[Stoves] Why is it still so difficult to design cookstoves for 3 billion people?

Sun Jun 26 20:34:57 CDT 2016

Dear Nikhil,

Well said. I especially like the named ‘miracle’ stove. Should be stamped on all the stoves tested using un-natural prepared fuel and tested never cooking a single meal. Yes - buy a clean, efficiency Miracle Stove!

Well done

Frank

> On Jun 26, 2016, at 6:09 PM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> This is Nikhil Desai again. I am writing in response to Xavier Brandao's original 14 June post. I have read Dieter Seifert's reply and agree with all of his points in Sections A through C of his Some Remarks on Stove Technologies <http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/solarcooking/images/8/8f/Remarks_on_Stove_Technologies_-_Seifert_February_2016.pdf/revision/latest?cb=20160519171524>. 
> 
> I have no expertise in designing cookstoves, so I have no idea why it is STILL so difficult to design cookstoves for 3 billion people. Some of Xavier's observations are on-the-mark, except that they are all about stoves, not fuels. Biomass is not a uniform fuel and the variability in quality across regions and seasons, not to speak of the variability in cooking preferences, make me uncomfortable with his sweeping generalizations about "stoves". I may come back to that point in a later post. 
> 
> I think the main reason is that some fundamental questions have gone unattended. Stoves or fuels in and of themselves are neither dirty nor clean, and when the market for stoves and fuels is properly identified - in terms of cooking habits and preferences, geographic factors, and fuel and stove costs - some stove designers have indeed made some progress in changing cooks' behaviors. "Cheap", "practical" and "very clean" are in the eyes of the user; these perceptions can change and can be changed. 
> 
> Let me pose some questions; they are addressed to the proponents of "biomass stoves for rural poor households in developing countries". 
> 
> a) Who are you designing the stove for? 
> 
> b) What do you know about her and how do you know that is enough knowledge to determine the stove marketability)? (Keep in mind that in the last 50 years, young women have become grandmothers or died, and that roughly 3 billion children have passed through the age group 10-25, where biomass cooking has subjected them to the drudgery and smoke while keeping them away from education, play, and taking care of children.) 
> 
> c) Why are you designing the stove - in particular, to please the cook or experts in donor organizations (God forbid, pass the RCTs of Remy Hanna, Esther Duflo, and Michael Greenstone?) 
> 
> d) When will you want these stoves to be used and how? 
> 
> and, finally, 
> 
> e) What has 50 years of failure taught you? (You are free to define failure and success in terms of your answers to a) to d). 
> 
> If the intent was to design a stove for only 50,000 cooks for a 10-year period so they prepared better meals that their menfolk liked and beat them less often - or any other desired result - that is fine by me. I would like to see some evidence that this intent has been met ten times. 
> 
> I am skeptical. I think proponents of biomass have forgotten the fuel(s) and looked only at stoves, as an engineering design challenge, sometimes not even from an industrial product designer's perspective. (By comparison, a large number of products for solar LED lanterns flooded the market very quickly, between 2009 and 2012, when I stopped marveling at the design/marketing pushes.) Implicitly or explicitly, the biomass stovers were driven by "efficiency" and efficiency alone. To what end - for a supposedly renewable and "freely available" fuel, I could never understand. (With solar lanterns, the conversion technology became more reliable and cheaper; with solid biomass, I have seen no evidence that fuel supplies or stoves and paraphernelia of fuel management became more reliable and cheaper.) 
> 
> Now there is a drive for miracle biomass stoves - the test being in labs for boiling waters. The test wouldn't offer any metrics other than efficiency and emission rates and under lab conditions. 
> 
> There is a presumption here that ultra-efficient and/or ultra-clean miracle stoves used exclusively will save the trees and/or lives. Not only are definitions and metrics of efficiency and cleanliness unknown or arguable, it is unknown or arguable that even 10% of the current households will use such miracle stoves exclusively, and it is also unknown or arguable that such use will save trees or lives. 
> 
> Some ten years ago I had argued on the Hedon discussion group something like "Maggis noodles has saved more trees than all the improved cookstove programs combined." I know nobody in stove design business ever seeks to deliver on his promises, so I doubt I would be challenged on this. "Anything goes" is the experts' prerogative when messing with poor people, no?  
> 
> "Avoided woodfuel use" does not translate into actual "avoided deforestation". I hear a lot of deforestation is for purposes other than meeting the fuel demands - though once cut, trees can be used for fuel or making charcoal - and that when people own land and trees, they grow trees. Evidence is spotty, but surely the question is not why people cut trees but why they do not grow trees back. In any case, biomass combustion is most definitely not "GHG-neutral", and "GHG-neutrality" of a village, a district, a state, or even a whole country matters not a hoot. 
> 
> Similarly, "avoided woodfuel emissions" - whether or not proportionate to avoided woodfuel use - do not translate into "avoided pre-mature mortality" and certainly not into "avoided deaths". If emission reductions lead to lower pollutant exposures - a big if, for no reason other than that there are no measurements of pollution exposures of these 3 billion (or all 7+ billion) people, nor  - and further if such lower exposures lead to lower incidence of corresponding diseases - another big if, since the avoided HAP pollutants could be negated by same or similar pollutants from other sources, including natural - we might see some health improvements. Whether that raises life expectancies, or quality of health, and increases or reduces pre-mature mortality, is anybody's guess. We have no evidence that clean fuels/stoves for some 3 billion cooks (at home or in food preparation for them outside the home) has reduced pre-mature mortality in any quantified manner. (I would be glad to be proven wrong.) 
> 
> Xavier asks a very pointed question - "why don't we know why it is proving so difficult?" I suspect many people know, but do not want to admit it. It is not just that "stove science is so complex", the cook is a complex mammal with different ideas, preferences, habits. If you don't understand the cook, and don't deliver a product that matches her desires and aspirations for cooking experience, you can do as much "stove science" as you want. Maybe that is indeed what biomass stovers have wanted to do for some 50 years I have seen the experiments with stoves, er, people's lives. Failures to deliver what the cook wants means some 500 million children pass through the age group 5-15 (i.e., about 50 million a year) caught in the same old rut; over 50 years, this means some 2.5 billion people (or 1.25 billion new cooks, if exclusively female), while nearly as many have passed on to the next world, having suffered the "wrong" fuel/stove syndrome. (I am assuming that something is wrong, otherwise stovers wouldn't be hammering away at this problem for 50 years.) 
> 
> Nikhil Desai
> (US) +1 202 568 5831 <tel:%2B1%20202%20568%205831>
>  
>  
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2016 20:58:45 +0200
> From: "Dr.-Ing. Dieter Seifert" <doseifert at googlemail.com <mailto:doseifert at googlemail.com>>
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
>         <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org <mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] Why is it still so difficult to design
>         cookstoves for 3 billion people?
> Message-ID: <cbbd28ce-63e0-88da-98d5-26c90585cf12 at googlemail.com <mailto:cbbd28ce-63e0-88da-98d5-26c90585cf12 at googlemail.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
> 
> Dear Xavier Brandao,
> 
> Thank you for your informative posting. I agree with your proposals and I would like to draw your attention to documents about open source cooking technologies (OSAT) which you find on the website of SCI (http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Dieter_Seifert <http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Dieter_Seifert>)
> 
> a) some remarks on stove-technologies: 
> http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/solarcooking/images/8/8f/Remarks_on_Stove_Technologies_-_Seifert_February_2016.pdf/revision/latest?cb=20160519171524 <http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/solarcooking/images/8/8f/Remarks_on_Stove_Technologies_-_Seifert_February_2016.pdf/revision/latest?cb=20160519171524>
> 
> b) about Ben firewood stoves:
> http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Ben_2_and_Ben_3_Firewood_Stoves <http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Ben_2_and_Ben_3_Firewood_Stoves>
> 
> The whole documentation is dedicated to poor households. Only standard material is needed. The documentation (including Annexes A ? E) contains also the devices for production in simple workshops, so that the cost of a stove will be below 10 USD.
> 
> c) about cooking with retained heat (a totally underestimated technology)
> 
> http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Heat-retention_cooker <http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Heat-retention_cooker>
> 
> I hope this open source technologies may be so helpful, as you described it.
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> Dieter Seifert
> 
> 
> Am 14.06.2016 um 08:16 schrieb Xavier Brandao:
> > Hello Stovers!
> >
> > I haven't posted for a long time, but reading the Stovelist is still a
> > real pleasure to me: lively debates, breakthrough stove science, many
> > people working on many initiatives, with a lot of energy, that's great
> > to see, that's emulating!
> > Sorry for the long email, but there are here a few ideas I wanted to
> > develop.
> >
> > It's been some time since I wanted to share this article from the
> > Guardian, it was sent to me by Minh, a previous colleague of mine, who
> > also worked on the GERES project in Cambodia. I don't think it has
> > been shared on this list, but I think it talks about just the most
> > fundamental of our problems:
> >
> > http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/cookstoves-design-poor-communities-refugees-unhcr-ikea <http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/cookstoves-design-poor-communities-refugees-unhcr-ikea>
> >
> >
> > "*With all the knowledge and technology we have at our disposal, why
> > is it proving so difficult to design and create simple and efficient
> > cookstoves for the three billion people who use them in the developing
> > world?*" is the question asked by T. Alexander Aleinikoff, the United Nations
> > deputy high commissioner for refugees.
> >
> > The question I would have is more the following: "why don't we know why it is proving so difficult?"
> > I mean, after decades of stove development and dissemination, there's
> > at least one thing we should know, it's where our difficulties come from!
> >
> > But here's a tentative answer to Mr Aleinikoff question: the
> > principles behind biomass combustion make it extremely difficult to do
> > stoves that are both cheap and practical, and very clean. But, like
> > anything, I believe this is not impossible, and this is a problem we
> > are working on tackling.
> > And for now, when a stove developer decides to make a stove, he/she
> > chooses almost systematically the latter aspect: clean combustion. You
> > know the rest of the story: the stove is expensive and impractical to
> > use, barely good enough to boil water for tea, and users don't buy it
> > or use it.
> > I'm being caricatural but this is what happens too often.
> >
> > /*Stove science is lagging behind, not stove marketing*/
> >
> > I have done a great deal of reading since I've started working on
> > stoves, years ago. Reports are piling in our digital library at
> > Prakti. We will keep reading and piling them, for sure. At the same
> > time I have been trying to extract the very nectar of these reports,
> > and try to get an understanding of what really matters.
> >
> > In my opinion the stove sector knows what works in terms of
> > dissemination, distribution and marketing. Most of the reports are
> > about marketing and business models. Marketing to the BOP is very well
> > documented. It seems to me that every new edition of Boiling Point
> > from HEDON talks about this or that project: involve women vendors,
> > demonstrate the stoves, pay attention to early adopters and opinion
> > leaders, use mobile phone technologies, listen to the feedback, find
> > financing solutions, etc. I think we know all that. And some projects
> > are working great. You do good marketing, you make a lot of efforts,
> > you reap the rewards.
> > But all agree it starts with one thing, it starts with a great product.
> >
> > This is where the stove sector is lagging behind. No offense meant to
> > all the great researchers working on stoves.
> > Stove marketing is currently waiting for stove science. Stove science
> > is lagging behind, because as I mentioned stove science is so complex.
> > Many challenges come with clean combustion. Marketers wait for
> > scientists to sort a few things out: scientifically correct, and
> > scientifically relevant protocols first. Then A LOT of testing will be
> > necessary, a lot of data, to understand combustion, to understand
> > variables, to understand stoves. Then, good design, good engineering,
> > great products. Once the great products are there, salers and
> > marketers and project implementers are reading to pick them up, and to
> > sell them to the BOP.
> > A side note: I'd love to see HEDON and similar publications focus more
> > on the hard science, and how to help it, to accelerate it. These are
> > questions worth writing about.
> >
> > So what I call a great stove is not a Tier-4 stove that works
> > perfectly in controlled testing settings. I am gonna be again very
> > caricatural: Tier-4 is accessory, it is bonus.
> > A great product is simply product a customer loves, buys and uses. A
> > great stove is a stove that is used.
> >
> > Some of you certainly experienced that: you give one day your new
> > prototype to a woman user. Skeptical at first, she agrees to leave her
> > traditional stove for a week, and start using your new stove. You come
> > back one week later. She is using it every day, for lunch and dinner.
> > She loves it. She put her ceramic stove on the side, actually, it is
> > nowhere to be seen. Your new stove has become the kitchen stove.
> > It's only for experiencing this kind of feeling that I work so hard.
> > This is when this happen to you that you know you have a great stove.
> > Adoption.
> >
> >
> > /*Cookstoves: super practical vs super clean */
> >
> > I picture the stove sector as a large mountain, with 2 camps on its
> > two feet. The 2 camps are separated by the mountain in the middle.
> > ?    In one camp the infamous smoky traditional stoves, and very next
> > to them, the vast majority of users, using them every day
> > ?    In the other camp, stove developers and manufacturers, reaching
> > Tier-4 in their expensive labs, with complex technologies and
> > expensive stoves. And their very limited dissemination numbers.
> >
> > The 2 camps don't communicate much with each other. What happens is
> > that often a new recruit joins the stove developer camp. He/she
> > chooses the techno-push approach. The new comer comes up with a slick
> > design, cool materials, excellent lab results. But many restrictions
> > are imposed to the product use, it should take this fuel, not this
> > fuel, be lit this way, be tended this way, etc. And as Crispin was
> > mentioning in one of his last posts, so many important things are left
> > during the development process.
> > Great disappointment is the reward of so much of work when the users
> > don't accept the new product.
> >
> > Priya Karve rightly emphasizes the importance of delivering a cooking
> > service, not a cooking stove. At Prakti we work on the "cookstove
> > system" (stove + fuel + cooking vessel + operator + burn cycle).
> > Traditional stoves give an excellent cooking service! They are great
> > cooking tools! They are just awfully dangerous for health.
> >
> >
> > /*Next actions: a few ideas*/
> >
> > I believe both camps can meet together, on top of this mountain.
> > There'll be extremely clean and usable stoves, hopefully soon. There
> > is some good progress happening already.
> >
> > But to be sure to succeed, I would start my climb at the basecamp
> > where all users already are.
> >
> > What I think stove developers should do:
> >
> > ?    Change your perspective: consider that traditional stoves are
> > great. That they are fantastic. Because people have been using them
> > for thousand of years. They must have something special, right? Start
> > by not judging them.
>  
> > ?    Spend a lot of time with the users. See them cooking. Cook
> > yourself, cook on the traditional stove. See how easy it is with the
> > traditional stove.
>  
> > ?    Then build your own stove based on the traditional stove. Big
> > stove, easy to use, sturdy, large opening, easy to tend, large
> > combustion chamber, lot of power, fast to cook.?Give it to users. Have
> > them use it, have them like it.
>  
> > ?Your stove is being used everyday, it is being adopted.
> > Congratulations! Additionally, you might have seen by now, and your
> > future customers remarked it too, that the new stove, even if it's far
> > from being Tier 4, is actually much less smoky than the traditional
> > stove..
> > ?    You've reached your usability baseline, that's your prerequisite,
> > the bar has been set. Don't cross it now. Always keep the stove as
> > usable.
> > ?    Set a bar also for price. Keep the stove cheap. Its production
> > must be affordable. This is a prerequisite too.
> > ?    From there: work on improving performance: emissions and wood
> > savings. It will be difficult. But you can improve it, by a lot.
> > ?    If you are working on a breakthrough technology, see how you can
> > introduce it to your usable cheap stove, without lowering the bar you
> > set.
> > ?    Work on the breakthrough technology in isolation, if necessary.
> > If the technology is not ready to be engineered into a good stove, so
> > be it.
> >
> > At Prakti, this is what we are currently doing, working both on
> > incremental progress, and breakthrough technologies. Both are
> > difficult, but both hold promises.??I was saying previously that stove
> > marketing was waiting for stove science. In fact, it's not. It cannot
> > wait. Stove are being sold, marketed, for better of for worse.
> > Funders, programme managers, private companies, want to see stoves in
> > the field, they want to see numbers.
> >
> Now, in my picture, I didn't mention that great projects, not only in humanitarian context, are on the other side of the mountain, they have chosen to improve traditional cookstoves, with simple design changes.GERES, GIZ, SNV among others have worked on such projects. Materials must be found locally, price must be cheap. Local artisans must be the manufacturers of the stove. They have had great success, large numbers disseminated.
> >
> This is a proven approach, but what I advocate is to go even further, and businesses and manufacturers are part of that It is not to improve a traditional stove, but to develop a new stove that has the same qualities as this traditional stove. This is a small nuance. And work on making this stove clean.
>  
> The approach is to use much more science, much more engineering. To think in business terms. Make a product which can be mass-manufactured, which can be scalable. Our customers love the portability of our stoves, this is for example something we want to keep.
>  
> **  
> It is said there is not one-size-fits all. That's debatable. Have you seen how similar mud stoves in Africa, in Asia look like? Close to the ground, big front opening. Why is the Jiko such a hit, all over Africa? Isn't the 3 stone fire the world's most successful one-size-fits all model?
> 
> We need funding to go to R&D. This is something I advocated at the Clean Cooking Forum in Delhi last October 2015, and is still very actual to me. At Prakti we've been very lucky to have funding from the GACC and other funders for our R&D work. It helped a lot. This needs to continue, and on a much larger scale.
>  
> Radha Muthiah rightly says in the article that, these are the article words, "the market is fragmented, with a lot of small and medium-sized entrepreneurs who may not have the appropriate design and manufacturing skills". I fully agree with that. A possible way to address this issue is to fund work that can benefit to the whole sector, especially R&D work. Besides testing and protocols, works on materials, work on design, work on combustion. Crispin said in the volume 69, issue 8, that the long term future of stove materials is glass and ceramic, and more investment should go in the research on those. There are several areas that research can explore.
>  
> Companies sell shampoo to the BOP, they sell soft drinks. Here in India, cheap smartphones are everywhere. A lot of R&D money has been spent so these products could be made, and now successful technologies and successful marketing go hand-in-hand. There is no reason that we cannot achieve that soon as well with cookstoves.
> >
> > Xavier Brandao 
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