[Stoves] No subsidies in TLUD char peoduction (was Re: Testing versus stove acceptance

[Paul Anderson]

Crispin,

I need to clarify.   You wrote:
> Would the stoves have received as much acceptance in the absence of 
> the subsidized purchase of the char produced?
The char purchases are not subsidized.  Only at the start of a project 
in a new area and with less than 1000 stoves is there some need to help 
the char purchase and resale efforts to get a firm start.  After that, 
zero outside money to the char business.  This arrangement is going on 
for over four years now in Deganga, and already established in the 
Uluberia area after just a couple of months.

The char purchasers visit each house once per month a with a driver of a 
motorized 3-wheel cargo vehicle with a flat-bed about 6 ft across and 9 
feet long (about 1.8 x 2.5 meters).  The char is damp, and is weighed 
and put into bags.  It is rather dirty work, and the only people (51 
purchasers and 46 drivers) who will do it in the areas are at the bottom 
of the social ladder.

In Deganga I was met by about 25 of these men who treated me like a 
prince, the guy who designed the Champion TLUD that has resulted in 
their steady employment.  All were better off than before, when they 
were unemployed, occasionally employed day laborers, or with lower 
paying jobs.

I am collecting more data so that my figures are correct the first time 
I give the numbers.   I intend to spell out the economics of this char 
production process by the end of this month.  The data come from India.

The char in the initial plans and years was sold for use by restaurants 
and small industry. Currently about 80% of the char is re-sold by the 
wholesaldto the makers of incense sticks who are quite content with 
damp, powdery char and .


Even when the carbon credit operations end, the commercial aspects of 
the TLUD charcoal production and sales should be self-sustaining.

************
Concerning the "subsidy" to obtain a TLUD stove, is it a subsidy or an 
investment when the full stove price (US$40) is eventually recovered 
from the carbon credit transactions?   That would be akin to 
micro-finance except that the handling of the carbon credits and the 
money are by the project, not the households.

There is no on-going subsidy to maintain the project activities. The 
overall cash flows from the carbon credit funding covers the expenses 
for carbon credit verifications and project leadership.

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 12/3/2017 10:11 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
>
> 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.
>
> [To comment on that site you have to create an account then log in. If 
> you wish, you can remove and edit old posts and it is also possible to 
> upload documents.]
>
> Regards
>
> Crispin
>
>

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