[Stoves] Off-topic: Humor v. humility (Re: Ron Larson's complaint on coal)

[Traveller]

Writings from 14 October 2014 that I hadn't bothered to send.

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Dear Ron:

I am sorry my "satire" or "humor" - intended or not - leaves you cold. You
have known me for 20+ years now. Either global warming needs to reach up to
Colorado - if that's where you are now - or maybe I need to try harder to
generate more heat.

Grilling and roasting friends and colleagues on the subject of household
energy has been an enjoyable pastime. Some of us think it is obligatory;
raw data and faith in models can produce indigestion, constipation and
premature mortality. With the right fuel, right stove, and right amount of
attention, the flavors come out and taste improves. Even intellectual smoke
is sometimes quite pleasant. Now that recreational dope is legal in
Colorado, I promise to generate some PM2.5.

I beg everybody's pardon for taking uncivil liberties. Civility that forces
groupthink is a vice; incivility with the intent to force openness and
integrity is not.

I will respond more about WHO/EPA/BAMG exercise later, but let me address
your gripe about coal here. (I did a review of world coal industry for
power plant sourcing some 25 years ago. There is no comparable database
about biomass fuels. Shows the poverty of biomass energy experts.)

You wrote,

"I ask that you stick to the topic of this list - which does not include
supporting the use of coal or ridiculing those who are concerned about
global warming.  It does not include giving advice such as your last line:

*The rest is blogal noise of vested interests who know nothing about the
poor, nor care. "*

I respectfully beg to disagree. I also note that you bothered yourself only
with "The rest..", merrily ignoring the suggestions about "What is to be
done", which is the "giving advice" part. Who is being ideological here?

After 30 years, what laurels can biomass stovers rest on? "Up in Smoke" in
India? Photo opportunities for propaganda?

Have "better stoves" with biomass captured even 1% of the cooking market of
the poor in 30 years?

Let's assume that an average of three billion poor people have been victims
of cookstove emissions per year.  At an average life expectancy of 60
years, the total cohort size over 30 years is some 4.5 billion. Assume
1,000 meals a year, and you have a total market size of of more than 100
trillion meals. Did "improved biomass stoves" cook a trillion meals, you
think?

Or did they cook meals for even a half of the conferences on biomass
stoves? A tenth? Did anybody measure the carbon footprint of advocacy of
"improved biomass stoves"? (I happen to suspect far more has been achieved
in improving the combustion of coal in steam power plants or even direct
use than in improving solid biomass combustion for direct use.

A lot remains to be done after 30 years. Hence my advice on "What is to be
done."

But let me humbly try to amuse you with more gallant humor.

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My responses to you:

a) The monotheistic cult of "biomass stoves" whether or not they are
"better stoves" has limited following. However you define your problem and
your customer base, actual and potential competition from substitute fuels,
devices and practices (including outsourcing cooking) must be considered.
That includes coal.

b) IF coal can be burnt more cleanly than some types of biomass in some
types of stove, and such combustion is more convenient to some users and
has a larger market gain, it behooves the priesthood of biomass stoves to
take a pause and revisit their theology. (Displacement of inefficient and
dirty combustion of biomass - "renewable" is debatable - by modern coal
power with emission control technologies is an example in point.)

The elitist gall to indiscriminately oppose coal - or to indiscriminately
embrace biomass (dung, straw, twigs and all) - is getting tiresome. Coal
built Europe, North America, Australia, South Africa, China, and now India.
The crazy war against coal is war against the poor. Improving the coal fuel
cycle can do a lot more than funky wind; just look around.

c) There is a tendency in some circles to confuse all "solid fuels" with
"dirty fuels". This means coals and woods get clubbed with dung and crop
wastes - which too can be and are burnt cleanly and conveniently.
Ideologies assigning character to fuels, not combustion and operating
practices, are intellectual junk. (We should all be angry about this
because "solid fuels" includes our darling woods.)

d) Everybody is concerned about global warming, no one more than I. What is
to be done and how is the source of much heat but little light and power.

Some folks may be overjoyed that coal production in Colorado was down by
40+% first six months of this year, but let's not forget that Colorado
alone produced nearly 1.5 billion tons of coal in 150+ years. (Colorado
Coal: energy security for the future
<http://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/rtv8n21.pdf>,
2005 plus EIA data since.)

I reckon that is more in per capita terms than today's poor worldwide;
Coloradans obviously had great appetite for coal - five tons per capita per
year quite recently, and even now more than two tons per capita per year.

Could you please tell me how many Coloradans have suffered premature deaths
by 2015? (Hint: Give money to your favorite scientists.)

I count on you to do the science. I don't do science; I do politics and
economics.

I can tell you this - a billion tons of Colorado quality coal, turned into
economically cleanest electricity generation this year, would substitute
about all "dirty cooking" by unprocessed solid fuels in poor households of
the developing world (for whom our hearts bleed), via electrical appliances
(induction stoves, microwave, kettles and heaters, beverage makers, bread
machines, rice cookers and stew pots, electric grills and griddles, egg
poachers and toasters).

That would mean averting 4+ million premature deaths this year, according
to received science.

I am guessing it would also mean lower emissions of GHGs and black carbon -
in 20-year GWP terms, net of increase in CO2 as a result of more complete
combustion - than the baseline "dirty cooking by unprocessed solid fuels in
poor households".

Use 0.5% sulfur coal and tall chimneys will make it even better from
climate viewpoint.

That too is received science.

Why, about 1 billion tons of coal for electricity generation today - I pick
the portion meeting US NSPS of 1973 (40CFR60) - are used for cooking in and
outside homes around the world today, reducing climate damage and averting
another 4 million premature deaths.

That's my politics. As I said, I don't do science. But I dare WHO/EPA to
prove me wrong. Not by vapid cite-o-logy unless they are prepared to
empirically justify the assumptions made in the literature they cite.

To recite the sage I am, the war on coal is a war on the poor. :-)

The problem is not the fuels - substances - but the processes. Inferior
stoves. Poor ventilation.

e) I also maintain there is a lot of blogal noise about poverty by vested
interests; I am a part of it. As another Indian sage said more than 25
years ago, "Paaverty mein paisa hai". (There is money in poverty. For
experts.)

 Nikhil
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