[Stoves] Oxymorons and credentials --- was Re: Off-topic no longer, re: News from Colorado: 'Rolling Coal"

Tue Sep 27 23:28:17 CDT 2016

Ron and others,

One of the great things about discussion via internet is that if you do not
like what somebody is saying just ignore it (in face to face discussion
this is sometimes not possible). You can always divert the attention of the
group by giving better answers and examples of new clean cooking technology.

The problem starts when people start attacking each other by calling names.
Then it diverts the attention from the main thing - developing solutions
for cooking for rural poor.

I am sure the time you spent in digging up the past of Nikhil would have
been better spent in looking at interesting new technologies for char.

Nature evolves by making the other branch redundant not by pushing it down!
I am sure most of the members on this list are 60+ years in age. We should
show some wisdom and not rancor.

Cheers.

Anil

Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI)
Tambmal, Phaltan-Lonand Road
P.O.Box 44
Phaltan-415523, Maharashtra, India
Ph:91-2166-220945/222842
e-mail:nariphaltan at gmail.com
           nariphaltan at nariphaltan.org

http://www.nariphaltan.org

On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 2:14 AM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net>
wrote:

> Paul and list:
>
> I have tried to learn more about Nikhil and found something quite
> informative (at http://nautilus.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Carbo-
> Cult.pdf), with a few excerpts:
>
> *  “I am speaking of the cult of anti-CO2 (Carb-o) activists.* ……… *Of
> course, there was local biomass, which they could use amply, but that
> wasn’t the object of the NoCarbo Cult. Besides, biomass cooking practices
> produced smoke and other toxic emissions, which too didn’t concern the
> No-Carbo Cult, because, its proponents argued, biomass was “renewable”.
> Just how the CO2 molecules absorbed by a growing tree anywhere can be
> separated by their origin – this little piggy came from coal, this little
> piggy from gas, this little from making charcoal and this one from burning
> charcoal – was not clear to me or anybody.* *…………..  **Hence the No-Carbo
> Cult. What it promises is so long-term, it has to stress that the calamity
> is already here, because we are all sinners today and are suffering because
> of the sins. It treats every molecule of CO2 as a weapon of mass
> destruction, but only selectively – a very small fraction of the CO2 that
> goes up in the atmosphere.”*
>
> The same climate denying stance is at these sites:
> http://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/
> connecting-the-dots-in-an-ocean/  and  http://nautilus.org/
> napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/a-tale-of-two-disasters/
>
> I think that background is justification also for this list to get into
> the topic of Internet trolls, where Wiki says this - where I have
> emphasized some key words:   “In Internet slang
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_slang>, a *troll* (/ˈtroʊl/
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English>, /ˈtrɒl/
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English>) is a person who
> sows discord on the Internet <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet> by
> starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory,[1]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll#cite_note-1>*extraneous
> <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/extraneous#Adjective>, or off-topic
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-topic>* messages in an online
> community (such as a newsgroup <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsgroup>,
> forum, chat room <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_room>, or blog) with
> the deliberate intent of provoking readers into unemotional response[2]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll#cite_note-PCMAG_def-2> or
> of *otherwise disrupting norma*l on-topic discussion,[3]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll#cite_note-IUKB_def-3> often
> for their *own amusement.**”*
>
> Managed lists have a way of dealing with this behavior - fortunately.
>
>
> On Sep 27, 2016, at 1:06 PM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> Crispin (and Nikhil),
>
> 1.  "Clean stoves" and "clean fuels" are not oxymorons any more than
> "happy housewife" would be.
>
> 2.  You wrote:
>
> Unlike most of us here, he [Nikhil] has been in the trenches in Washington
> at a high level for decades and knows how the system is manipulated to
> generate funding by popularising the latest fad.
>
> I did not know of his credentials.   This is probably a good time to
> generate some credibility.  Easiest might be to post a resume, but a short
> description might be sufficient.
>
> 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
>
> On 9/27/2016 10:47 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
>
> Dear Paul
>
> I think Nikhil’s complaint is that the concepts of ‘clean fuels’ or ‘clean
> stoves’ are oxymorons. There is no such thing on either score.
>
> As you are well aware, and have demonstrated in person, if a ‘clean TLUD
> gasifier’ goes wrong, there is a huge amount of smoke coming out until it
> is re-lit. So it is only clean under certain circumstances and with certain
> fuels, perhaps even only a certain *size* of fuel.
>
> Nikhil seems to be calling ‘BS’ on the alarmist thing when that alarmist
> thing is supported by vapourware and numerical puffery.
>
> Unlike most of us here, he has been in the trenches in Washington at a
> high level for decades and knows how the system is manipulated to generate
> funding by popularising the latest fad. I guess there is some merit is
> saying ‘that is how it works’ at least these days, but it does not
> compensate for the deliberate misrepresentation of facts in order to scare
> people into handing over the piggy bank.
>
> It seems everyone but everyone in this field is aware that only a
> combination of operator, fuel and product has an assessable ‘emission’ or
> ‘fuel’ metric. So let’s not beat around that bush. The forecasts (of which
> there are very few) of future impact on the public, especially public
> health or the destruction of forests which are the two major topics in
> regulations and project documents, have not been very accurate. The
> prediction to the Ulaanbaatar government that their air quality would
> continue to get worse if they didn’t ‘ban the burning of raw coal
> completely’ was a major forecast of doom. The population of the city grew
> faster than expected, the expansion of burning raw coal expanded, the
> stoves were replaced with ‘middling’ technical features and the air quality
> improved more than the scenario that required they ‘ban coal completely and
> replace everything with ‘clean fuels’.’
>
> The emergence of Rwanda as a charcoal-sustainable country while continuing
> not to ban charcoal as the primary cooking fuel – even in the absence of
> any substantive stove replacement programme – is another example of failed
> calamitous prediction. Everyone knows we are supposed to decry charcoal as
> a cause of blah-blah-blah. Now we have in Laos a wide scape roll out of the
> lighting cone (SNV) that reduces emissions dramatically, saves fuel and is
> cheap. No change in the stove at all. Nor the fuel. Next they can follow in
> the footsteps in Rwanda and produce enough fuel on private farms to feed
> the need.
>
> We have not talked about Chad (I think) and how they turned their charcoal
> industry into a profitable, sustainable enterprise owned by the
> communities. That is another amazing example of how changing the
> administration of fuel can create wealth and jobs and sustainable biofuel.
> It didn’t require the change of stove or fuel or people. Just how they
> worked together.
>
> There is a lot of room for self- examination here. Nikhil is on the right
> track with this modelling of health impacts. He, unlike most of us,
> understands the health modeling field very well.
>
> Caution is advised
> Crispin
>
>
>
> Nikhil,
>
> Your message is based on playing with words, trying to make "Clean
> Cookstoves" into a silly term because there can be fuel issues.  Of course
> there are fuel issues and stove issues.  That does not make the topic silly.
>
> If this was just silly stuff, I would not have spent 15 years of my life
> helping to bring TLUD stoves to the top of the solid biomass stoves.
>
> If you  think that clean cookstoves are silly and not important, then you
> are writing to the wrong group of people.
>
> 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
>
> On 9/27/2016 9:13 AM, Traveller wrote:
>
> Teddy:
>
> Thank you. That news item has great relevance to this list.
>
> There are no "clean car engines" per se; their alleged cleanness or
> "emission rates" depend on fuel quality.
>
> Which is why "Clean Cookstoves" - global alliances or blogal dalliances -
> is a silly term.
>
> There are no "clean cookstoves" per se; only in combination with fuels,
> and in the context of operating practices and local environment
> (ventilation, wind, ambient air quality, other sources of emissions ranging
> from food and smoking to open waste.)
>
> The scientist collective at the ISO 2012 IWA on cookstoves (Guidelines
> for evaluating cookstove performance
> <https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:iwa:11:ed-1:v1:en>)
>
> ""recognizes that the quality and type of fuel used by a testing centre
> may impact the emissions of a cookstove. Because of that, the International
> Workshop on Cookstoves recommends that testing centres document the key
> physical and operational characteristics (e.g. fuel, moisture content, pot
> size and shape) of the system."
>
> Whatever little I know suggests that temperatures and air flows determine
> the ratio and composition of PICs and that at relatively low temperatures
> and irregular air flows, fuel chemistry plays a critical role. But there's
> nothing here about chemical composition.
>
> Is it any wonder folks go mumbling about "solid fuels", "dirty fuels"?
> (More on that later.)
>
> WHO/GBD claims on the "global dataset for cooking fuel use" are bubbly
> champagne - or dope - served up to minors. (Remember the song "Goodnight,
> farewell" in Sound of Music where Liesel asks for her first taste of
> champagne?)
>
> Let me put it bluntly - WHO has manufactured a "global emergency" based on
> non-existent data and questionable intelligence. (Burning Opportunity
> <http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/204717/1/9789241565233_eng.pdf>,
> marketing the GBD adventure of killing by assumption as a global health
> emergency
> <http://www.ccacoalition.org/en/news/new-who-report-household-air-pollution-driving-global-health-emergency>
> )
>
> Clean Cookstoves are dirty business.
>
> I for one do not believe one needs convincing evidence to act on reducing
> pollution exposures of vulnerable populations. The challenge is not
> compiling reams and reams of dubious data and faulty forecasts - of YLD and
> YLL - but to please the cooks.
>
> Ron here thinks I have soured on science. Living in Washington, I am
> familiar with the politics of science and the science of politics. What is
> going on is corrupting intelligence. There is an emergency in "global
> health", namely, it has little to do with individual health.
>
> Nikhil
>
>
> ---------
> (India +91) 909 995 2080
>
> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 8:16 AM, Cookswell Jikos <cookswelljikos at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> What a story....similar to this gem is a story in todays newspaper
> regarding air pollution from bad fuel rejected by the EU and dumped in the
> African market -
>
> ''The high-sulphur fuels also have a knock-on effect, rapidly destroying
> emission-reducing technologies in vehicles, according to Rob de Jong, the
> head of the UNEP transport programme. “So if you buy a vehicle that’s a
> couple of years old and import it into some of the African countries, the
> technology in there – sensors and filters – all gets spoilt, and these
> cars, which are potentially very clean, are destroyed in a couple of tanks,
> and for the next 20 years will be belching smoke. It’s important to
> understand the tragedy of this,” he said. This in turn increases emissions
> of fine particulate matter, which can lodge deep in the lungs, causing
> cancers and other health problems.
> Read more at: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/
> 2000217548/dirty-diesel-rejected-in-europe-exported-to-africa''
>
> I certainly hope something like this cannot happen with LPG cooking gas or
> that all those generators in Lagos and Accra are not pumping smoke into the
> kitchens with induction stoves :(
>
> Teddy
>
>
>
> *Cookswell Jikos*
> www.cookswell.co.ke
> www.facebook.com/CookswellJikos
> www.kenyacharcoal.blogspot.com
> Mobile: +254 700 380 009
> Mobile: +254 700 905 913
> P.O. Box 1433, Nairobi 00606, Kenya
> Save trees - think twice before printing.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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