[Stoves] China and cookstoves [Was Re: A user-centered, iterative engineering approach for advanced biomass cookstove design and development]
Ronal W. Larson
rongretlarson at comcast.net
Mon Dec 4 15:30:03 CST 2017
Paul and ccs:
Agree with all, save your:
“…if and when the biochar community provides sufficient justification for the char…”
The biochar list (a sister list to “stoves”) has numerous examples, visually every day, that this justification now exists. Rick Wilson this past week reported on two sales in the 20,000 ton range for mine land reclamation. Hans-Peter Schmidt has reported most of his sales in Switzerland are for improving cattle health and weight gain (not for direct placement in soil) (see the web site for the Biochar Journal). Over 1000 papers per year listed at the IBI site, devoted to (mostly) crop benefits.
My own estimate, based on a report from China (now on the IBI website), is that biochar industry growth there is experiencing a doubling time less than a year. That doesn’t happen without “sufficient justification.”
Ron
> On Dec 4, 2017, at 10:47 AM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> Nikhil,
>
> I reply to only one statement (two sentences) by you to Ron. You wrote:
>>
>> My view - uninformed by questionnaires, of course - is that household cookstoves are not the way to get biochar for soil conditioning. It should be a large-scale industrial project.
> Totally not correct.
>
> If and when large-scale industiral production of biochar kicks into gear, that will be fine and welcome.
>
> Meanwhile, char producion with household cookstoves is aready functional in West Bengal. However, the char is sold for purposes of being burned. But it is physically there if and when the biochar community provides sufficient justification for the char (appropriately prepared) to be put into soil.
>
> (I have a further comment about char in a message soon to reply to Crispin.)
>
> 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 <http://www.drtlud.com/>
> On 12/4/2017 8:59 AM, Nikhil Desai wrote:
>> Ron:
>>
>> We should talk. I don't mean to offend you and am afraid of making you angry.
>>
>> But this is precisely the kind of questions that I used to challenge in many a questionnaires including rural energy surveys.
>>
>> The cardinal principle is that if you really want to gauge consumer preferences, try to understand their behaviors, living conditions in totality, not by asking spotty questions whose answers are convenient for you.
>>
>> What you are suggesting is a "leading question". I would strike it off immediately. If you had a questionnaire that gathered information on the physical, social, economic contexts, I might suggest alternative ways of getting an idea of what you want to know.
>>
>> I have been around long enough to sneer at academic surveyors who basically steal poor women's time, knowledge, soul to market their wares, write PhD theses to test fancy hypotheses and propound the findings at conferences.
>>
>> I have also talked to women surveyed and the survey takers. My sneer comes not from me but them. Behind the backs of Western theorists of rich theories, these people laugh and some tell me poor women are smart enough to know ahead of time these surveys serve no purpose other than preparing articles in peer-reviewed journals that none of their libraries can ever get.
>>
>> I have also been told - by survey designers - that poorly formulated questions elicit unreliable answers. Some poor women don't know whose cakes are sought to be cooked by stove promoters.
>>
>> Of course none of my answers got to what you asked.
>>
>> I am glad none of the surveys have asked your question.
>>
>> Markets evolve organically, which is why "development projects" in retail products and services have disillusioned me.
>>
>> No wonder more money has been spent on publishing papers than on design and testing of contextually relevant stoves.
>>
>> That said, let's design a broader survey with some way of getting to know if cooks want to collect enough extra wood to make biochar. My view - uninformed by questionnaires, of course - is that household cookstoves are not the way to get biochar for soil conditioning. It should be a large-scale industrial project. Already, billions of poor have seen it is better to get rich enough to afford gas and electricity than to wait for the Western stove community to develop the killer app of savior stoves. The only way to get their trust is to earn it from hard work, not by titillating them with "extra money". "Saving wood" was also the same as getting "extra money"; they have been fooled enough by that promise.
>>
>>
>> N
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Nikhil Desai
>> (US +1) 202 568 5831
>> Skype: nikhildesai888
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 12:36 AM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net <mailto:rongretlarson at comcast.net>> wrote:
>> Nikhil:
>>
>> I hope you (and almost everybody on this list) will take the time to ask a few low-income women the below-question that I have not seen asked.
>>
>> If you could imagine yourself having a batch stove that cost the same and used the same fuel whether you (now low income) would rather make money or not, what would your own answer be?
>>
>> None of your answer below gets at what I am asking. I repeat; I have not seen any survey with this question. I have talked to many people about this for twenty-plus years individually - and I have gotten the answer that I want others to get.
>>
>> Obviously I am asking this so as to get char in the ground. Obviously for climate reasons. But soil NPP improvement also occurs - without conflict. All this is obvious on the sister biochar list. I am trying to get this list aware of biochar as a positive part of stoves and cooking. It is of no help to hear your answers about fuel collection, making observations, cooks making money with kerosene stoves, non-wood stoves taking over, large-scale cooking , etc. None of your answers get at the question of the value in making char while one cooks. It is not a difficult question to answer.
>>
>>
>> Ron
>>
>>
>>> On Dec 3, 2017, at 8:48 PM, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com <mailto:pienergy2008 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Ron:
>>>
>>> That is an interesting question but the answer has to be compared to alternative means of making money.
>>>
>>> Reduction in fuel collection time is one form of saving; the time freed up can be used for higher-priority activity, including education, child care, or employment.
>>>
>>> In other words, answers to this question can only be interpreted with additional, context-specific information or questions. In and of itself, it is a meaningless question.
>>>
>>> There are indirect ways of gathering people's priorities -- observing what they in fact do.
>>>
>>> Here is what I have observed over the last several decades:
>>>
>>> 1. In India, housewives in cities and towns have indeed made money by cooking, though on kerosene and LPG/electricity and preparing dry/canned/frozen foods as well as fresh meals and snacks for sale.
>>>
>>> 2. Roughly a billion people in the developing world have moved away from collecting woodfuels and cooking all the meals for family consumption.
>>>
>>> 3. Family size and composition, location, alternatives and priorities in use of women's time have changed.
>>>
>>> 4. Charcoaling from own or others' trees is an income-generating activity, but whether a cook wants to spend her time to do the same is open to question. She might well want to do for selling locally as fuel but not to some central authority for biochar.
>>>
>>> Your question may be better directed to commercial, large-scale cooks, who are probably easier customers for biomass and coal stoves anyway compared to poor households.
>>>
>>> Nikhil
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Nikhil Desai
>>> (US +1) 202 568 5831 <tel:%28202%29%20568-5831>
>>> Skype: nikhildesai888
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Dec 3, 2017 at 3:39 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net <mailto:rongretlarson at comcast.net>> wrote:
>>> Paul:
>>>
>>> I have yet to see on ANY stove questionnaire: “How important is making (more than saving) money when you cook?”
>>>
>>> Ron
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Dec 3, 2017, at 8:41 AM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu <mailto:psanders at ilstu.edu>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Crispin,
>>>>
>>>> Good point.
>>>>
>>>> I wonder how ofter "pride of ownership" is included in the evaluations.
>>>>
>>>> I hope that such a quesiton can be asked to the 40,000 (or a sample) users of the Champion TLUD stove in West Bengal.
>>>>
>>>> About surveys and questionnaires and interviews, (whether for stoves or other topics), questions keep being changed, so comparison between results are often difficult or meaningless because of wording. Are there some common (shared) questions that tend to be used in stove surveys?
>>>>
>>>> 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 <tel:%28309%29%20452-7072>
>>>> Website: www.drtlud.com <http://www.drtlud.com/>
>>>> On 12/3/2017 5:35 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
>>>>> In the survey of potential stove users conducted in Gauteng 2004, "Pride of ownership" scored above price and fuel consumption in a ranking of features.
>>>>>
>>>>> Philip confirms this aspect of reality in the South African market.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards
>>>>> Crispin
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> “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://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drtlud.com&data=02%7C01%7Ccrispinpigott%40outlook.com%7C62b2f8c8c9bf4c43283c08d53a40c4b8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636478972205853695&sdata=PbkCfNM6hUmnmoyj1uEbhKXufYiC9MFTSc3ueAqhjNU%3D&reserved=0>
>>>>> On 11/29/2017 10:15 PM, lh cheng wrote:
>>>>> Another Chinese little project. Surely, it is cookstove, not heater. Too expensive, 1500RMB (230 USD), in rural area, a big number, very big, no one buy, not even one, in rural area. For user, many uncertainties to use new type of stove. if free of charge, a trustworthy friend who is an expert about this stove, that might be fine.
>>>>> I was wondering about the price of that pellet burner stove. Yes, it is expensive, but expensive is a relative term. It could be imported into America where $230 is inexpensive, but the price here would be so much higher and it would then be expensive here.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> stove thing should be open-source ( just like Dr Anderson's Champion Stove ), DIY, or made by acquaintance, it is something about family, a cultural thing, especially in country side. In city, electricity or LPG is enough.
>>>>> Is there any prospect in China for DIY. And what would be the acceptance of a stove made with thin metal? Generalizing, it seems that heavy construction of stoves is the standard in China. Todd Albi might be able to shed some light on this.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> a good approach for stove design maybe is that, basic knowledge of stove design spread among people, and people help each other.
>>>>> What do you have in mind? in the context of China? I have difficulty imagining stove design work in China outside of the factory context.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> concerning "stove intervention", during 1959-1961 in China, more than 30 millions of people died because a stove intervention movement. and people have memories.
>>>>> Please provide more information about this statement about 30 million deaths.
>>>>>
>>>>> Welcome to the world of the Stoves Listserv. We appreciate your insights.
>>>>>
>>>>> Paul
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> best regards
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>
>>>>> for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site:
>>>>> http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/ <http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/>
>>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
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