[Stoves] "Young-adult" TLUD research Re: List of woods for TLUDs?

[Nikhil Desai]

Paul:

My "focus groups" question was not meant for you but for the collective of donors who have supported stoves work - and fuels work, as Tom Reed's - over the last 40 years. 

A lot of problems in market-responsive product engineering of cookstoves are "humanoid" problems as Crispin wrote a couple of days ago. I think a lot many researchers did want to do "humanitarian" as well as "humanistic" engineering for cookstoves but their paymasters couldn't allow it. 

Much of what still ails this idealist pursuit of "sustainable" fuels and "clean" cookstoves is that people have been virtually erased from product development. It helps make vague claims about saving forests and avoiding premature deaths, which is only an excuse to avoid looking at the cooks. 

Many promoters have lost credibility and this is now a cause for collective rethinking so efforts like yours do not starve for money. Even if they were to fail, because that is how learning is gained. 

I don't want to yet fault individual donors. I have been amply critical of US government and the governments of India and Britain. While I understand the bureaucratic constraints on program planning, I am also disappointed at the lack of imagination and understanding at the highest levels of incompetence. 

I do have a few reference documents from the mid-1980s World Bank and miscellaneous US entities, also some articles of policy significance (UNDP, in the mid to late 1990s) and those in Boiling Point that Liz Bates painstakingly put out for years.

I may get around to rereading those to see what was promised or hypothesized then and how money stopped flowing or didn't expand till Hillary came along. 

While "we" were of course responsible in not getting the "service standard" and the objective - pleasing the cook, improving the human environment - right, our paymasters failed to sustain a political momentum. 

That's how we get the UNF - Gateses foundations interjecting WHO in the stoves business with the most ridiculous rationales of bettering human healths. (The Indian government has thrown out Gateses Foundation, for right reasons or wrong) and I would only be too glad if WHO, fronting for IHME and the Gateses, is asked to exit TC 285 of the ISO. 

Best wishes for your work and others such who have had to make tough choices, 

Nikhil 

> On Apr 30, 2017, at 9:48 PM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> 
> Nikhil,      see below.
> 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 4/30/2017 9:57 AM, Nikhil Desai wrote:
>> Paul and Ron:
>> 
>> Leaving efficiency aside, which kind of controls would help regulate power and duration of cooking from the cook's perspective, optimizing the use of her/his time and preferences for timing and composition of meals?
> I understand about controls, but my time now is focused on expanding the number of TLUD stoves in use, and current designs are appropriate for now.  I am very short on available time.
>> 
>> Are there some 200 "focus groups" for opinions input and testing of new biomass cookstoves for different client groupings?
> Again, although what you mention is extremely important, right now we have highly successful acceptance of the Champion woodgas TLUD stove in West Bengal, that being ONE or a few "focus groups" that need to be served well.  The other 197 will be best served by seeing the current great success story become even larger.  (Major need right now is some grants, loans and/or carbon credit purchases so that we can get enough stoves into the field locations where there are plenty of purchasers.  Whatever amount comes in gets put to prompt use.)
>> 
>> If not, what we have been doing might only win approvals from pals and peers.
> I have worked on TLUD stoves for over 16 years.  The approvals are from far more that pals and peers.  And I do thank the pals and peers for their support.  Please continue.
> 
> (end of my new content)
> 
> Paul
>> 
>> At the GWU session in mid-January, GACC CEO had a poignant, and entirely valid, comment about the evidence base for benefits of clean cookstoves. 
>> 
>> In the present instance, I tend to side with Paul. I had a very primitive introduction to air flow, combustion power and duration, and different meals with different kinds of charcoal stoves (with a kerosene stove for heating water and deep frying).  I imagine the ratio of primary to secondary air can only be contextual. 
>> 
>> I am not sure usable stoves must remain "inexpensive".  There's probably a serviceable market for stove-fuel combinations of any kind, even those currently in Science Fiction world. Just takes identifying the market. 
>> 
>> Another thought toward Robert van der Plas' suggestion for re-learning: find the cooks and foods, and characterize the fuels and timing options. (In some parts of India, heating milk seems to have declined in household stove use. Not an insignificant change. Does SA/PA matter?)1
>> 
>> Nikhil 
>> 
>> 
>> On Apr 30, 2017, at 9:03 AM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> Ron,
>>> 
>>> I disagree.   You wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> preferring to use one controller for both is that the ratio of primary to secondary should always be the same
>>> The point is that the ratio is NOT to always be the same.   Even the different packing of the fuel in to the TLUD can make primary air (PA) flow more easily, creating more gases and           needing a change in secondary air (SA) to get optimal performance.
>>> 
>>> Automobiles have sensors for all kinds of issues, with automated adjustments.   Just not practical yet for cookstoves that need to be inexpensive.  Bu who knows, someday solid biomass as initial fuel could be pyrolyzed and have the gases combusted in very controlled ways that would seem like Science Fiction if said today.  I believe that it will be justified for the woodgas/TLUD stoves, but not for the old-hat ICS stoves, including rockets.
>>> 
>>> Nathan Puffer''s work was not quantitatively evaluated.   It was a demonstration that made its point but was not in a way that could be into large numbers of stoves at that time and still today.  
>>> 
>>> 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 4/29/2017 9:46 PM, Ronal W. Larson wrote:
>>>> Paul,  cc Nathan and list
>>>> 
>>>> 	Thanks for bringing up the two subjects of a)  separately controlling secondary air, and b) oily (mostly seed?)  fuels.
>>>> 
>>>> 	I agree that we should be controlling secondary air, but I am pretty sure that we should and can do this with the same controller as for the primary air.  Most TLUDs already can and should control primary air, but make no effort to control the secondary air.   My reason for preferring to use one controller for both is that the ratio of primary to secondary should always be the same if we want (or can live with) a fixed ratio for excess air.   One controller is cheaper and is easier for the cook.                 Anyone disagree?
>>>> 
>>>> 	On the subject of using Jaropha seeds,  I am pretty sure that we would need a larger amount of “secondary” air than for non-oily fuels, but that there still could be a single air controller (just with a larger SA/PA ratio  [ maybe goes from about 6:1 up to 7:1 ??].  Note that these oils cannot combust as they pass through the hot charcoal above the downward moving pyrolysis front (no oxygen in that stream).  But I presume the temperature is enough for them to arrive above the char as quite a different set of gases.  So,  I’d like to hear more about what Nathan found.  Any cite we can look up?
>>>> 
>>>> 	I agree with the rest of Paul’s comments.  TLUDs are not yet a mature technology - but it is growing up;  it is not standing still.
>>>> 
>>>> Ron
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Apr 29, 2017, at 8:14 AM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> To all,                   29 April 2017     [This note contains some new content and explanations for the advancement of TLUD stoves.]
>>>>> 
>>>>> 1.  Ron:    I and probably some others have successfully used dung as the input fuel into TLUDs.    I am not recommending dung, but if it is being burned, then a TLUD is preferred for cleaner burning.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 2.  AD:   I agree with Ron that the TLUD stoves are better with both light and hard (heavy) wood than direct burning of them in any direct-burning (ICS) stove.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 3.  Main point, to Neil and all:   TLUDs are not burning wood directly.   TLUDs turn wood into gases.   THEN the gases are burned.   So poplar, maple, maize cobs, dung, etc. are ALL becoming gases first.   THEN the burning of those gases might be somewhat different (but not as much as the direct burning of those diverse fuels).  
>>>>> 
>>>>> TLUD stoves are just arriving into their "young-adult stage."   In contrast:  not infancy, not childhood, maybe still "youth", but certainly not full maturity, and a long way from  the "old age" of the ICS "Inproved or Inadequate" direct-burning cookstoves.  This is because we are still learning about better and better ways of mixing the combustible gases with  the incoming secondary air (SA)  (This is where the BURNING takes place to make the heat that goes to the pot.  TLUDs are DIRECTLY burning GASES, not solid fuels. )    (Please see my "Classification of Stove Technology and Fuels" documents (1-page and 4-page versions) at  http://www.drtlud.com/2017/04/11/classification-stove-technologies-fuels/  )
>>>>> 
>>>>> The solid wood and dung etc are an intermediate stage of the fuel.   Sort of a "storage" stage.  Then pyrolysis "transforms solids into gases plus charcoal".  The created gases are then burned SEPARATELY (by centimeters and seconds, but certainly separately) from where the gases were created.  We do not have clear terminology for this, in layman's terms.  The closest might be "gas                     burning stoves that make their own gases."  
>>>>> 
>>>>> So, what development is happening in the early "young-adult" stage?  Control of primary air, learning about solid "intermediate" fuels, and improving combustion of the gases, as well as "new clothes" with sizes and mateials.  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Consider this:  We have known of FA (forced air or fan assisted) TLUD stoves from the 1990s.  And there has been much progress.  But NO TLUD on the market has SEPARATE controls for "variable flows" of primary air (PA) and secondary air (SA).   THAT control is what will make the difference regarding Neil's initial question that pointed to differences in the initial fuels (and therefore differences in the resultant gases and quantities of gases that are being burned.)  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Note that TLUDs can be made with different flows of PA ans SA by changing the sizes and number of holes.  That is a form of "tuning" the TLUD for a specific fuel.   This works great for one initial fuel, but only good but acceptable with other fringe fuels.  I am NOT referring to that work as being "variable flows".   I am referring to when the user can change the flows, even during one batch of fuel.
>>>>> 
>>>>> There has been some researach (mostly unreported and set aside) on variable control of primary and                     secondary air, using fans.  I have experimented several times.  The "million-dollar-grants" have had laboratory equipment with controlled and measured separate air flows.  Nathan Puffer did it when we were looking at Jatropha SEEDS as a fuel.  Seeds                     give off additional gases from the vaporization (not pyrolysis) of combustible vegetable oils (carbohydrates), which are much more plentiful in seeds than in stems and branches and leaves, thereby overwhelming the insufficient supply of SA in a "regular" TLUD-FA. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> There is a good reason to not have separate control of PA and SA.   That reason is the user, the cook.  To need to "dial-in" the right flow of SA (assuming PA flow stays the same) is, for the most part and for most non-scientist cooks, an extra task that                     could easily be done incorrectly.  And there are the financial reasons of
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