[Stoves] Biomass, coal and LPG as cooking fuels ... was Re: report with disappointing results from cleaner cookstoves

[Paul Anderson]

Stovers,   (Subject thread changed because the topic has shifted completely)

We are stovers.   We are on the Stoves listserv that has a STRONG focus 
on biomass fuels.  And we will stay that way.

But we are not to be ignorant about other fuels.   We know that there 
are massive efforts (and investments) for LPG stoves, especially in 
India, but talked about in many places.   About LPG, I only complain 
that LPG is sucking up so much of the funding and advocacy support.   
Just give equal resources to the CLEAN biomass-burning stoves.  Not 
likely to happen, so LPG fossil fuel gets burned, increasing the CO2 in 
the atmosphere.  And LPG will NEVER reach the hundreds of millions of 
households that need better stoves.  Cherry pick the more affluent of 
the poor.   But LPG is not a realistic answer when it comes to serving 
the masses of people in poverty.

But we tollerate LPG.  If interested, sign up for the LPG stove webinar 
that is this Thursday at 9 AM Central Standard Time.

But hey, what about coal?   It certainly gets bad-mouthed on the Stoves 
listserv.   Dirty coal.  Blah Blah Blah.

Well, if we can "tollerate" LPG as a fossil fuel that gives clean 
cookstoves to needy people, we should also "tollerate or even accept" 
that CLEAN-BURNING of COAL is just as good (or equally bad but allowed) 
as LPG.

IF    or   WHEN   or    NOW THAT      the Model 4 coal gasifiers are 
measureably shown to be quite clean burning, it is time for the Stovers 
to acknowledge them and to actually embrace the coal gasifiers WHERE 
APPROPRIATE.   Coal and modern coal-burning gasifier stoves are not a 
strong candidate solution for cookstoves in the humid tropics where 
biomass is sufficiently present.   And coal is certainly not present 
everywhere.

But where coal is available and where biomass is scarce (such as Malawi) 
or where it is cold and stoves run almost continually for 5 to 8 months, 
these new improved coal burners COULD have a major role.   They should 
have a chance to be proven.   Time for some resources to be put into 
usage of that technology.

The Stoves Listserv has had major discussions about alcohol stoves and 
now LPG and even some (not much) about solar and retained heat cookers.  
We are not about ONLY biomass stoves.   We are about stoves for 
impoverished people, for whom biomass is by far the most important 
fuel.  But we are NOT against coal when burned correctly and in 
appropriate situations.  (If we were against coal and fossil fuels, we 
would abandon most of the USA for 3 to 5 months every winter because our 
homes would be frozen shut.)

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 12/13/2016 1:52 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
>
> 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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