[Stoves] LPG-stoves Webinar comments

Paul Anderson psanders at ilstu.edu
Thu Dec 15 13:50:45 CST 2016


Stovers,    (with some special reference about Haiti near the end)

I attended this morning the 90 minute webinar about LPG for 
cookstoves.   Well worth the time!!  In a few days / weeks the full 
webinar will be available via EPA/Winrock.

Comments:    (forgive me if my notes are faulty, but I think I am saying 
things correctly.)
1.  ----   Not a nice word said about biomass/solid fuels.   To be 
expected.  Not a complaint.   They were advocating / "selling" LPG.

2.  The industry association (WLPGA) has 250 members and 1.4 million 
employees.  ----  I calculate that to be 5600 employees per member.   
Wow.   GACC has 1600 partners, many with 5 or fewer employees (many who 
are the owners).   LPG is BIG business and has deep pockets.

3.  Section on Women in LPG was about hiring more females.  VERY few 
women in LPG activities (not counting the cooks).  ----  This is PR work 
that makes sense.   Not a complaint.   Just a comment.

4.  In the world, LPG has 3 billion consumers.  (accept that as a 
fact).  (next might not be correctly noted:  wanting to reach one 
billion (poor) people by 2030. ------   To me that says 5 people per 
household would be 200 million households.  Admirable.   But there are 
500 million households with needs for clean cookstoves.   So that looks 
like claiming 40% of the NEED to be taken care of by LPG.   Wonderful.   
That will be mainly the more affluent of the needy people, not the BOP 
(Base of the Pyramid).   So that leaves 60% to be handled by the other 
stove technologies.   All of that is fine with me IF (big IF) LPG was 
not sucking up so much of the subsidy money and if LPG was not carbon 
positive.  Being carbon neutral is harder to do.   And being carbon 
NEGATIVE is even harder, but is done by the char-making TLUD stoves, 
that are NOT getting subsidies and do not need imported fuels.

5.  Also made a comment that LPG is "Low GHG."  Nothing more said about 
that.   -----

6.  Three countries named:
A.  Brazil is 95% connected for LPG.  (That is "availability".) -------  
No mention of cost/benefits or subsidy.  Success story.

B.  India is getting started.   Later comments mention 67% penetration / 
access,   -----   because households in or near urban areas where LPG is 
sold somewhere .   Access means COULD get an LPG tank.  Seeking massive 
LPG _coverage_ in the next 3 years. That could be distribution so that 
access is possible, and not about actual usage.

C.  Indonesia.   The numbers I copied down were:   57 million household 
are already in the LPG user-camp, and that the subsidy money to do that 
was US$ 14.6 BILLION.   Nothing more was said. ------ So I submitted a 
comment/question that will have its answer when the webinar (and 
answered questions) are available for everyone.  Check my math, but 
$14,600 Millions divided by 57 Millions is $256 SUBSIDY PER HOUSEHOLD.   
Ouch!!!!   That does not seem possible.

This data needs verification.   I do not want to start any "fake 
news".   And who got this money?   Maybe there are "factors" in 
calculating the subsidy, such as counting things that maybe could be 
left off of the costs.

But even at half ($128) that would be a massive subsidy per stove.

And this raises the question of what is in the works already for India 
which is more than 4 times larger in population than Indonesia.  Some 
sort of cost/benefit analysis might be appropriate.

7.  The importance of the role of government in the provision of stove 
policies (and regulations about LPG importation and 
handling/distribution) was emphasized by the speakers.  ----- Certainly 
a correct statement, and the big-business LPG companies have much more 
contact and impact than do the little guys.

8.  There was a section on LPG in humanitarian aid, specifically 
mentioning refugee camps.  Presentation spoke poorly of "Traditional 
fuels".   One presentation spoke about the provision of LPG to refugee 
camps that are occupied for many years and are likely to remain in place 
for more years.  The presenters suggestion for consideration is that 
maybe the camps should have LPG piped in instead of trucking in the LPG 
canisters.   ------

9.  A very interesting segment of the presentation was about Haiti.   
Many very good statistics.
A.  Very low LPG infrastructure and usage at present.

B.  4800 schools (institutional cooking, maybe including orphanages?) in 
Haiti, of which 143 so far have LPG services. Price of installation 
(equipment, etc) is US$900 for the basic and up to $5000 for the larger 
more complete kitchen conversions. Capacity for conversions to LPG was 
stated to be 1500 per year. Mentioned fuel cost SAVINGS because the cost 
of charcoal in Haiti is so high that LPG could be sold at higher prices 
and still be competitive.

C.  Discussion of street vendors using LPG  ------  (which makes sense 
to me).

D.  For household (HH) stoves, the LPG target is 10,000 for low income 
HH.  Have done 1150 thus far.  Cost is $100 for the economy version and 
$160 for the premium version.  -----   Haiti has about 2 million 
households, so there is no talk of covering 40% of those households with 
LPG.

E.  How to fund these LPG products?  Utilize the money of the 400,000 
Haitians who live in the USA (and more in other countries) who send 
remittences to Haiti to support their relatives, etc. Called "Diaspora" 
Haitians.   Mentioned making contact with the main Haitian-in-USA  TV 
station to spread the word.

F.  ------ No mention of the Canadian government 50 million dollar 
commitment to improve stoves in Haiti, but I am sure that LPG entities 
have their eyes on a hefty chunk of those funds.  Still in the planning 
stages until January 2017

***************************
So much of this presentation was marketing.  Fair enough.   The survey 
of the attendees showed that most (80+%??) were involved with some 
business aspect of LPG (or were considering it).   Only a few (such as 
me) marked "Other" as the reason for attending.   I wanted to know about 
the LPG cookstove approach.   The session was highly informative.  
Thanks to the presenters and to EPA and Winrock for making available 
important information.

I wonder if this topic will be discussed on the Stoves Listserv.   I 
hope so.

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

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