[Stoves] Comparison fuel consumption

Tom Miles tmiles at trmiles.com
Sun Apr 16 22:30:25 CDT 2017


Crispin: 

 

I quote you: "Recognition of the importance of ‘location’ is now entrenched in the ISO Standard as document 19867-2 which is “Part 2” of the test methods. This means that even at the highest international level, it is recognised that the context of use has to be considered if a meaningful assessment is to be made."

I would like to see these documents if possible. However, a quick question: if "location" is entrenched in an ISO Standard, why is TC 285 setting worldwide targets in absolute terms in accordance with WHO modeling? 

To say that "Tier 2 stoves are ok for villages smaller than 1,000 people with half the cooking done outside the living area in homes that have windows and doors open during the times cooking is done inside" would be laughed off by people I met these past couple of months. 

I don't understand what you mean by "step forward". Testing methods have advanced, and the examples you cite may help in India; I am waiting to see a wave of enthusiasm. (I take India because the emphasis is on cookstoves).

I happen to think WHO interjection in the ISO TC 285 process - in particular, Tier 4 PM2.5 hourly average emission rate target - drives a stake into the heart of solid fuels cookstove effort. 

 

So long as "international standards" and Tier certificates dominate policy discussions, with GACC insistence (the Implementation Science paper and previous work for the World Bank) on "permanent transition and exclusive use of clean cookstoves", I don't see stovers of the past getting out and helping users and their governments. 

TC 285 is a "top down" drive to clear the market for LPG. I am puzzled that Ron, Tom, and other knowledgeable people fail to see this destruction of biomass stover community. (BTW, how much has your "step forward" led to funding increase for solid fuel stove design and testing efforts in the field? Or is it still "more of the same", however you choose to characterize the failures of the last 40 years?) 

 

Nikhil

PS: Yes, I am critical and pessimist; I think honest failures of the past require us to have realistic hopes for the future. I see large failures rather than small successes. As Xavier points out, 3 billion people are waiting. Or as I would put it, every five years, some 100-150 million girls are crossing puberty, with their health, and education and employment prospects, compromised by the drudgery of cooking. 




------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikhil Desai

(India +91) 909 995 2080
Skype: nikhildesai888

 

On Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 1:48 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com <mailto:crispinpigott at outlook.com> > wrote:

Dear Nikhil

 

As time has dribbled by I have noticed significant changes in the focus of efforts, particularly on this Stoves List, as shifted from testing abstractly (fixed cycles and pots and fuels like the VITA WBT) to examining the contextual relevance. I have just finished preparing a presentation on the history of stove testing that follows not the numbers but the metrics as contextuality became embedded in the consciousness of the testing community. 

 

Starting in 1983 at TATU in the Eastern Cape, Cecil Cook and I tried to bring what was at the time considered to by a big improvement which was high mass indoor stoves with a chimney. They were really appreciated for holding the heat and getting the smoke outside. 

 

Criticism of the high mass mud stoves came not from the users, but from the technos who concluded (after promoting them for years) that they used more fuel than the open fires they replace. Apparently then didn’t interview the users about what they wanted, which was clean indoor air and stored heat. Fuel efficiency is not on top of everyone’s list, as you have pointed out. 

 

When the Vesto Stove marketing survey was being conducted in the Johannesburg area we found that people rated fuel consumption lower than several other features.  BTW that inch-thick survey is used as curriculum material at the Industrial Design School at the University of Johannesburg. There are many things to learn from it about ranking and rating and expectations.

 

Today we hear a great deal about contextual assessment not only on the ground where Practical Action, for example, has always done 99% of their work. They produced a $0 stove for Darfur that uses half the fuel of a traditional fire. Recognition of the importance of ‘location’ is now entrenched in the ISO Standard as document 19867-2 which is “Part 2” of the test methods. This means that even at the highest international level, it is recognised that the context of use has to be considered if a meaningful assessment is to be made.

 

That is quite a step forward, don’t you think? It was only a dream three years ago, hotly attacked as impossible to conduct and not in line with all the work that had been poured into fixed condition, arbitrary test procedures.

 

The first categorically contextual test element was the inclusion in 1992 in the Indian National Test of 28 different pot sizes, to be used depending on the firepower of the stove. The burn rate was established and then a pot size was assigned for use during the test. 

 

Now we have conceptually advanced approaches including the CSI Water Heating Test which can be applied to a particular region, province or demographic. The SANS 1243 Paraffin Stove Standard includes elements of this, recognising that particular dangers exist in low income households – the close proximity in cramped homes of cheap plastic materials that catch fire easily, for example.  

 

Tom: Thanks for your well-constructed response to Nikhil’s question.

 

Regards

Crispin

 

 

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org <mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org> ] On Behalf Of Tom Miles

Pick a circumstance. Apply your contextual analysis. And, show how you would develop a “usable stove.” You will find that there are several “usable stoves” to choose from, thanks to the work of people in this stoves community.   

 

At ETHOS 2017, Verena Brinkman, GIZ, presented a comprehensive framework for evaluating stoves and their use. The framework is work in progress and includes many individual factors such as the stove performance metrics you cite. It attempts to relate them to specific circumstances. The challenge is how to apply the contextual framework to making decisions about stove development and applications. In some areas people now have many different stoves to choose from. In more desperate circumstances they have only what donor agencies can offer. There are many usable stoves for different contexts. They can always be improved but the production, distribution and use is often compromised by other “contextual” factors outside the control of stove developers. 

 

We have an impressive amount of information about the people, their environment, cooking fuels and devices of all kinds, the emissions and the health impacts in their circumstances. Through their largely volunteer efforts and with the assistance of government and private resources the stoves community has improved millions of lives while living and working in “context”. Many improvements are made by collective creativity at the local level. While we may not be able to make direct correlations of improvements to specific diseases, any number of people in the stoves community can point to cases where health has improved, trauma has declined, and household energy expenditures have been reduced. Stoves volunteers have also improved access to potable water, food security and other health related services.            

 

Discussions at stoves gatherings are all about context and will continue to be as new solutions evolve. Context definition has improved in both metrics and complexity in the more than 50 years. When I first became involved we had “séances” in huts around cooks imagining ways to improve their circumstances. Aid workers and sociologists who lived in villages and barrios carefully documented observations over time. Eventually researchers built models of air and gas flows in homes. Stoves were developed and efforts were made to develop and improve methods for testing the performance and emissions of individual devices. Universities and organizations like Aprovecho built and tested physical models of dwellings to validate models and find solutions. Berkeley Air and others have developed sensors and data collection systems to monitor and record when stoves are in use and detect pollutants in different parts of the home and on family members in real time. The long-term monitoring of actual cooking and exposures is showing new opportunities and new approaches for reducing health risk. You will see all of this if you study the ETHOS presentations, ETHOS archives, archives of this list, and the libraries of reports and data by GACC, GIZ, FAO and collaborators, or engage in any of their workshops or meetings.  

 

Our work is not easy and the technical, social, and political challenges are significant. We can always be critical but I see substantial improvement, especially in the past 20 years. Let’s understand and build on what we have already developed. 

 

Tom 

 

   

 

 

 

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Nikhil Desai
Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2017 12:00 AM
To: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com>
Cc: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org <mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org> >
Subject: SPAM: Re: [Stoves] Comparison fuel consumption

 

Crispin: 

Just why is "emissions per kg burned or per MJ delivered to the pot" relevant? 

What matters is exposure profiles - presence in certain concentrations over the course of a day or a week or a month or a year. 

Perhaps. In fact, there is very little we know about emission rates, concentrations, exposures, and disease incidence for different age/sex/ethnic profiles in different parts of the world. 

I grant "emissions per kg burned" is a better metric than average hourly emission rates and loads for four-hour cooking periods assumed. But fuel chemistry, combustion chemistry, and air chemistry of the cooking area, surroundings, and everywhere else the person in question moves around, cannot be modeled in realistic circumstances for all contexts. 

Contextual, not general, analysis helps design usable stoves. Your reference to higher efficiency stove with doubled emissions is relevant only for burning in closed areas and bad chimneys. I wonder how many such stoves were used. From what I recall for India, people abandoned high-smoke stoves, fuel savings notwithstanding. 

 

Nikhil




------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikhil Desai

(India +91) 909 995 2080 <tel:+91%2090999%2052080> 
Skype: nikhildesai888

 

On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 8:20 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com <mailto:crispinpigott at outlook.com> > wrote:

Dear Dieter

 

Does the Ben Stove have lower emissions per kg burned or per MJ delivered to the pot?

 

I want to consider how the emissions are reduced. While one can say, 'because it burns less wood the emissions are proportionally reduced' the reality is I expect that the reduction should be much more than that. 

 

If it burns half the wood with half the emissions per kg then the emissions are 1/4. I speak here of course with reference to CO and PM. 

 

I have seen, on the other hand, ‎seen stoves that saved fuel but doubled the emissions. I presume that is not the case with the Ben Stove. 

 

Thanks

Crispin 

 

Dear all, 

Please find attached a picture for comparison of fuelwood consumption of traditional Three Stone Fire and Ben Stove. The picture illustrates the savings with ICS and cooking with retained heat. Of course besides the savings of fuel there are corresponding savings of emissions and burdens. 

Kind regards,
Dieter

 


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