[Stoves] Clarifications Re: Off-topic again: Ron fails to define service standard and goals for "better biomass stoves"

[Ronal W. Larson]

Paul et al:

	I agree with all you have added.  Here I only want to thank you (tardily) for the little bit of your message that I have NOT excised (and then also personally try to add to (as you have requested) the good report you gave).  See more below.


> On Dec 17, 2016, at 2:09 PM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> 
> Ron and Nikhil and Crispin and others,
> 
>    <snip two lines>

> I do note that not a single person sent any message about my summary of the LPG-stoves webinar.  I thought that the data about subsidies etc and not reaching the truly impoverished in sustainable ways would get some reaction.   No problem.  That topic is over.

	[RWL:  I apologize for not saying thanks right away.  I don’t think many will mind if I reopen the topic.  I only heard the last part of the webinar, and hoped to get back to it when it was released.  So here is what you said on the 15th (that I have italicized for clarity).  I am commenting only where I hope to add something new.

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.   

	[RWL2:  I don’t have the time now to prove this, but am sure we can find climate denial funding coming from this Association.  

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. 

	[RWL4:  I spend a majority of my time these days on a list called “Geoengineering” - particularly hot right now as we are discussing a just-ended major COP (Conference of Parties) meeting in Cancun (Mexico) on CBD (the Convention on Biodiversity).  I am still learning, but presume there was not much favorable said there about LPG.  My impression on the handling of biochar (to be produced via TLUDs and many other ways) was appreciably better than earlier by the CBD.  See this document:  
				https://www.cbd.int/doc/publications/cbd-ts-84-en.pdf  
	The word “biochar” appears 149 times - many excellent new cites - especially a large number from 2016.  There are a few places I would quibble about - but a big improvement over previous CBD documents on biochar.  No mention at all of LPG, but 88 uses of “fossil” and almost 1200 on “climate”. 
	The point perhaps is that this LPG-oriented study has failed to be thinking of where the world is moving

5.  Also made a comment that LPG is "Low GHG."  Nothing more said about that.   ——
	[RWL5:  When you are trying to go negative, every bit counts.   Until we have net negative emissions, the global temperatures will continue to rise. My perception is that Kirk Smith believes this “low” is justified by the averted DALY’s.  I think he and many are not including the potential for carbon negativity capabilities of TLUDs - which also have positive health benefits.  But even more critical could be the cost reversal potential as biochar receives carbon credits in the future (I hope).  Women in need of stretching limited funds could well choose to use an income-generating stove over one with an expensive, supposedly safer fuel.

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.   
	[RWL6:   I hope this included some data gathering on the health impacts.  It wouldn’t surprise me that such subsidies could be a good investment from a DALY perspective - so I hope someone reading this can comment on this payback question.  Poor health is a terrible drain on national economies.  But as we have been learning - a good stove in an otherwise unhealthy environment is not going to do much.

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.
	[RWL6:  I’ll try to return to these important details after listening to all of the webinar.  (and applies to all your questions)

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.  
	[RWL7.  Two personal hopes - a) climate change concerns could drown out the fossil companies;  b) making money while you cook could entirely offset LPG interests.  And a) and b) can be related - and there are not many options to a needy housewife as attractive to budgets as TLUDs.

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 
	[RWL:  Can you give a cite on these Canadian dollars?

***************************
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

	[RWL_end:  Me too (re discussion). 

	 Again - thanks and apologies for my too-delayed response.  We all should be reporting on information opportunities like this - and Winrock (Elisa Derby) / EPA (John Mitchell)  (on behalf of PCIA and now GACC) deserve a lot of credit for this series (the last was the excellent one featuring Michael Johnson and Ajay [a cc, whose recent doctoral thesis I have complimented] that explained their new model and coupling with DALYs)

	I just checked at http://www.pciaonline.org/webinars <http://www.pciaonline.org/webinars>, and this December webinar was not yet up - but I recommend (again) listening to Michael and Ajay and others on their November similar (?) webinar.

Ron


> <snip lots>

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