[Stoves] Biomass briquetting tangents

[Nikhil Desai]

Crispin: (to George below)

What you describe of Gadgil's - and your - work is yesteryear's. And
probably for very unorthodox situations (Darfur) or small markets (Vesto in
the Gambia).

Conditions change. Electricity, skills, manufacturing capacity, restriction
on imports (or preference for domestic production), availability of tools,
Mrs. Clinton's enthusiasm and ISO globalism. As do the demographics
(urbanization), resource availability (waste biomass)

My point is that "appropriate technology" of yesteryears need not be the
same today. The key idea you and Gadgil had was that "the ‘industrial’
production was done as close to the bulk material source where the tooling
could be produced and maintained."

This remains valid, and is a very useful parameter for defining "context",
the term I am obsessed with (at least in reaction to service standard and
objective). Your recommendation also remain valid for such contexts:

" *   Designed outside the region
  *   Introduced after local testing
  *   Main components needing high precision produced outside the country
  *   All metal construction
  *   Performance much better than local baseline products in common use
  *   Production process adjusted/evolved as local capacity improved
  *   Field performance evaluations confirm acceptance and long term use
(displacement)

It would be good if the project can be picked up again and expanded to
include all the city neighbourhoods."


In other contexts, "Design outside the region" and "all metal construction"
need not apply, and "country" is simply a political term.

These are the "data shortages" in the facts-free universe of "clean
cookstoves" - data are contextual and there is not a single database I can
find about the local, real facts of alleged global problems -
deforestation, climate change, women's power, or health damage.
(Conversely, not a single "stove rollout" has been done on the basis of
actual local data on "before and after" efficiency, emissions, women's
power, or long-term health.)

The question is, why did GIZ effort limited in time and geography? How much
damage has been done by the madness of pushing WBT and ISO Tiers? (Maybe
not much; GACC increasingly looks like a sideshow.)

I will now read the D-Lab report in light of your observations.

George:

Some questions:

1. Who is leading the external charge on SE4All when it comes to cooking
energy? Is the emphasis only on households? This is important because if
SE4All is aligned with UN SDGs, the goal is to reduce the "% of households
using solid fuels for cooking".

In other words, SDGs are as pernicious to use of biomass for cooking as
WHO/ISO Tier 4 Emission Reduction Targets for PM2.5 (hourly average). I do
not understand why this List has not reacted to this blatant betrayal of
the "better biomass stoves" agenda.

2. Is there an evaluation of the Gambia stoves work in the past? And to the
SE4All Investment Prospectus (likely to be heavily weighed to electricity)?

------
Thanks, both. A breath of fresh air.

Nikhil





------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Sat, Aug 12, 2017 at 10:32 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> Dear George of the J
>
> Thanks. The follow-up point I want to make is stimulated by the fact that
> your project was discussed previously and it has some aspects which
> interesting to those planning stove roll-outs in locations where the are
> manufacturing capacity or skill shortages.
>
> Quick review: at about the same time, Ashok Gadgil and I concluded that
> the way forward in places with limited manufacturing capacity was to send
> partially manufactured stoves to the site, absent only what could be made
> using the available skills and manpower. By ‘concluded’ I mean we both
> started ‘doing it’, Ashok in Darfur and you with me in the Gambia. At the
> time Ashok and I have not met or communicated – we only found each other
> later and got on like a house on fire.
>
> While it has probably been done before, we didn’t have examples. The plan
> was to make the combustion chambers for Vesto stoves and send them to you,
> with all the rest of the stove made locally from available sheet metal. The
> result was a locally fabricated Vesto Junior that has the same performance
> as a product made in Swaziland.
>
> Ashok for his part, produced ‘blanked’ parts in India and sent them to
> Darfur for assemble in a workshop that had no electricity – just hand
> tools, initially. Later they added some welding to further improve the
> product.
>
> The common elements were that the ‘industrial’ production was done as
> close to the bulk material source where the tooling could be produced and
> maintained. In the case of the Darfur stove it was blanking tools. For
> those who don’t know the term, it is punching tools that typically have a
> very small vertical movement, used to create a shape out of a flat sheet.
> It can also be done by laser or plasma cutter, but when volume is involved,
> press tools are made that punch the whole part at once at very low cost.
> There was no way that could be run and maintained in Darfur.
>
> With Banjul, the challenge was similar. There is a mechanical training
> centre with limited cutting and welding facility but no laser cutting or
> CNC punching capability. The grate on the Vesto needs three press tools to
> make, including a complicated blanking tool. So the combustion chamber with
> scores of holes and the grate were produced in Johannesburg – at the
> contractor that does the CNC work and the SeTAR Centre’s stove development
> workshop at the University of Johannesburg. That facility was equipped by
> ProBEC/GIZ in its last days.
>
> At the time the goal in the Gambia was to produce locally a high
> performance stove that could burn briquettes made for available waste
> materials, which is a fuel a Vesto is able deal with quite well. The
> initial target was to make it to last five years, and it is heartening to
> hear that indeed these stoves have endured that long. Given that there is
> no ceramic component in them, perhaps designers can learn from the
> experiment. It is an all-metal stove like the Darfur Stove.  They two
> products have little else in common as to how they work, but they do share
> these:
>
>
>   *   Designed outside the region
>   *   Introduced after local testing
>   *   Main components needing high precision produced outside the country
>   *   All metal construction
>   *   Performance much better than local baseline products in common use
>   *   Production process adjusted/evolved as local capacity improved
>   *   Field performance evaluations confirm acceptance and long term use
> (displacement)
>
> It would be good if the project can be picked up again and expanded to
> include all the city neighbourhoods.
>
> Many thanks
> Crispin
>
>
>
> Crispin.
>
> Sorry my mistake. Maybe of interest to a wider audience. Even way back I
> always thought that your stove designs never got enough mention. Feedback
> from the grassroots. After the rains hopefully our economic situation has
> improved enough so we can go back to the 23 families and do a quick survey.
>
> George
>
>
> From: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott [mailto:crispinpigott at outlook.com]
> Sent: 12 August 2017 17:57
> To: icecool; George Riegg Gambia
> Subject: RE: [Stoves] Biomass briquetting tangents
>
> Did you want this to go to the Discussion list?
>
> I’d be happy to respond there.
> Crispin
>
>
> Nikhil and Crispin,
>
> Ebola only affected us here economically. Total collapse of tourism, still
> trying to recover now. At the time restricted movements of goods as borders
> were almost closed for some months – high prices for scarce products. We
> laid in boxes of tinned sardines and other tinned stuff and went into lock
> down mode for about 3 month – only fresh daily bread. In the end I think
> they traced the virus back to some monkeys in Niger or there abouts – yes
> bush meet played a big part and the eradication of forests…
>
> Crispin. Our 23 Furno Ees are still working great for the “test” families
> – nearly 5 years on. 2 ½ years ago we had a SE4ALL validation workshop here
> and both the Furno and the Briquetting were included in the Governments
> priority initiatives and the Investment Prospectus. Now with the new people
> in Government hopefully more positive actions will happen in time. We also
> had some serious funding problems with getting messed around by some
> implementing partners in charge of purse strings – we never made it away
> from the 1 tin of sardines per day. Amazing what you can do with that!
>
> Watch this space ☺ There is still spank in this old geezer!
>
> George
>
>
>
>
>
>
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