[Stoves] Deganga case study (Re: Paul, Crispin)

[Traveller]

An "upscale, aspirational" stove for the BoP households!! Congratulations.

It should be a cause of distress to us all that such promising work by Paul
and his colleagues have to depend on "CO2 offsets" while lot more money is
available to USG agencies to write trip reports on cookstove adoption rates
or fiction of premature deaths and interventions for avoidable DALYs via
modeling emission rates into exposures conditioned upon complete, permanent
transition to "clean cookstoves".

I didn't know Boiling Point still does paper prints. I guess the MIT e-cons
put up their working paper on their website and within hours get a
Washington Post reporter publish an online announcement with much fanfare.
That is what passes for science communication these days. I am glad you put
a notice on this list.

I have some memories of a few islands in the Sunderbans. Yes, wood was
abundant there, perhaps because charcoaling it and shipping it via diesel
barges up the river to mainland markets wasn't profitable. Contrary to what
I wrote about biomass gasifier in Vanuatu, I did find a functional biomass
gasifier power plant in the Sunderbans. The key difference was that large
government subsidies were available, and the plant was operated by
government staff with tariffs highly subsidized as well.

*****

One comment: I am confused by the statement "The cost of the fuel wood is
already expensed, so all income is pure profit." If I take your estimate
that average fuel consumption is "less than half" of the baseline and that
the value of fuel savings is $10 per household per month, I am guessing the
baseline consumption rate cost around $18 a month and actual around $8 a
month. So it would seem that while "expensed", the input fuel cost is
roughly $8 a month, and the $3/month revenue from charcoal sales reduces it
to $5 a month. If the stove is supposed to last 28 years with minimal cost
for maintenance, the capital cost is practically nil - and household
expenditures are reduced by $13 a month (fuel savings plus charcoal sales),
which are significant. Charcoal income is not "profit", just revenue; there
is a net cost of $5 a month, the rest are cost reductions.

And two questions -

i) You say, "Bulk firewood is purchased from the government-managed energy
plantations; also, prunings come from the big mango plantations of West
Bengal." What is the bulk purchase price - around INR 1,000 per ton? What
forms does it come in?
ii) What price does QE sell charcoal for? From what I have seen in some
Indian cities - fuelwood price of INR 7-10 per kg, of generally poor
quality - I think your chipped wood price of INR 5/kg for home delivery is
pretty competitive (with LPG on one hand and with self-collection twigs on
the other). Charcoal retail price in Indian cities varies, around INR 25-45
a kg (higher in winter), depending on distance from the source and type of
source (tree cutting for industry, mines, for instance). I am guessing QE
is able to get INR 20/kg in its market area from the commercial customers;
that would make it roughly competitive with commercial (unsubsidized) LPG
(depending on the market price).

I think WBREDA should consider certifying QE stoves and providing capital
subsidies for an income and employment generating activity. But MNRE stove
testing standards may get in the way of doing anything good in India. (So I
hear; I am not an expert on stove testing or MNRE for that matter.)

---------
Crispin: Is it any surprise that the mine doesn't wash or grade a high
energy, high-vol coal for small retail sales? What incentive would you
consider for it to do so?



Nikhil


> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2016 21:00:11 -0400
> From: alex english <aenglish444 at gmail.com>
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
>         <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] Major case study about TLUD stoves
> Message-ID:
>         <CA+6hwOo3jQFTggrh=LgBYNOicF3NvcdFi1O__CJsg3e4V7g72Q at mail.gm
> ail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Paul,
> It is good to see this report. You have persevered.
>
> The charcoal was purchased back for 12 cents/kg. What happened to it
> next? Was it used in the form it was produced? If these homes wanted to
> buy charcoal what would it cost? Did this new supply have any change the
> local market price?
> Congratulations.
> Alex
>
> On Sep 30, 2016 11:45 PM, "Paul Anderson" <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> > Four co-authors have written an detailed article about a highly
> successful and on-going TLUD gasifier stove project in Deganga, an area of
> the Ganges Delta in India.  Please read it, share it with others, and
> give consideraton about how you and your projects might build upon the
> lessons learned.
> >
> > *Case Study of Acceptance of Champion TLUD Gasifier Stoves*
> >
> > *in the Deganga Area, Ganges Delta, India*
> >
> > *[Data as of early 2016; released in September 2016]*
> >
> > On the Internet at:   http://drtlud.com/deganga-tlud-project-2016
> > And attached as a .pdf file.
> >
> > *Summary:    *
> >
> >                 With field data to document earlier challenges and
> > current success, as of early 2016 the Deganga TLUD Project in the Ganges
> > Delta has over 11,000 Champion micro-gasifier stoves in a small rural
> area.
> > In seven villages, between 25% and 40% of households have adopted the
> > stove.  Factors contributing to the success include funding via carbon
> > offsets, attaining critical mass of households, adequate supplies of
> > appropriate fuel, fuel cost savings, installment payments for the BOP
> (Base
> > of the Pyramid), and stove maintenance services.  Unique to this project,
> > and very well received by the households, is the creation of household
> > income from the sales of charcoal byproducts produced in the stove while
> > cooking.  Similar results should be possible in other communities in
> > developing societies.
> >
> > *********************
> >
> > Speaking personally, I have wanted this type of result for many many
> > years.  I thank my co-authors for making it happen.  Now we can look
> > forward to replications and variations of this study to provide the
> quality
> > of TLUD gasifier stoves wherever needed around the world.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > --
> > Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
> > Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu
> > Skype:   paultlud    Phone: +1-309-452-7072
> > Website:  www.drtlud.com
> >
> >
>
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2016 10:43:02 -0400
> From: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com>
> To: Stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] Major case study about TLUD stoves
> Message-ID: <COL402-EAS1026EC0272450A226A36379B1C30 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Alex that is a great idea.
>
> I have wondered for years if this was going to make it to market and
> prepared a little for it. I have a proposed method for calculation the
> performance of a pair of stoves using the fuel in a chain.
>
> The implementation is the substitution of charcoal for coke? which is
> perfectly sound from a manufacturing point of view. A lot of the Eastern
> USA forests were made into charcoal for steel production. It is not
> everywhere this setup can work.
>
> A faint glimmer ?shone in Tajikistan last week when it became clear that
> one of the fuels available is a high energy coal with enough volatiles to
> light easily. In a TLUD if burns off the volatiles and goes out, basically.
> What is left is high energy coke.
>
> Unfortunately the source is a mine that doesn't wash or grade the product.
> It is too stony to sell. Too unreliable. But it remains a possibility in
> other circumstances.
>
> Regards
> Crispin
>
> PS I will find one of the diagrams as a reminder of the energy flow
> concept.
>
>
>
>
> *************************************
>
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