[Stoves] Biomass, coal and LPG as cooking fuels ... was Re: report with disappointing results from cleaner cookstoves
Paul Anderson
psanders at ilstu.edu
Tue Dec 13 21:03:45 CST 2016
Roger,
You wrote about the money at GACC:
> and another $50 million in investment for the sector at large. .... the sector at large.. I guess they means the masses of poor people.
No. I think the "sector at large" includes any stove operations
(meaning companies) that got funding with the prospects that somehow the
masses might get some benefits while the company makes profits (a
requirement to get the investments). GACC and others can please
correct me if I said that incorrectly.
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 5:54 PM, Roger Samson wrote:
> Hi Crispin
>
> 1. I applaud your efforts to burn coal more efficiently but I think expansion is a disaster. A main problem with coal is the sustainability of supply and extraction. At current rates of consumption in China for example, they have about 50 years of coal supply and they are destroying their aquifiers through extracting it and urban air quality by burning it. I mean I realize there are areas of China where biomass is limited and coal is essential. It should be burned efficiently but it has low sustainability as a fuel source. I think rural Malawi could look at doing what some villages in India are doing and that is growing pigeon peas for food and fuel. Its cultural though the Indians have a long history of eating pigeon peas. We had nice results with pigeon peas as a fuel source in Gambia but they didn't like the taste compared to their delicious large seed cowpeas. Pigeon peas are great as a drought tolerant crop that is a good N fixer. Pigeon pea intercrops well with maize and can be planted with animal draft power. I think there is a big scope for going to food plus fuel crops like cashew, mango, moringa. pigeon pea etc in many developing countries and learn to prune branches more intensively. Fuel alone tree planting is not as attractive for communities as food plus fuel from my experiences in West Africa. I think we need to focus more on food plus fuel agroforestry systems as an important component of sustainable rural cooking systems.
>
> 2. And seeing that Crispin raised the issue of comfort..... If any of you folks out there are seeking real comfort. I suggest you get a job at the GACC secretariat as it looks like that's where the good times roll.
> From the GACC website: During Phase 1, the Alliance and our global partners have driven $62 million in grant funding for Secretariat activities and another $50 million in investment for the sector at large.
> Now how many of you think that is a fair balance.????.. the sector at large.. I guess they means the masses of poor people. I guess you wouldn't want to write masses of poor people get less than half of the money that went to the GACC secretariat. Should we replay the Leonard Cohen tune...
>
> I am getting real curious what the GACC CEO is making, Can anyone inform us that knows? There must be some rights the 1600 partners have to know how the organization is run.
>
> regards
>
> Roger
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Tue, 12/13/16, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] Biomass, coal and LPG as cooking fuels ... was Re: report with disappointing results from cleaner cookstoves
> To: "Stoves" <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Received: Tuesday, December 13, 2016, 5:21 PM
>
>
>
> 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
> Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072
> Website: www.drtlud.com
> On 12/13/2016 1:52
> PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
>
>
>
>
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> 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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