[Stoves] Description of the IU Friday's last technical session

Tue Apr 18 02:50:39 CDT 2017

Ron:

Thank you, again.  I suggest checking out the associated course - URP 3142
Women’s Health and the Environment: Going Up in Smoke.
<https://clas.uiowa.edu/international-studies/sites/clas.uiowa.edu.international-studies/files/Seminar%20Course%20--%20Womens%20Health%20%20The%20Environment%20%20--%20Syllabus.pdf>

A quick comment on your quote of Kirk Smith.

I disagree with Kirk Smith that "stovers should not use the word “subsidy”.
I don't understand how he praises $5 billion/yr  subsidy for LPG cooking in
India and dismisses biomass stoves as not yet having been proved "truly
health protective". If not yet subsidy, product development aimed at
"subsidizable" solid fuel stoves should be financed, now that GACC has
raised the awareness at the highest policy levels.

The question of subsidies is contextual - market size, relative costs, etc.

Kirk Smith's emphasis on "proof" is an excuse for pursuing epidemiological
research that will inevitably be confounded by confounding factors.His GBD
work *assumed* LPG and electric cooking is "truly health protective",
simply by assigning zero PM2.5 emissions at the household burner. Now NIH
and Gates - and GACC - are spending millions of $ to build the "evidence
base" that LPG cooking enhanced health; I haven't seen any study of health
impacts of transition to gas and electric cooking in the Western world, or
for that matter Mumbai or Ahmedabad or my village.

If people think LPG is health protective, who needs epidemiologists with
Randomized Controlled Studies in Malawi? Same with biomass alternatives;
why bother complying with non-binding WHO PM2.5 hourly emission rate
guidelines if you can convince the cook that the biomass alternative is
useful, convenient, clean enough, and cheaper to boot?

But Kirk Smith's other point is noteworthy - "Should not equate increased
efficiency with health benefits - in absence of proof." I have argued
before that efficiency is an irrelevant metric for small-scale household
cooking. (For heating and commercial cooking,it is.)

The trouble, I have said before, is with developers of new wood stoves and
the metrics of fuel efficiency and now, PM2.5 emission rates a la WHO, and
pursuit of aDALYs a la BAMG. We don'\t have a usable product that cooks
desire. I have been looking to make an argument for stoves and fuels that
can compete with LPG on a commercial basis in certain markets, and just
don't see a case yet. (Except for product development and marketing costs;
that is not consumer or intermediary subsidy.)

-------------
Now about Madhu Sarin, whom you heard.

Madhu Sarin's frustration was brought out in the story Up in Smoke
<http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/smoke-india-perfect-cookstove/3>,

"The Nada chulha became one of the stoves *selected by the government* for
distribution, and Sarin was part of its early meetings. But the flaws of
the programme soon became apparent to her. ....*On paper, the success went
beyond any bureaucrat’s dreams*: ..But a survey conducted by Sarin and some
colleagues,.. found that things were very different on the ground. ...Badly
trained, reluctant stove-makers meant bad stoves. ...*In one village, a row
of houses did burn down. “We couldn’t talk about chulhas in that area for
years,” said Sarin.*..There was also a more fundamental issue: *the
programme’s goals were out of sync with what women wanted. *While the focus
was on making stoves that consumed less wood, *women wanted ones that
emitted less smoke, or cooked faster..*.Despite these problems, the pilot
project was scaled up into the National Programme on Improved Chulhas,
launched in 1985 by the prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, with “technical back
up” units across the country—mostly local engineering colleges—to help with
stove design. Subsidies were disbursed to potters and local stove
manufacturers through state governments..."

That encapsulates the disaster caused by experts, for experts. I suggest
reading the two classics at the bottom of p.2 of the UIowa Seminar
description (reproduced below).

Indian women have got used to LPG, and rural ones have begun to use it
part-time.

Let's see if Indian bureaucrats and experts have miracle biomass stoves.

Clean Cooking Forum 2017 beckons. I count on bureaucrats to create another
big splash.

Nikhil

---------------
Suggested reading:

Kishore, V.V.N. and P.V. Ramana. 2001. Improved Cookstoves in Rural India:
How Improved Are They? A critique of the perceived benefits from the
National Programme on Improved Chulhas (NPIC). Energy 27:47-63.

Gill, Jas. 1987. Improved Cookstoves in Developing Countries: A Critique.
Energy Policy 15(2):135-144.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(India +91) 909 995 2080
*Skype: nikhildesai888*

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 7:46 AM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net>
wrote:

> List:
>
> This is to finish my description of the IU stove-women-environment event
> that ended last Friday.
>
> II.    *9:00 – 12:30 p.m. - Panel III: Policy and Fuel Use in Developing
> Countries*
> This was the final set of four stove-oriented speakers - all with 25
> minute time slots.  Their bios are mostly at the site
> https://international.uiowa.edu/funding/faculty/projects/provosts-global-
> forum/women%E2%80%99s-health-environment-going-smoke/2017-provost-0
> <https://international.uiowa.edu/funding/faculty/projects/provosts-global-forum/women’s-health-environment-going-smoke/2017-provost-0>
>
> but I have tried to add more sites:
>
> a.*  Dr. Pam Jagger* -  UNC - Chapel Hill  - coming at stoves from a
> social science perspective.
> See http://publicpolicy.unc.edu/people/pamela-jagger/
> She described a UNC group called  FUEL -  Forest use - Energy -
> Livelihoods;
> She emphasized her interest was in Africa;  talked also about a Carolina
> Population Center of which her work is a part
> Her talk emphasized 5 main ideas  (hopefully fairly accurately
> transcribed).  She had plentiful slides and photos for each.
> 1.  “Wood fuels are it,  for now and 25-50 years;  preferences are strong”
> 2.   “LULCC is limiting supply of high quality biomass, and it matters”
> 3.  “Practical innovation in delivery of sustainable fuel sources and
> improved  cooking”
> 4.   “….  think artful about scope, scale and cost of efforts and  what
> they can deliver”
> 5.  “It is not just about cooking”
> (There is a great deal more to say about Dr.  Jagger’s work - so I’ll come
> back later on this. She was very knowledgeable on char-making stoves.)
>
> b.  *Prof.  Rajendra Prasad*  - with IIT in Delhi
> His was the only bio missing at the bio site given earlier.  Here is one
> site for his bio:  http://crdt.iitd.ac.in/content/prof-prasad-rajendra
> He also has extensive experience with gasifiers stoves.
> More of his talk was on LPG replacement.
>
> c.   *Madhu Sarin*   Long-time stove activist .   She is now a Fellow
> with a forest preservation group “RRI"  (http://rightsandresources.
> org/en/#.WPUBglMrI6U)  & Campaign for Survival & Dignity
> https://forestrightsact.com/ .  Not currently active in any stove program
> but her bio mentions prior work on a “Nada Chula” that I found at many
> places, such as http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pnaav641.pdf.  The key here
> was adding a chimney.  Ms.  Sarin described the frustrations of not being
> given enough support to carry out a relatively low cost means of improving
> indoor air quality - almost 35 years ago.
>
>
> d.  *Jichong** Wu*   the GACC staffer responsible for  China  see
> http://cleancookstoves.org/about/our-team/42.html
>   Like India - more than 1 million early stove-related deaths in China;
>  more than 500 stove manufacturers in China
>   Mentioned an improved  “Kang” stove (A bed heated from below by channels
> fed from a biomass stove.
>   Review of the GACC-coordinated program in China called CCER (Carbon
> Credit for Emission Reductions).  See
>  http://cleancookstoves.org/about/news/12-21-2016-new-
> stove-and-fuel-innovations-driving-consumer-use-in-china.html
>   Has strong interest in policy topics.
>
>
> II.   *Discussion Period *-  (covering all three days);   Samples
> of words heard:
>         Center for International Forestry Research <http://www.cifor.org/>
>  (www.cifor.org/);
>   Using heat pumps for cooking;
> Kirk Smith: Should not equate increased efficiency with health benefits -
> in absence of proof.
> can compare stove topics to vaccines for poor - should call support a
> social investment (as for schools)
>  you can’t make gas dirty - (vs solid fuels which can’t make such as
> strong claim)
> stovers should not use the word “subsidy”;
>
> Note this was the end of the Friday morning session - no break for about 4
> hours.  During lunch the IU organizers received thanks from the IU
> International program.
>
> After a long break, there was a final session with three writers
> (previously summarized).
>
> Still coming - some concluding thoughts on this conference
>
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