[Stoves] Boxing the brain (re: WHO webinar)

[Traveller]

Dear Ron:

I discovered I had read four things from Dr. Johnson on the subject of
stoves - a 2009 comment on black carbon, on a list (Carbonsig) I used to
participate in; an undated report "WHO Indoor Air Quality Guidelines:
Household fuel Combustion Review 2: Emissions of Health-Damaging Pollutants
from Household Stoves" (WHO/EPA Review 2), with Dr. Johnson is one of the
lead authors; a 2015 EHP paper with Ranyee Chiang, Quantitative Guidance
for Stove Usage and Performance to Achieve Health and Environmental
Targets; and (a 2016 presentation on black carbon (Ethos BC), "In-field
black carbon emissions from cookstoves in Asia and Africa (with Charity
Garland).

I apologize for my impudence. You know I have been a bad boy for decades.

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

A. Let me first go to his statements on black carbon.

A1. In 2009 he had written,

"Although we know in general the stove sector contributes substantially to
global BC emissions, BC and OC emissions from traditional and improved
stoves are presently not well characterized due to the
multitude of fuel/stove combinations and variable stove use practices. Most
of the data we have about BC and OC stove emissions comes from water
boiling tests, which don't encompass the range of normal stove use
activities and have been shown to produce misleading emissions estimates
(see a couple references below). Certainly the large BC emissions from the
domestic sector are a potentially inexpensive target for BC reductions, but
accurately estimating potential reductions in BC as well as the net warming
or cooling of the aerosol emissions is going to require measuring specific
fuel/stove
combinations under representative stove use conditions."

I don't quite know what he means "we know in general". Nobody knows by
direct measurement, and this was even less the case back then. Just because
we have citations that have been reviewed by people we choose to trust
doesn't mean "we know", generally or specifically.

But otherwise I agree.

A2. In the Ehos 2016 presentation, I see

"Experts agreed that BC should be measured for health studies whenever
possible"

Yeah. Only if the health studies are any good - measuring concentrations
and exposures over a long term and producing sensible dose-response
analyses. I think that is impossible, but science must go on. I will hold
my breath until PM2.5 settle. Besides, from what I understand, BC is not
the same as PM2.5.

"Measurement technique can have a big impact on estimation of BC mass "

Yeah. That's why we standardize everything and produce glorious "new
estimates". Data are only as good as methods and vice versa; the two
together still need a theory.

So I won't bother with emission factors in that presentation.

I really can't tell what BC has to do with cooking.

Stop throwing stoves
<http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2010/07/black-carbons-grey-areas/>,
Bidisha
Bannerjee wrote in 2010.

(Disclosure: I wrote an advocacy piece for LPG and pressure cookers, based
in part on the black carbon "climate benefit" and presumptive "health
benefits" from lower emissions, greater convenience. But I don't do
science. I welcome throwing stoves even as I throw stones living in a
glasshouse myself. Kills me.)

*********

B. Now on stoves and supposed health links:

B1. In the WHO/EPA Review 2, where he is a co-author, I read, in the Summary

"There is *limited evidence* to date that these tests reflect the emissions
seen in actual homes during normal daily cooking activities, and *little
consensus* on appropriate duration and protocols for field testing."

Duh! Re-discovery of ancient truths (1983 piece by Fernando Manibog, for
instance).

Anyway, this was a review. Cite-o-logy has its limits. The authors
concluded:

"Although emissions measurements of household cookstoves have been
conducted since the early 1990’s, there are still *very limited numbers of
emission measurements from cookstoves in the field during normal daily
cooking activities, and generalizations over large geographical regions are
limited* by our understanding of the factors that drive the variability in
emissions over geographic scales. A better understanding of the variability
of emissions over geographical areas is critical to a better understanding
of the health and climate impacts of cookstoves on a global scale."


Yeah, right. Define "better understanding". Expert consensus by fiat?

I remain skeptical of yet another round of dubious tests by dubious
protocols.

I don't mind it per se. Scientists are hardly alone in meaning well but
forced to do work that solves only their problem, not others'. EPA knows
how to buy consensus.

That is how we got the "Lima Consensus" - production of verbiage by experts
to convince experts, cooks' desires and preferences be damned. (After all,
desires are so unscientific.)

And what do we get now? The BOX PARADIGM: standardized tests of
standardized purpose using standardized fuels and operating practices
(including pots and pans) by standardized humans.

You get the idea. I will stop bickering. Because I am really laughing my
head off reading the authors' conclusion:

"Development of approaches to link laboratory and field testing are
critical to the development of cookstoves that meet both programmatic and
user expectations when deployed in real homes."

USER EXPECTATIONS?? When DEPLOYED IN REAL HOMES?

EPA is so entertaining, I learned more than 25 years ago.

Anyway, this buttresses my questions to the Webinar. We need metrics of
expectations, and real homes.

Hold the EPA/WHO's feet to the fire.

Even though I think  these "approaches to link laboratory and field
testing" are bridges to nowhere. Not in my lifetime. Just pleasurable
platitudes.
------

B2. In the Johnson-Chiang paper:

They say

 "The greatest benefits are estimated to be achieved by near-complete
displacement of traditional stoves with clean technologies, emphasizing the
need to shift in the long term to near exclusive use of clean fuels and
stoves."

Yeah. Another "new estimate" a la GBD hocus pocus. There is no evidential
basis for this theology, especially when they assert "exclusive use of
clean fuels and stoves".

This is a devious sleight of hand - combining "clean fuels" with "stoves".
They do not invoke "dirty fuels", which is to their credit.

Fuels per se are not "dirty", "smoky", or even inconvenient. It is the
entire cycle of production, conversion, and combustion (or other uses) -
all of which involves capital equipment, skills, labor, finance, none of
which there is a usable inventory of characterizations - that makes some
cooking techniques presumably health damaging. (One needs no GBD; only
remember our forefathers and foremothers.)

I won't bother with estimation methods; the claim is self-evident. The
question is, when, by whom, how. Who is solving what problem with what
mandate and what accountability?

In any event, "near exclusive use" demands universal adoption, since
presumably all indoor air pollution (not just from stoves; brick kilns and
other industries, for instance), becomes outdoor air pollution. --

I will refrain from asking what "pollution" means. From what I can tell of
the PM2.5 estimation methods, emissions -> concentrations -> exposures ->
disease. Doesn't matter that we have very spotty evidence, and nearly no
information on fuel chemistry and operating practices.

Cook numbers. Then argue. Then force consensus.

I lost interest with that years ago. "Long term" means that several hundred
or several million pre-mature deaths would've occurred in the meantime
unless confounding factors interfered (like pandemics, vehicular pollution,
changed wind patterns).

Available knowledge to date provides no firm basis to make any predictions
about cooking technology use or mortality attributed to such use. Models I
have reviewed, for example,

i) take, for a current date (pick 1995 or 2015, doesn't matter)
hypothetical quantities and qualities of fuels over hypothetical residences

to ii) compute emissions using hypothetical emission factors over
hypothetical combustion conditions,

then iii) compute exposures by use of hypothetical dispersion models and
air circulation models (without regard to ambient air quality data and
other sources of the same pollutants),

then iv) compute pre-mature deaths and disabilities using hypothetical
dose-response relationships.

The quantity and quality of existing information on household cooking
patterns, fuel use, emission rates, or for that matter other pollution
sources is awfully weak to make any sensible inventories except by
consensus among experts who have limited or no first hand knowledge of
energy markets and history, air quality or meteorology, or medical
practices and data reporting. Since these inventories are merely cooked up
- with only possible validation coming from use of modern fuels (though
data on LPG or electricity cooking use by households have considerable
quality issues and one-time surveys don't amount to beans) - there is no
point even stepping three boundaries out - air quality, exposures, health
impacts - in the fourth dimension - time.

Which in effect means that unless you have a long-term model of household
expenditures, preferences, access, use rates, what not, all you can do is
generate pile after pile of meaningless statements. Such limitations of
models are well recognized in the literature, one needs to look to primary
literature rather than do "second hand science", or worse, GACC-y advocacy.

Speaking of "experts", Johnson-Chiang claim,

"Efforts to improve cookstove emissions and fuel efficiency have been aided
by recent developments in performance standards and guidelines, including
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) International
Workshop Agreement IWA 11:2012, Guidelines for Evaluating Cookstove
Performance (IWA 11:2012; ISO 2012). IWA 11:2012 was agreed upon by a broad,
international array of household energy experts and stakeholders, and
provides quantitative guidance on a) fuel efficiency, b) total emissions,
c) indoor emissions, and d) safety. For each of these indicators, IWA
11:2012 outlines “tiers of performance” that specify ranges for product
performance based on laboratory testing."

I cringe at "broad, international array of household energy experts and
stakeholders..:"

But I wish experts luck in doing science properly. When I read Manibog's
1983 paper, I had a sense of deja vu.

Experts will keep killing people. People have to seek their own solutions
and press their governments for quicker solutions without this shabang of
"cobenefits" in climate, gender, blah blah. Women of the world are not
disposable biomass.

"In contrast with models that assume linear relationships between stove use
and indoor concentrations, PM2.5 exposure–response curves for health
impacts, such as cardiovascular disease and ALRI, are exponential
(Baumgartner et al. 2012; Burnett et al. 2014), which is why the greatest
health benefits are accrued by achieving low exposures levels under WHO
targets."


This begs the question how WHO "guidelines" - or are they "targets" - were
developed in the first place. I have previously posted on the hokum of EPA
and restrictive assumptions of Burnett et al. (2014).

Conclusion: More research is needed.

Any surprise? By whom, how, when, to what end?

****

I wonder if EPA is salivating at the prospect of regulating US stove
manufacturers and bringing billion $ lawsuits against them. Well, that's
EPA's business and I wish them luck.

This "fuel fundamentalism" in the name of purported "burden of disease" of
those already dead feels like being boxed on both ears, both eyes to numb
the brain. Speak, those who can.

Nikhil
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