[Stoves] "Those of us who believe that the WBT is critical to stove improvement"

Thu Dec 7 20:02:27 CST 2017

Crispin:

For the umpteenth time, please keep heating stoves discussion separate from
cookstoves. Or for that matter, commercial cookstoves (more like heating
stoves, higher capacity utilization rates) from so-called household
cookstoves (so-called because nobody has taken the trouble to characterize
them except for parroting "three-stone fire and rudimentary cookstoves).

I wrote specifically this time - "Why, even Crispin so religiously believes
that efficiencies of free fuel matter. No matter what the cost of an
efficient stove."

If you are talking about charcoal, bioliquids, biogas, or even coal (as in
Jharkhand) - i.e., purchased fuels of specific qualities, perhaps you will
find some support for your theory that fuel efficiencies matter, but you
will also find, if you bothered to look, that stove capital cost is
balanced against the promised financial savings from higher fuel
efficiency).

And when you turn to household cookstoves,show me how many households have
3Stone Fire and how many have in situ stoves, what they burn, how they
acquire it or whether they purchase it at doorstep and at what cost, what
they cook how,what kind of dwellings they live in and where their stoves
are when. And document that when they have changed their cookstoves, they
did so solely because of efficiency gains.

Until then, help the poor you can, and stop poking your nose in poor
people's kitchens.  Leave it to Mrs. Clinton; she did and nothing good has
come of it yet.

Why Is Hillary Clinton Peeping Into Indian Kitchens?
<https://www.forbes.com/2011/04/12/forbes-india-hillary-clinton-black-carbon-stoves-indian-kitchens.html>Forbes,
12 April 2011.

I know I forced you into a corner by saying "solely because of efficiency
gains". But that - and that alone - has been the ever-elusive, illusionary
goal of the stovers' movements, especially those stuck in boiling water
with just one type of fuel and testing different types of stoves. Why, you
easily walked in the trap I set  you - "No matter what the cost of an
efficient stove."

Just why does efficiency by itself make any difference,when fuel costs are
as low as claimed by many pundits (as in "free collection", though not a
single study exists at a national level on what kinds of biomass fuels -
ranging from trees and branches to crop waste (shells or stumps) to leaf
waste to dung - have been used by whom, how, and how have the economics
changed as some types of biomass has become difficult to collect free, as
tens of millions of people have left farming and/or rural living, and girls
have been spending more time in schools, even going to colleges to get
ready for salaried jobs?

You will find all kinds of mindless theories without evidence, even in
spite of the evidence that fuel efficiency is but one factors in stove
choice and that many evaluations of cookstove programs have pointed out
that poor people are rational and they have desires,aspirations different
from the Western imperial environmentalists who want to save the earth and
now claim to save lives.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

And your heating stoves won't sell in hell.

Nikhil

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

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 7:09 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> Dear Nikhil
>
> I will arrive later this morning in a place where fuel efficiency is the
> prime consideration for virtually all stove users. Your hobby horse about
> efficiency is lame in central Asia. ‎It more of a hobbled horse.
>
> Poverty is real and we can double the disposable cash available in a rural
> home during ‎winter merely by switching stoves. I believe this is also the
> case in Ulaanbaatar where the repayment time for a really good stove is 8
> weeks or something - the stove cost was covered by fuel purchase savings in
> 8 to 10 weeks.
>
> The only "cost-free, effort-free, time-free fuel 'collection' system" is
> to tap into a District Heating system‎ undetected. If you have to pay for
> heat, in Bishkek it costs $8 per month. That is for the urban poor and
> elite. In rural areas heat costs the truly poor more than $50-100 a month.
> We have different definitions of 'free'.
>
> Regards
> Crispin in the West end of the East
>
>
> Andrew:
>
> Vehicle fleet buyers may think differently.
>
> As in the case of stoves, operating hours and timing are up to the
> user. Which is why there is a "context" in which EPA or other
> regulators pursue emission standards for equipment such as diesel
> vehicles.
>
> If you recall, my primary objection to all this "standards" game is
> that a) there is no service standard (boiling water is not a proxy for
> anything) and b) there is no objective that these standards can
> demonstrably serve.
>
> For diesel vehicles, there is a service standard -- a certain range of
> user desires and required behavior (such as picking up and maintaining
> speed). And there is an objective -- improvement of air quality in
> particular locations.
>
> In addition, the authority to set and enforce standards is statutorily
> given, and development and issuance of standards is done in an open
> process (in North America and Western Europe of a certain period when
> I used to work on such matters). There is considerable amount of data
> collection and analysis, air basin modeling, science of air pollution
> and public health. And consultations with the users and impacted
> populations, any of whom can take the regulator to court on the
> specific standard proposed or the way it is enforced. (I do have
> lengthy experience in legal and legislative fights on such matters).
>
> NONE of this obtains in the case of "international standards" for
> "cookstoves in the developing world".
>
> That the tests of diesel engines do not "relate closely to real use"
> is an issue addressed long ago in the science of air pollution and
> health, at least in the US. If I remember correctly, basically the
> answer was, "When we do simulations, the projected emissions and
> air-mixing patterns in the areas under consideration show that our
> test basis is adequate." I don't remember the history on vehicular
> emissions, except as the standards related to the overall
> Non-Attainment of Air Quality Standards.
>
> Which is another wrinkle -- diesel engine standards are NOT
> promulgated independent of all other influences (including natural) on
> air quality. WHO folks would have you believe that a fuel switchover
> guarantees a particular,quantified level of indoor air quality
> improvement, based on actual studies. (They obviously don't explicitly
> ask you to believe that, but that is their intent.  Glibly marketing
> deceit to gullible people is one way of promoting careers).
>
> I do not impugn the motives of people involved; I have found no
> evidence yet except that the process itself is evidently compromised,
> possibly corrupt (but not so, since no law applies).
>
> All I can say is that blind and lame people assessing an elephant
> cannot diagnose what ails the elephant or prescribe proper cure
> (unless they had been trained in elephant physiology by books).
>
> The path to hell is littered with good intentions.
>
> Why, even Crispin so religiously believes that efficiencies of free
> fuel matter. No matter what the cost of an efficient stove.
>
> What can an un-compromised bystander such as you can do? I suggest
> asking for a database on service standards (cooking practices and
> seasonal, locational variations), and then asking for the evidence
> that the performance metrics so fervently pursued by all are based on
> any theory with an evidentiary base. (Not the WHO attributability of
> premature deaths.)
>
> Nikhil
>
>
> > On Dec 7, 2017, at 12:06 PM, Andrew Heggie <aj.heggie at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 7 December 2017 at 02:54, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott
> > <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
> >
> >> The protocol used to test NO emissions in diesels was 'gamed' rather
> easily. Adopting a protocol that is difficult to game would be a better
> option.
> >
> > It's an interesting concept in itself; that countries stipulate a
> > standard for engines to reach before they can be sold into a highly
> > sophisticated market with high standards for testing and:
> >
> > 1: a major player can distort the tests
> >
> > 2: the tests don't relate closely to real use anyway
> >
> > I haven't bought a new car so it hasn't affected my choice, so why
> > should a stove tested to any standard affect a consumer?
> >
> > Andrew
> >
>
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