[Stoves] Testing versus stove acceptance (was bue no longer abour Re: China and cookstoves [

Sun Dec 3 22:11:47 CST 2017

Dear Paul

“I was a co-author on the report (  www.drtlud.com/deganga2016<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drtlud.com%2Fdeganga2016&data=02%7C01%7Ccrispinpigott%40outlook.com%7C0ac08bbfa2644f1aabad08d53ac1ff9e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636479527243887104&sdata=9Zg0caSRfgfyC9v6w%2Ftwl2W0W0%2BoQbqaGSaoC5bRTPo%3D&reserved=0> ) about that highly successful pilot study with 11,000 quite satisfied users of TLUD stoves.  If acceptance by users is an issue, I refer people to that report and to visit the project areas in West Bengal.”

Would the stoves have received as much acceptance in the absence of the subsidized purchase of the char produced?

Suppose they could only get the local commercial value for the char. Would they keep buying and using the stoves? I assume that at some point this case will come to pass.

The Tesla sold well (bookings) until the subsidies were withdrawn after which the orders dropped<https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2017/06/12/confirmed-without-government-subsidies-tesla-sales-implode/> 60%. I do not doubt that the stove cooks and is clean burning and adequate as a cooking device. I helped Sujatha in the only tiny way I could (assessing the air supplied and testing the EA+combustion efficiency).

I have general concerns with batch loaded stoves that cannot be refueled. They work but have clear limitations on how they fit into expected patterns of use. Obviously people change some habits and they also use different appliances for the other tasks.

One of the places where I see TLUD’s finding broad acceptance is in Indonesia where they have large quantities of candle nut shells and no local use for it. Whether they will use these stoves without subsidy is not clear.

I like the implementation model whereby the stove is given free and through the sale of fuel, its cost is slowly recovered over time. Finance of a stove (by Stokvel, savings club or other imaginative cooperative) is often needed for capital purchases. The cost of a stove is not nearly as important as the cost of making payments. In order to create a viable market for LPG stoves, the Indonesian government gave away 40m stove free. Thereafter the fuel was subsidised. That doesn’t prove ‘LPG is viable’, it just proves it is acceptable at a certain cost to a certain population cohort. Remove the fuel subsidy, free stoves or not, and the number of people using it will plummet.

Bottom line: if you want compete with wood or bulk-produced charcoal, you have to be sure the energy passed along as char is not increasing the need for raw fuel where that raw fuel is in limited supply. I previously outlined the necessary heat transfer efficiency to achieve fuel parity.

Nikhil has pointed out that fuel efficiency is not necessarily a condition for acceptance, I have pointed out in my reply today to Yabei Zhang’s question<https://collaboration.worldbank.org/thread/6691?sr=stream> on accessing public funds for product development that legacy metrics from early stove programs are hard to drop.

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Regards
Crispin

++++++++++
Stovers,

The diplomatic comment is that there should be BOTH testing AND stove acceptance.

But if you have to choose only one, the acceptance wins, hands down.  The proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in the receipe.

For a decade since 2005, I worked much on getting good test results for the TLUD stoves.  The NUMBERS.   Oh yes, the NUMBERS.   Stove camps, comparisons, measurements,

And I struggled to get a successful TLUD stove project somewhere, anywhere.   But in 2015, I found out about two things that happened without my direct involvement.

1.  In 2015, the GACC and ESMAP published ESMAP Tech Report 007 about the status of cookstoves.   There, in Figure 1, the gasifier stoves were classified in the category of "Clean Cooking Solutions" and were called ADVANCED.  We can safely assume that appropriately qualitied experts were making the decisions.  It is no longer a case of specific numbers and Tier x.x designations.  Use the numbers if you want to do so, and there are still some variations between the various models of gasifiers, but the gasifiers have made it into the big time, and the standard ICS have not.  For clarity, I prepared the "Classification of Stoves....." document that is faithful to the ESMAP publication.  www.drtlud.com/2017/04/11/classification-stove-technologies-fuels/<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drtlud.com%2F2017%2F04%2F11%2Fclassification-stove-technologies-fuels%2F&data=02%7C01%7Ccrispinpigott%40outlook.com%7C0ac08bbfa2644f1aabad08d53ac1ff9e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636479527243887104&sdata=6qSOVc5nSdR8Ym95OPeKckXd8yk6WLngT%2BKKcr63fPo%3D&reserved=0>      If anyone disagrees about that, I refer them to the GACC and ESMAP.  And very favorable test results keep coming in.

2.  In late 2015 I found out about the TLUD stove project in progress since 2012 in Deganga, India.  I was a co-author on the report (  www.drtlud.com/deganga2016<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drtlud.com%2Fdeganga2016&data=02%7C01%7Ccrispinpigott%40outlook.com%7C0ac08bbfa2644f1aabad08d53ac1ff9e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636479527243887104&sdata=9Zg0caSRfgfyC9v6w%2Ftwl2W0W0%2BoQbqaGSaoC5bRTPo%3D&reserved=0> ) about that highly successful pilot study with 11,000 quite satisfied users of TLUD stoves.  If acceptance by users is an issue, I refer people to that report and to visit the project areas in West Bengal.

So, now the TLUD stoves have both aspects well supported.  Testing and stove acceptance.   Of course there is still much more work to be done.

But the major effort has shifted to what Philip and Nikhil have mentioned, specifically the search for funding for project implementation.  Not for testing.   Not for a stove-acceptance study.  (although testing and acceptance are both closely watched in every effort.)

Still working on TLUD stoves.

Paul

Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD

Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu<mailto:psanders at ilstu.edu>

Skype:   paultlud    Phone: +1-309-452-7072

Website:  www.drtlud.com<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drtlud.com&data=02%7C01%7Ccrispinpigott%40outlook.com%7C0ac08bbfa2644f1aabad08d53ac1ff9e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636479527243887104&sdata=nPpGau79YqIwgOG9DkS6n%2FJjQjOxub8jX8MXwSvN8UU%3D&reserved=0>
On 12/3/2017 10:09 AM, Nikhil Desai wrote:
Philip:

I had a different reason - one-time subsidies for capital costs are easier to design and implement. The main issue is what stoves (and pots if possible) are in fact used and whether the running costs are affordable for a large segment.

Much of the woodstove design work is stuck in fundamental deceit of metrics and testing protocols that do not answer the question whether the stove can be expected to be used. (I can design capital subsidies for briquetting and pellet-making).

Not a whole lot of good is going to be done by issuing some ISO reports. Nor is SE4All going to come up with $4 billion a year I read Kyte announced at CCF 2017.

I don't see any tenable theory of change in current EPA/WHO work including that in TC-285. Pending that, poor people will have to spend $400 for a stove they can be proud of and can use. (EPA wants to legislate coal out of existence around the world. Fat chance.)

Nikhil

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(US +1) 202 568 5831
Skype: nikhildesai888

On Sun, Dec 3, 2017 at 6:23 AM, Philip Lloyd <plloyd at mweb.co.za<mailto:plloyd at mweb.co.za>> wrote:
“Capital cost of the stove is a minor issue; the question is whether the users like and use the stove.” A community I studied carefully had a monthly household income of <$100 yet strove to buy a smokey cast iron coal-fired stove costing ~$400.  It met all their needs – including a higher social status merely because they possessed such a stove.

Prof Philip Lloyd
Energy Institute, CPUT
PO Box 1906
Bellville 7535
Tel 021 959 4323
Cell 083 441 5247
PA Nadia 021 959 4330

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org>] On Behalf Of Nikhil Desai
Sent: Saturday, December 2, 2017 1:50 AM
To: Paul Anderson
Cc: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] China and cookstoves [Was Re: A user-centered, iterative engineering approach for advanced biomass cookstove design and development]

Paul:

Capital cost of the stove is a minor issue; the question is whether the users like and use the stove. This is why contextual definitions matter, because pellet production costs can vary greatly depending on the feedstock.

A high capital cost stove can be given one-time subsidy - should be given to the distributor if one exists; could be given to a bulk producer - on the condition that the stoves are found useful and used. Metrics of efficiency and hourly emission rates are just smoke.

I am glad to read "it is something about family, a cultural thing, especially in country side." Gives the lie to physics-only theories of supposed "stove science".

Nikhil

On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 10:05 AM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu<mailto:psanders at ilstu.edu>> wrote:
Cheng and all,   (and a mention of Todd Albi).     see below.

Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD

Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu<mailto:psanders at ilstu.edu>

Skype:   paultlud    Phone: +1-309-452-7072<tel:%28309%29%20452-7072>

Website:  www.drtlud.com<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drtlud.com&data=02%7C01%7Ccrispinpigott%40outlook.com%7C0ac08bbfa2644f1aabad08d53ac1ff9e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636479527243887104&sdata=nPpGau79YqIwgOG9DkS6n%2FJjQjOxub8jX8MXwSvN8UU%3D&reserved=0>

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