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

Tue Dec 13 16:21:12 CST 2016

Dear Paul

Very sensible approach.

Suppose you are concerned about the total CO2 emissions from coal combustion. What is the most effective way to burn it for the most benefit? Burn it cleanly in the hone being heated, or where the food is cooked.

It used to be true that only large scale combustion could be considered clean. No longer.

If you feel that poor people, who live their whole lives in energy poverty,so it is  ought to 'do their share' by reducing their ‎CO2 emissions, what better way than to reduce their coal consumption by 50%.  Makes sense, right?  If there are good ideological reasons for asking the poor to 'do with less' then we should at least provide some offsetting benefit in the form of a more comfortable life, that is how I see it.

‎At the moment this is pretty easy to do because the traditional stoves are so terribly inefficient, far less than you would guess.

Testing the common stoves in Tajikistan I found they are less than 20% efficient at low power - as space heating. Cooking efficiency is a 1/4 of that or less!

So...if we really want to help people who 'need it' let's cut their fuel purchases in half not by appealing to ‎a fuzzy goal about CO2 but by teaching them to build stoves that use half as much fuel, that can burn for 6-24 hours without attention instead of 2-3, and which greatly reduce emissions of non-inherent substances, especially PIC's.

Such an approach would clean up the air in the cities, the valleys and the neighbourhoods.

Regards
Crispin

‎
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<mailto:psanders at ilstu.edu>
Skype:   paultlud    Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website:  www.drtlud.com<http://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
Peacham, VT 05862

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