[Stoves] Now on-topic: Challenge to Ron to define service standard and goals for "better biomass stoves"

Fri Dec 16 19:02:25 CST 2016

Nikhil and ccs   (adding Ajay as a courtesy)

	Glad to see “on-topic”   Can we assume no more “off-topic” from you?

	See below.

> On Dec 16, 2016, at 3:26 PM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Ron: 
> 
> I am serious about raising a billion dollars for GACC. Including for biomass stoves. 
	[RWL1:  I find this a little hard to believe.  Please expand;  some examples from your past writings to show you believe in GACC?
> 
> Sad to see that you are not. The Alliance needs new partners like Ivanka. GACC needs to continue with Leo DeCaprio and Jose Andres if that is what it takes to raise money. There’s no hope for engineers without more money, I am sure you will agree (because that is what I have seen argue a lot for - more money.) 
	[RWL2:   I am for the $1 billion number;  can you explain why you think I am not?
> 
> So far I thought the purpose of this List was to discuss ways of producing - and successfully marketing (I imagine) BETTER BIOMASS STOVES. You now want to restrict only to WOOD-FIRED COOKSTOVES? 
	[RWL3:  Apologies.  I erred.  I should have said biomass-fired stoves - as in the existing rules for this list.
> 
> I submit to you that you cannot move an inch toward better biomass stoves without also looking at the competition (coal included) and defining your terms - biomass and cookstoves. 
	[RWL4:  I disagree that we need to discuss coal-fired stoves at all.  My hope is to phase them out.  We have limited bandwidth -and folks wanting to discuss improving coal stoves have plenty of opportunity to start a list for that.  I probably would join that list.  I hope you are not suggesting that coal is a form of biomass.
> 
> With enough data characterizing fuel chemistry around the world, moisture variability throughout seasons, foods that are being cooked with the cookstoves.
	[RWL5:  Not sure of the point here.  Are you suggesting this list is not interested in these topics?  
>  
> 
> Far too much money and time has been wasted on measuring and debating the impacts of “improved stoves" projects. 
	[RWL6:  It is clear that this is your long-held belief (and conflicts with your support in #1 for GACC funding increases).  One example of your view of waste seems to have been (all?) of the work of Kirk Smith?   A few days ago you referenced a PhD thesis by Ajay Pillarisetti.  I found it very informative and with to recommend it to this list.  See  http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7hw5z2w2 .  
I would be interested in what part of this thesis you include in the term “too much money and time”?

> I submit there is not an iota of gain from IHME/WHO GoBbleDygook. 
	[RWL7:  It is my strong opinion that you are in a very small minority on this view.  It would help your case a lot if you gave a few cites who agree with you.   I find many dozens of cites in Ajay’s thesis in support of what he has done - and which you have otherwise deplored.  Here is a key figure (#5.6) from that thesis that I find very well argued and find convincing. 


(It opens larger for me, hope so for others).  It is his Fig 5.6a, with of course much more detail available there.    This figure says that about $1500 (for added chimneys) will avert one DALY - and that this action would be highly cost effective.  How would you or anyone argue to not use this information?  I am hoping for specifics - not generalities.
	I have included Ajay mostly to congratulate him (and his thesis team) for a very fine thesis - but also, as a courtesy, to give him background as we await Nikhil’s further comments on Ajay’s modeling effort.  For those not aware of Nikhil’s style - GoBbleDygook is his disparaging term for the huge amount of work behind the study called GBD - Global Burden of Disease.  I look forward to learning (from Nikhil) of others who agree with him.
	It appears to me that Nikhil has simply not understood Ajay’s modeling - as Nikhil has given no details on his unhappiness.  This would be a good time to provide details - since it seems likely that GACC and many others (still awaiting $1 billion) are quite apt to be using this.
	I am told that the “Gold Standard” certification group will soon be approving use of this methodology.  That takes considerable peer review.
> 
> Please define the service standard and the environmental objectives and goals of "clean cookstoves" movement. 
	[RWL8:  I refer you to the GACC website.  I don’t see much difference there with what we wrote 20 years ago for this list.  What is there about the word “clean” that is unclear?

	To help Nikhil as he asks for my own definition, I should perhaps repeat my history with this stoves topic.  After retiring, I developed a rudimentary version of what is now called a TLUD over several years - working in Sweden, Ethiopia, and showed once to friends in Sudan (which country started my search because it has been so badly harmed by a huge dependence on charcoal).  In 1995,  I described this charcoal-making stove on a predecessor list also run by Tom Miles and after a few months, Tom asked me to be one of the first two coordinators of an early version of this list (those records have been lost).  In this first phase of my experience with stoves (well after Kirk Smith and many others), I was motivated only by saving forests - because charcoal production is usually so badly handled (as we have been hearing over the last few days).  In my mind this fits the word “clean”.  This proposed new type of stove was a vehicle for making charcoal in a superior manner,
	As I became more aware of stove work by others,  I learned that a TLUD is (by chance?) the cleanest form of stove.  To further protect forests, it is natural to talk about stoves and health/disease (GBD).  I emphasize they are additive reasons, not alternative.
	As I talked about this with others, and watched the way a stove is tested (esters never leaving the open door), I added time savings for the cook as a reason to support TLUDs.   I consider this part also of the word “clean” because real world cooks don’t operate like (the very talented) stove testers.
	Then came a time when it became apparent that TLUDs had a great shot at greatly reducing the cost of cooking, as there is a huge global market for charcoal.  Not because of cleanliness and health - but those desirable goals are promoted when someone sees better economics in TLUDs than rockets (despite the TLUD’s drawback of batch operation).
	But in about 2005 (ten years from the beginning), with most of my time then being on RE and EE topics (and not on stoves), I learned about terra preta.  A charcoal-making stove fit very nicely with the fabulous news of both greatly improved soils and the possibility of biochar (so named two years later) helping with carbon dioxide removal (CDR).  Climate deniers can’t see the connection, it appears, but excess atmospheric CO2 seems to me to be the absolute worst pollutant - with huge health implications.  I see the household cookstove market as being able to eventually supply about 10% of the CDR needed.  But it can be the first - because this form of CDR is so cost effective.  And it can take place where (tropical regions) we can expect responses like terra preta to occur again (practiced for thousands of years with zero thoughts of CDR).  This atmospheric side also in my mind falls under the category of “clean”.  Unfortunately, this is opaque to climate deniers as they don’t agree that we have any serious excess CO2 problem.
	So I go again through this litany to explain why I am supportive of anyone looking at stoves as in Ajay’s thesis.  None of these are either/or arguments.  It just happens that I am responding at this length because I want work like Ajay’s to continue - as cost numbers such as in his Figure 5.6 are certainly going to be able to add to the other economic values I am claiming for forest preservation, time savings, added income, and global warming.
	Apologies for a too long-winded answer on my “goals” for “clean cookstoves”.  I add this to explain why I am so opposed to this list promoting coal stoves in any fashion (added to the fact that WHO recommends against the use of untreated (the usual) coal for stoves.
> 
> It’s all in fuel chemistry, air chemistry and atmospheric chemistry. 
	[RWL9:  Can I assume this emphasis on chemistry means that you agree with a global goal of getting back quickly to a CO2 atmospheric level of 300 ppm or so?  Your recent support of coal seems to deny a problem with 2 degree C rise.   As a chemist, where are you on the urgency of doing something with global warming?  And do you see any connection with global warming and this stoves list?
 	If it is not yet clear where I stand on coal - its demise is decades overdue.

Ron (with a EE degree - that I am not using in any of the above)
> 
> Nikhil (with a chemistry degree)
> 
> 
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 2:25 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net <mailto:rongretlarson at comcast.net>> wrote:
> Nikhil: cc list
> 
> 	Can I suggest that you place additional  “off-topic” messages on some other list?  (I feel I just wasted a half-hour.)
> 
> 	The answer to your last question would seem to be one of those you seem to most admire - the Trumps.
> 
> 	Or what did I miss of importance to improving wood-fired cookstoves - the goal of this list?
> 
> Ron
> 
> 
>> On Dec 16, 2016, at 9:15 AM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com <mailto:miata98 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Around town, there are rumors that Ivanka Trump, Donald's daughter, could be more significant than Hillary Clinton. (The election is on World Toilet Day according to Crispin.) 
>> 
>> Ivanka Trump could be the most powerful first lady ever <https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/16/ivanka-trump-could-be-the-most-powerful-first-lady-ever>, Washington Post 16Dec16. 
>> 
>> Ivanka loves cooking <http://celebritybabies.people.com/2016/07/21/ivanka-trump-raising-three-children-jared-kushner-exhausted/>, has put recipes <http://www.ivankatrump.com/recipes-broccoli-kugel-steamed-artichokes-chicken-salad-veal-marsala/> on her website, and says about her book Women Who Work <http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/women-who-work-ivanka-trump/1123884764?ean=9780735211322&st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_Core+Shopping+Books_00000000&2>, "We learn how to cook and how to code. We inspire our employees and our children. We innovate at our current jobs and start new businesses."
>> 
>> She and Chelsea are friends <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-3834181/First-daughters-fast-friends-unlikely-bond-Chelsea-Clinton-Ivanka-Trump.html>, so I am sure Hillary would just adopt Ivanka as the second daughter she didn't have. 
>> 
>> Above all, she arranged a meeting between The Donald and Al Gore, who could decide which way the Earth in the Balance <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_in_the_Balance> tips. 
>> 
>> South Lawn dinners with the Clintons and the Trumps is the way to go for UN Foundation, Inc. and Bill Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, Inc.  I can devise a  $1 billion fund raising strategy just for high class marketing - Narendra Modi, Vladimir Putin, Dr. Kim and all, PLUS a $10 billion investment fund for "clean cookstoves". 
>> 
>> Yup. The time has come. To elevate GACC to the next level. 
>> 
>> The White House kitchen  <http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1877168,00.html> wasn't always clean <https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/white-house-food-presidential-eating>.  Maybe the next brand for GACC will be Global Alliance for Clean Kitchens and Homes. 
>> 
>> Now, where's my "finder's fee" for an even more glamorous Cooking Ambassador? 
>> 
>> Nikhil
>> 
>> 
>> ---------   

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20161216/9d7385d9/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PastedGraphic-1.tiff
Type: image/tiff
Size: 123662 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20161216/9d7385d9/attachment.tiff>