[Stoves] The World Is Waiting (Re: Frank)

[Traveller]

Frank:

What a succinct expression of the state of biomass stove science. Thanks.

It took Tami's "The question, again, is what you want to know and why." to
get to "*All we really need is to characterize the fue*l."

Whew. Thanks, Tami too.

Had we but world enough and time.

If the Satanic Verses - Killings by Assumption - of IHME have any validity,
some 200 million more premature deaths will occur, even as a few million
DALYs are averted at a cost of a few billion dollars before we get to
"millions of lives saved" as Marc Gunther still hopes.

Every five years, a cohort of roughly 150 million girls 10-15 passes middle
and high school education by because of the drudgeries of house work -
fetching water and fuel, cleaning clothes and floors, and cooking. In the
subsequent 20 years most of them will change homes and raise some 100
million children, who as babies will not get enough adult time (as families
get smaller and migrate) and will also go through the same, hopefully less
drudgerous, transition. (I am only talking about just one cohort at a time,
and ignoring those girls who
are freed of such drudgery.)

What a loss of human capital. Some will hopefully be able to
outsource cooking and cleaning, and child care; this may or may not
elevate those who provide such services for a fee.

A Better Stoves Revolution will be televised.

**************
Of course I rush in where angels, saints and priests fear to go, but here I
see a clarity of vision.

I am reminded of my work on coals and power plant combustion chambers, fuel
preparation, fuel contracting options, and also pulverized or briquetted
biomass, FBC, biomass plantations.

With trillions of dollars at stake, all that took some 60 years
and advanced engineering and manufacturing skills all around the world.

Still going on.

Why did it take the angels, saints and priests of biomass fuel fetishism
all this long to even grasp that perfecting the combustion chamber and
having a "contextual design and promotion" (thanks, Cecil) that can match
fuel chemistry to combustion chamber?

Oh, not yet there. Up in Smoke.

I have an answer to Tami, on behalf of these ephemeral angels: They want to
save trees, Now they want to process data and model air circulation in
porous boxes so they can compute "averted DALYs".

They don't have to be held accountable for "perpetuated Burden of Disease".
Their sins of omission are sins of neglect.

*************
I humbly submit there is one more task - "market characterization".

The home is changing; some have none. The world is changing; some will lose
it.

The poverty of science when it meets the science of poverty. (Well, not the
con econs of Cambridge, MA with their Poverty Lab to boil - hypothetical -
blood and sweat for an RCT. They don't even know how to randomize, so how
can they control?)

Doing science is an exercise in humility. Doing long-term,
even multi-generational economics - in a way, that is what climate
policy and CRA (Comparative Risk Assessment) amount to - is an exercise
in pretensions.

*********
Now a modest proposal: Please consider uncontrolled solid fuel combustion
outside the homes. Larger-scale users have better incentives, skills, and
capacity factors; they can also manage financing more effectively.

Instead of using poor women and girls for GACC/WHO posters for the past
election, train them to earn a living by cooking. Boys and men too, or they
can do commercial laundry and house cleaning. Bring back  domestic science.

Put home and the world in focus.

Nikhil
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20161116/4d2486d6/attachment.html>