
drudgery of cooking. Obviously none of the cookstoves then matched upto the
need of cooks in the slums.

I thought then and still think now that the problem with cookstoves were
that inspite of decades of promotion, designers have missed the design
functions around which cookstoves could be made desirable first and
sufficiently efficient. The designers are focused on efficieny wheres they
should have focussed on desirability, making the cookstove an object of
aspiration and able to impact on the drudgery of cooking and then worked on
increasing efficiency.

What use is a stove that has the best possible performance ratings but
nobody wants to buy it .

Regards
sujoy




On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 11:35 AM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Nikhil Desai again. Apologies in advance for ruffling feathers. I think of
> feathers as sacred biomass; emissions from their roasting propitiate the
> Gods.
> ---------
> (Thank you, Xavier, for introducing Manifesto Convivialiste. For
> English-speakers, look here
> <http://www.gcr21.org/publications/global-dialogues/2198-0403-gd-3/> and
> here
> <http://www.lesconvivialistes.org/abridged-version-of-the-convivialist-manifesto>.
> I am allergic to neo-Malthusians and "de-growth" advocates, but I do admire
> ecologists and planners.)
> ----------
> Xavier:
>
> You put forth questions it took me some time to think - can I combine my
> skepticism with optimism?
>
> I come up empty - you know, old dogs can't learn new tricks - but let me
> try to reformulate or advance new questions:
>
> You:  "1. What are really the efforts done on fundamental research on
> biomass combustion for cookstoves? Who is seriously working full-time on
> combustion?
>  2. With what manpower?
>  3. Is this research organized?
>  4. Is it heavily financed as it should be?
>  5. Do we really think this research effort is up to the challenges we are
> facing?"
>
> Let me ask:
>
> 1. Whose cookstoves and whose biomass? Why are we hung up on biomass
> generally, despite the recognition that except at very high temperatures
> and in very controlled, steady-state situation, biomass of any type burns
> differently in different environments, different types of biomass burn
> differently, and the cooks have different requirements and habits? Poor
> customers with no time or money to mess with small, variable amounts of
> cooking are better off giving up cooking, and have indeed done so. Add to
> that all the variations in the sources of biomass and in their alternative
> uses. "Biomass cookstoves for the poor" is a racket of big promises and
> repeated failures; in the last 60 years, we have just blown smoke rings.
>
> I suggest dropping forever the pretense of "renewable biomass",
> "deforestation," and "premature mortality" or "deforestation". Rich country
> universities will keep churning out convenient truths for themselves that
> have no relevance to a poor household cook.
>
> Instead, we could define small research projects specific to selected
> types of biomass and/or in selected geographies for selected customer
> types, the poor or rich, household or commercial, and see the cook's
> constraints and desires from HER point of view. (This is not easy;
> sociological surveys haven't produced anything worthwhile yet on what cooks
> - women or men - want. I would rather put some psychologists to work on.
> "What do women want?" Rather, how do the family hierarchy and control,
> economics and nutrition, play into cooking choices?)
>
> It will get more difficult as the range of biomass "marketshed" gets
> narrower - some people have no land or trees of their own - and as we look
> at poorer households. The rich are far more alike in their tastes and
> behavior. The poor are every bit different from each other, until you come
> up with an aspirational product.
>
> But I have not yet seen a single effort to characterize biomass markets
> and supply chains, uses, customers. Forest economists do some of that for
> timber and biogas technologists make different types of digesters, so on;
> the stovers are rocket scientists who only know how to launch balloons.
>
> 2. Who should finance this research - whether as diversified as I suggest
> (after all, much research goes on for agriculture, forestry, livestock,
> food processing, and has gone on for a couple of centuries in Europe and
> North America) - and why haven't they done so? Some ten years ago, the Gang
> of Four on energy and development (Jose Goldemberg, Thomas Johansson,
> Amulya Reddy, Robert Williams) had proposed A global clean cooking fuel
> initiative
> <https://www.princeton.edu/pei/energy/publications/texts/Goldemberg-Clean-Cooking-Initiative-ESD-2004.pdf> for
> "to bring about a worldwide shift to clean fluid fuels for cooking and
> heating in 10-15 years’ time". I thought the proposal was ridiculous - a
> "clean cooking fuel bureau" in the UN under their guidance?? -  but they
> seemed to have the right direction - in the near term, "fitting stoves that
> burn solid fuels with flues" and then "fluid fuels".
>
> But 12 years later, what do we have? Generic solid biomass stoves again?
> "Clean cookstoves" performance testing for, heavens, boiling water
> <http://cleancookstoves.org/technology-and-fuels/testing/protocols.html> in,
> hell, labs
> <https://cleancookstoves.org/binary-data/DOCUMENT/file/000/000/399-1.pdf>??
>
>
> Cooking is more than combustion. Kitchen is more than cooking. A home is
> more than kitchen. A marriage or family are more than a home. Early 20th
> Century designers of  gas and electrical home appliances knew this every
> bit; just go see women's magazines in UK or US of the 1930s on, and even
> Indian "family" magazines and newspapers from 1950s on. Seems to me some of
> us biomass stovers are stuck in our childhood fantasies of atomic energy -
> atomic toasters, atomic kettles. Just that now we call them biomass stoves
> and keep playing the fiddle to donors' tunes.
>
> Some aerospace engineers have other ideas - see DESIGN OF A
> THERMOELECTRIC EDU-KITCHENSYSTEM
> <https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/46910/akshaya_srivastava_201305_aerospace_engineering.pdf>
>  or Conceptual design of a thermoelectric Edu-Kitchen system
> <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241628341_Conceptual_design_of_a_thermoelectric_Edu-Kitchen_system>
> .
>
> The beauty of this approach - howsoever unrealistic and unmarketable - is
> that it attacks the problem of cooking and lighting, and home energy use
> generally. As distributed generation and storage might. There may also be
> biomass generation.
>
> What it doesn't do is dwell in manure and dead wood.
>
> Missionaries of dung, straw, flake and waste, unite! You have nothing to
> lose but your own delusions.
>
> On missionaries' positions, next time.
>
> Nikhil
>
>
> ---------
> (India +91) 909 995 2080
>
>> Message: 6
>> Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 22:25:14 +0530
>> From: Xavier Brandao <xvr.brandao at gmail.com>
>> To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
>> Subject: Re: [Stoves] Two current articles on stoves and stove
>>         projects
>> Message-ID: <81331990-33c1-af82-6476-7ee3926d901f at gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> The Caravan article Crispin shared is a perfect illustration of
>> the distrust for the improved biomass stove technology.
>>
>> The World Bank CSI is a pragmatic approach I believe, it is an example of
>> how a far-from-ideal situation can be assessed fairly (the cookstove sector
>> needs work on standards and protocol, it needs building on best practices),
>> and how it can be the basis for a call for action. The WB asks not to
>> lament, but to work on improving what can be improved.
>>
>> I am also more of the optimistic kind, and the optimism, we need to share
>> it: why do we think biomass cookstoves are still worth working on? Why are
>> we still doing what we do despite the previous setbacks?
>>
>> I feel we should make ourselves ready to answer important, and
>> valid, questions such as the ones from The Guardian or the Caravan
>> articles. This is advocacy.
>>
>> I am not sure we are completely prepared to do so.
>>
>> At Prakti we have interacted with a lot of other stakeholders,
>> other social businesses, distributors and NGOs, investors. And sometimes
>> also journalists. And sometimes we hear: "oh, another cookstove company"
>> "oh, cookstoves have been around for a long time, but haven't really
>> taken off". We sometimes face scepticism, worse, defeatism. With almost
>> the idea the cookstoves are not necessary. If we believe they are, we
>> need to hear and consider their arguments, then to have thought about
>> our arguments as well.
>>
>> First, I feel we might need to think ourselves more as a community
>> or sector, with common goals and interests. Healthily competing or
>> rather working together on a common issue.
>>
>> Nikhil said:
>>
>> "There is no "stove community" but a slum of labs and computers, each hut
>> producing its own meal and emissions."
>>
>> Research efforts are indeed scattered and lack coordination. But
>> I believe there is a stove community, and quite an active one. Participants
>> and readers of this list have a lot in common. Communities are nothing but
>> the sum of all individualities after all. We are scattered, but it doesn't
>> mean we cannot work better together. I see a lot of exchange and
>> collaboration here. And everyone is trying hard.
>>
>> And as a community, I feel we have to explain what we do, advocate
>> why our cause is important and why our action is still relevant. And if
>> it is still relevant. I believe it is. So before being able to answer,
>> we must make our own in-depth self-assessment.
>>
>> This is what the GACC is doing by representing us and lobbying for
>> us, there is also the CLEAN network in India, and some other
>> organizations. But additionally, we might want to agree on certain things.
>> And this stovelist is still the most lively space for exchange.
>>
>> There is an initiative of French intellectuals called
>> "Manifeste convivialiste". They are advocating that, in order to make the
>> world a better place, rather than focusing on what they disagree on, they
>> should ocus on what they agree on.
>>
>> That could be something like:
>>
>> "We as a sector are facing challenges: biomass combustion is
>> extremely complex, our target markets are challenging. Our efforts are
>> scattered. But our mission remains extremely important, and the improved
>> biomass cookstoves remain a relevant solution to the global problem of
>> unclean cooking."
>>
>> For example, that is a start. From there, what is the first of
>> these challenges, and how to tackle it?
>>
>> Let say the first and main challenge is the complexity of
>> biomass combustion (problem) -> we need more R&D to understand and find
>> ways to improve it while making stoves cheaper (solution).
>>
>> A few persons mentioned in the article seem to agree:
>>
>>   * ?My sense,? Saran said, ?was that the problem needed
>> top-level technology.?
>>   * ?We started out with the dream of a global innovation competition,?
>>     Rajendra Prasad, a professor at the Centre for Rural Development and
>>     Technology at IIT Delhi, one of the official stove-testing labs,
>>     said. ?And now we?re back to mud stoves.?
>>   * Scientists who spoke to me on cookstove design frequently compared
>>     their challenges to rocket science. The technical problem is
>>     surprisingly difficult. Combustion of solid fuels such as wood,
>>     dung, coal and agricultural waste is far more complex than that of
>>     gases or liquids such as LPG or diesel. Lighting a wood stove can
>>     set off many more chemical reactions than burning gas, and the
>>     emissions process can?t be modelled easily?understanding depends on
>>     trial and error. Scientists also know less about solid-fuel
>>     combustion than they do about rocket propulsion. Stoves are not a
>>     glamorous technology, and have attracted relatively little research.
>>     A scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi told me
>>     that students are so embarrassed to be working on a stove project
>>     that they ask to call it by another name.
>>
>> So, there is a need for a lot of work, and there is a need for
>> top engineering and scientific talents. How to attract top talents?
>>
>>   * with R&D budget and attractive wages
>>   * with good communication about our sector
>>   * by simply ... going and talking to them. Telling them about our
>>     work. And trying very hard to build partnerships.
>>
>> But first we need to assess that we need them, and that R&D is
>> the problem. And I have the feeling we believe a bit too much that we
>> are gonna sort all these issues by working in our garages on our spare
>> time and by organizing stove camps. Don't get me wrong, stove camps are
>> great and lead to a lot of information being exchanged. But this is far
>> from being enough, we need to be much more ambitious. We need renewed
>> efforts and smart ways to attract, develop, and retain talents. At Prakti
>> we have put an increased emphasis on that, for example we have an
>> ongoing partnership with Engineers Without Borders U.K.
>>
>> Because today, frankly:
>>
>>  1. What are really the efforts done on fundamental research on biomass
>>     combustion for cookstoves? Who is seriously working full-time on
>>     combustion?
>>  2. With what manpower?
>>  3. Is this research organized?
>>  4. Is it heavily financed as it should be?
>>  5. Do we really think this research effort is up to the challenges we
>>     are facing?
>>
>> If we answer "No" to the question 2 to 5, then we have a start, and we
>> know where next to put our efforts.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Xavier
>>
>>
>>
>> *************************************
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Stoves mailing list
>
> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
> stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
>
> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
> http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_
> lists.bioenergylists.org
>
> for more Biomass Cooking Stoves,  News and Information see our web site:
> http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20160821/e23b3e61/attachment.html>


More information about the Stoves mailing list