[Stoves] forced draft (Re: A Karve 13 August)

Tue Aug 30 06:52:23 CDT 2016

Hi Cecil

A wonderful post and most definitely the one that makes the right sense.
You ask and I quote "*My question is how do we generate a
respectful conversations between the various role players involved in the
scrum to innovate, produce and promote user friendly and responsive
improved  household stoves that are affordable and can successfully compete
for market share without any subsidy". *

I feel this is what we stovers need to ask ourselves and  engage in. You
have offered your views, will be looking forward to the responses of
stalwarts in the domain.

Have a good day.

Regards
Sujoy

On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 11:16 PM, <cec1863 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Greetings Traveller aka Nikhil,
>
> Thank you for your swashbuckling frankness‎ about the fundamental
> foolishness of expecting abstract ISO standards, metrics, and household
> stove performance tests to lead the stovers and stove producers of the
> planet into a paradise of smokeless pollution free biomass cooking and
> space heating.
>
> From where I sit on the sidelines these days I see a tragic perversion of
> the potential for a holistic "science" of small household stoves by many
> differe‎nt competing commercial, professional political, gender and
> lifestyle interest groups. We are forced to fight the battle of armgeddon
> simply to decide what parameters and assessment methodologies can be
> trusted to guide the development of simple $10 improved stoves for the 1/3
> of humankind at the bottom of the world scrum.
>
> My question is how do we generate a respectful conversations‎ between the
> various role players involved in the scrum to innovate, produce and promote
> user friendly and responsive improved  household stoves that are affordable
> and can successfully compete for market share without any subsidy.
>
> That means the end of outsourcing to China and the end of imported stoves
> selling for ±‎ $100 with or without carbon credits when there are locally
> made stoves being produced, distributed and sold for under $5 by
> traditional artisans.
>
> I am a backslid (defrocked) anthropologist‎ so the first thing I do is
> investigate the already institutionalized stove technologies and all of the
> stove management and fuel use 'culture' which surrounds the TECHNOS with
> what used to be called "ethno-science". The mrta-culture between the stove
> and the plasma of knowledge and symbols might be referred to as the human
> factors which mediate the relationship between stove users and their
> stoves. OK. That is where I choose to start. Other professional stovers
> have other skills, interests and points of intervention.
>
> My contribution to a hopefully respectful conversation with fellow stovers
> is informed by decades of AT based self help develop projects in South
> Africa. My bottom up‎ development process was guided and informed by my
> effort to answer this question: how do we collaborate with partners and
> potential beneficiaries so as to get the greatest possible benefits for the
> largest number with the smallest possible intervention and at the smallest
> possible cost per brnefit/beneficiary????
>
> Unfortunately, the thrust of BIG AID and BIG DEVELOPMENT‎ agencies
> (remember Big Nurse in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest?) is to massively
> intervene from the top down and in the process massively disrupt the
> traditional stove/fuel/pot/kitchen layout/producer/
> marketing "system". It is worth pointing out that there is an indigenous
> stove/fuel culture and economy in place that has been cooking food, heating
> homes, making and selling stoves, and supplying fuel for many generations.
>
> I only have one simple suggestion about a possible master strategy: slow
> and steady change strategy will radically out perform the massive
> disruption strategy that is favored by Big Development.
>
> Crispin and I combined to propose and demonstrate the feasibility of a
> stove improvement develpment process in Mongolia and Java that involved
> using stove science to minimally tweak traditional stoves so that their
> emission and efficiency performance eventually approaches the high
> stardards of an EPA approved clean cookstove.
>
> IMO such high standards are bureaucratic impositions that needlessly
> disempower the stakeholers and role players in traditional stove/fuel/producer
> systems.
>
> For me as a old man observing the counter productivity of the stove wars
> in places like Sudan and many other places in Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
> If we are to make real progress in the small stove/biomass fuel economy  it
> is necessary for all role players to take deep breaths, cool off,
> depoliticize, speak kindly to colleagues, and grow the common ground that
> unites us all in our quest for an infinite series of apprpriate "good"
> little cooking and heating stoves.
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
> *From: *Traveller
> *Sent: *Monday, August 29, 2016 10:13 AM
> *To: *neiltm at uwclub.net
> *Reply To: *miata98 at gmail.com
> *Cc: *Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
> *Subject: *Re: [Stoves] forced draft (Re: A Karve 13 August)
>
> Neil:
>
> Thank you. I learned a little about biochar from a "stover" friend, guru
> from decades ago - Stephen Joseph - back in 2008 but then lost track. I am
> glad to read from you that there are consumer products now that you
> consider "So versatile".
>
> It is a gross error to ignore versatility and flexibility, and buy into
> the USEPA propaganda of Water Boiling Tests. GACC could be a Faustian
> Bargain. Except perhaps to those who pay the Clinton Foundation to play at
> the gala performances of WJC and HRC.
>
> I wonder if WHO Is fooling EPA - that its IAQ guideline is to be taken as
> Moses' Fifteenth Commandment (all others can be ignored, just like WHO's
> OAQ guideline is) - of EPA is fooling WHO - that its ratings based on a
> silly test protocol for emission rates and area modeling will somehow
> translate into mass acceptance and reduction in premature mortality. (There
> will always be premature mortality; the GBD people will find something else
> to blame it on, for example boredom with academia.)
>
> Versatile. Durable. What a breath of fresh air, compared to the
> intellectual smoke of Washington, DC.
>
> If we are to continue this "cobenefits" paradigm - the pretension of
> saving trees, lives, and climate - we might as well add in the co-benefits
> of biochar, and assign value to customer satisfaction. The customer is
> sovereign, not the expert class engaged in mutual back-scratching.
>
>
> Nikhil
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------
> (India +91) 909 995 2080
>
> On Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 5:56 AM, <neiltm at uwclub.net> wrote:
>
>> On 19 Aug 2016 at 19:25, Traveller wrote:
>>
>> > I remembered how some charcoal fires used to be run with a hand
>> > blower. I found a modern version on Amazon.in, here
>> > <http://www.amazon.in/Grill-Blower-Charcoal-Grills-Fireplaces/dp/B011
>> > 7F268 0>
>>
>> These can sometimes be purchased for as little as one GB pound in pound
>> shops in the UK (and a little more on ebay), and are excellent for
>> starting or reviving volcano kettles when there is no wind and/or
>> reluctant fuel, or for reviving a TLUD which has gone out, by simply
>> blasting it into the top until the flame rekindles well enough to
>> sustain, or less urgently applying it gently to the bottom outside
>> airholes which can help a flagging  NDTLUD revive sometimes.  I use it as
>> an occasional 'rescue' in other words.  Sustained use of it would be
>> tedious as well as occupying both hands.  They seem surprisingly durable
>> as well. I've had the same one for years.
>>
>> Just cooked a nice omelette on one of the Chinese NTLUDs using very fine
>> dry wood chip - almost chain saw sawdust size.  This restricts the
>> primary air nicely for a lengthy sustained moderate heat, but there is no
>> possibility to add fuel at the end of the batch to keep it going, yet
>> even such micro char successfully fuels our BBQ.  Using much larger fuel
>> allows for indefinite burn time whether beginning the burn as a TLUD or
>> not.  So versatile these stoves.  Much as I enjoyed the Reed fan woodgas
>> campstoves, I no longer take them on trips now, but still use them
>> occasionally at home.
>>
>> Neil Taylor
>>
>
>
>
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