[Stoves] stove

[Nikhil Desai]

Frank:

I am not sure I understand all your ideas, but you seem to be pushing me
toward stronger opinions as I see more from you.

In the example below, I would add fuel chemistry; "good fuel" part is
contextual. Say, if I were to take over the cooking market in a given
geography completely - 100,000 stoves of various sizes and shapes replaced
by, or supplemented by, 100,000 new ones. I am sure biomass is going to
vary and so are stoves - in some Indian villages, one stove and fuel for
making tea, another to cook animal feed, and a third one for heating water,
a fourth one for daily dinners, with each of them some other use other than
the primary ones.

So, to establish market prospects in a given area, you would have to test
maybe six kinds of fuels and four major uses to accommodate in two
"intervention designs".

Hard work to define the geographic limits of a market, but I can help with
that if you or anybody had a new project area. (I would advise against
going to a new area on your own without doing lots of prior consultations.)

So far so good.

Then you blow me away with your view - "Whats important is what the end
user decides important. Now all steps are controlled and should be
repeatable."

This used to be at least an ideal if not the standard - decades ago. It is
still the ideal in design and construction of kitchen. Back 60 years ago,
when one pair of my grandparents moved from one village to another and got
a different accommodation from Indian Railways, the fixed wood stove would
be rebuilt according to my grandmother's wishes, and other wood, charcoal
and later kerosene, portable stoves got their places assigned.

This is also what I remember of a few stoves projects that had World Bank
finance in the 1990s.

Then, in my thinking (maybe I got the history wrong), came the onslaught of
EPA consultants. Emission rates became EPA's excuse to demonize solid
fuels, something they had been doing in the previous quarter century. Not
that they cared to learn anything about cooking, I mean making tea.

There was a legitimate complaint - I remember mine too, characterizing the
efficiency metric but not bothering with indoor air pollution an equivalent
of the environmentalist dogma -"Kill people, save the earth!"

These days, with the babble of "truly health protective" Tier 4 fuel/stoves
and "no stacking",  it's more like, "Cook up lives saved, bankrupt the
treasuries."

Hence GACC and Gold Standard, and hence the ISO show of "international
standards"and Tiers which have no rationale and have no theory of change.

And suddenly you come up with the revolutionary advice "Because no-one else
is doing the same system you will not be able to compare to other systems.
But you might be able to improve your own. And there are lots of
measurements for the fuel that can be made (not described here) but use
simple test methods and no need for a real lab. Perhaps just some basic
equipment."

To me, that is a lot better way of proving and improving a combustion
device than to game the WBT. If one of these systems were to sell on its
own, without the blessings of professors and the customers happy, more such
stoves would be sold.

Would certainly displease the theologians of stove science, health science,
and implementation science. So much is riding on fooling some of the people
long enough.

Nikhil



On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 11:13 PM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com> wrote:

> Hi Michael, Stovers;
>
> This is a good example where the 6-Box system would be useful.
>
> Set up the system so it makes good tea. The process is to control the
> variables and modify one at a time to improve the process. There are lots
> of steps you can do but would take some time, test methods and a little
> equipment. All simple but not good at this time. Once you have a good fuel,
> good technique, and can produce a good cup of tea I suggest the following:
>
> Box-1) Observe the fuel for size, moisture, cleanliness etc.
>
> Box - 2: Record the process loading the combustion chamber.
>
> Box- 3: Record the combustion chamber; stove model etc.
>
> Box-4: Establish info regarding the utensils used; metal, size,
> heavy-light etc.
>
> Box-5: Record the process; stirring, amount of water, amount of tea, sugar
> added etc.
>
> Box-6: Determine a good repeatable Completion Point. Perhaps water just
> starts to boil or i can hold my hand on the side of the pot for just one
> second.
>
> You need to know what an improvement would look like for you. Quicker tea
> but not care of amount of fuel. Save on fuel, walk away with less
> manipulation, air quality, amount of char left, quality of char produced,
> etc. Whats important is what the end user decides important.
>
>
> Now all steps are controlled and should be repeatable. You can change one
> Box at a time and see if that improves the process. Use dryer wood or stir
> more frequently. Use a lighter pot or less water. Add wood more frequent in
> smaller quantities - try to get the best conditions.
>
> Because no-one else is doing the same system you will not be able to
> compare to other systems. But you might be able to improve your own. And
> there are lots of measurements for the fuel that can be made (not described
> here) but use simple test methods and no need for a real lab. Perhaps just
> some basic equipment.
>
> Frank
>
> Gabilan Laboratory
>
>
>
>
>
>
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