[Stoves] report with disappointing results from cleaner cookstoves

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Jock

Would you agree that the ‘same-old-same-old’ means the same stoves that we have been punting for years, which are either rejected as not cooking properly, or too expensive?

Perhaps we should concentrate on finding disruptive technologies that leap past old hurdles.

Two come time mind that are presently being rolled out on a small scale: the TLUD’s making charcoal for money that Sujatha is making, and the Model 4 coal gasifiers. Both are making a lie out of many assumptions that have driven many of the decisions (and ‘truths’) taken in the past 5-10 years.

The first idea that has been overthrown is that ‘there are dirty fuels’. It was never true as the observations was based on the combustion technologies available at the time. Changing the technology has transformed the consequence.

I was at a ProBEC conference once at which it was plainly stated that ‘wood is a smoky fuel’. I pointed out that we had far better combustors these days and that it was no longer true all the time. The reply was, “Well that is all interesting but wood is such a smoky fuel!”

Now we face the same situation with coal. The devices for kerosene were always clean burning – some of them – since 80 years ago.  Imagine, it has taken that long to get the message through. We can’t afford to wait that long again. We need a communication paradigm that has shifted.

Regards
Crispin



If the ideas that permeate this sector haven’t

The problem I see is that we are too focused on stove technology. We are not looking at the context in which the problems exist. My view is that little progress will be made until we reject and replace most, if not all, of the 20th century "zombie" ideologies. These zombies create a framework that essentially prevents the necessary political, economic, and social changes that would allow better stoves to play a constructive role in solving the problems created by these very same zombies. The voters in the US clearly rejected more of the same old same old. However, the only real choice they had was a backwards view offering a return to a simulacrum of an imagined 18th century.  I have yet to see a vibrant and dynamic vision of a regenerative 21st century. Clearly, the Democratic Party failed to offer such a vision as an alternative to the offering made by team Trump.  And now we will all pay the price for this failure to create and offer a forward looking vision.  Better stoves will come into their own only when  such a vision is articulated and adopted very widely.
Jock Gill
P. O. Box 3<x-apple-data-detectors://0>
Peacham, VT 05862<x-apple-data-detectors://0>


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