[Stoves] News: On-the-ground research reveals true impact of cook-stove emissions in India

Ronal W. Larson rongretlarson at comcast.net
Sat Dec 16 17:52:20 CST 2017


Nikhil and list:

	Besides the following responses, the front page feature article today in the Denver Post concentrates on health aspects of forest fires - one scientist saying their emissions  are probably more hazardous to health than coal-fired power plants (in this country).  This from the just concluded AGU conference,  I’d like your reaction to this piece written by science writer Chris Mooney (originally printed one day earlier in the Washington Post.  The article is at:  http://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/15/wildfire-smoke-deadly-csu-researchers-say/ <http://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/15/wildfire-smoke-deadly-csu-researchers-say/>
	There are four scientists quoted here on the relationship between smoke and health;  why should we believe you and not them?

Bit more below

> On Dec 16, 2017, at 2:01 PM, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Ron:
> 
> Thank you so much. I will read that paper. I don’t have any opinion on health rationales   [RWL:  Huh?  No opinions?


> because what is usually strewn around as “burden of disease" has no basis in theory or facts. 
	[RWL:  And the thousands of paper supporting BOD have no “theory or facts”?    You must have stopped looking.	


> Why are you so paranoid about criticism of WBT though? WBT is for lab testing of efficiency and emission rates, with a fixed fuel type and energy content, and actual emission rates can differ. It would be no different with other lab test methods; lab is meant to be a controlled environment and an abstraction from reality.
	[RWL:  I’m sure I have said this numerous times.   
		1.  I am strongly driven by concern over climate change.
		2.  We must take carbon out of the atmosphere - very quickly.   Wind and solar are not enough, even if 100% overnight.
		3.  The best means I have found for CDR is biochar (based on social acceptance and economics - exemplified by Julien Winter’s report from Bangladesh  - re improved NPP)
		4.  The lowest cost biochar I have found is via char-making stoves  (today - could change).  This char/stove stove connection is not limited to TLUDs -  thinking also Nat Mulcahy and possibly Norbert Senf.
		5.  The best way I have seen to promote char-making stoves using major funding groups (mainly health oriented) is through the well established and accepted system of Tiers
		6.   The Tier system today relies on the WBT.
		7.  Char-making stoves excel at the WBT (which is not “an abstraction from reality” - the results are reproducible.)
	
>  
> 
> I brought in "protocols" because just as there stove testing methods for supposed "performance metrics" (scrupulously eliminating the cook and the cooking method, so as to promote expert control in support of expert theories), there are also different methods and equipment for measuring  pollution concentrations. 
> 
> If I am not mistaken, this is what Graham Ballard-Tremeer did his PhD thesis on, circa 1998 at the Uni of Wittwatersrand. It was quite a revelation to me that reported indoor air pollution measurements came from use of different protocols or no protocols at all.
	[RWL:   I’d like to see a cite on that (look for Grant not Graham).  I just skimmed through his paper from 2000:   http://www.hedon.info/docs/IAP_interventions.pdf <http://www.hedon.info/docs/IAP_interventions.pdf> ,  which makes a strong case on the need for stove improvements for health reasons.
	

> Kirk Smith also wrote something similar in 1999 - how few actual measurements had been and not comparable over time and across location. 
	[RWL:  Dr.  Smith supports the WBT.  I believe also Tiers.
> 
> Most recently, as I may have noted elsewhere today, I discovered that only one study has measured emission rates for a particular stove using different fuels and that all other multi-fuel tests have been with the three-stone fire. (I can’t imagine how anybody can simulate a three-stone fire, which has survived over millennia simply because it is so fuel-flexible and versatile.) 
	[RWL:  I know of one on different fuels and will be reporting on it - using a TLUD.  What is your study?   The three stone fire measurements provide the definition of the lowest tier.  One doesn’t simulate the 3-stone fire - one builds one in the lab. Yes the three-stone fire has virtues, but not on efficiency and emission metrics (and especially being able to make money while using.)
> 
> You may have noticed that it's not the WBT I don't care for - hadn't, in 1983, and see no reason to change my view - but the metrics. They are meant to rationalize expert research grants. Academia is a different world from that of budgeting and policy decisions. 
	[RWL:  The metrics look fine to me.  Which don’t you like?  In my experience,  budgeting and policy decisions rely heavily on academia.
> 
> Could the Washington University researcher on seeds Bedigian by any chance? Jatropha seeds have been mentioned as a fuel option - I think direct burning as well as esterification. 
	[RWL:   You can make money today using these seeds in a TLUD - just the right size and shape, I believe.  A.nyone tried them?  (Their poisonous character needs testing.  But there are plenty of seed types around

Ron
>  
> Nikhil
> 
> On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 3:30 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net <mailto:rongretlarson at comcast.net>> wrote:
> Nikhil and list:
> 
> 	The (non-fee) paper is at https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/17/13721/2017/acp-17-13721-2017.pdf <https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/17/13721/2017/acp-17-13721-2017.pdf> 
> 	The supplement at  https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/17/13721/2017/acp-17-13721-2017-supplement.pdf <https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/17/13721/2017/acp-17-13721-2017-supplement.pdf>
> 
> 	Looks like a credible paper - but not one I am going to read carefully as it is only related to traditional chulas.  Seems to have a somewhat different means of monitoring the pollutants - in the field.  I doubt one can use this paper to downgrade the WBT.
> 
> 	I am going to guess you won’t like the paper as it is full of health rationales (for India).
> 	
> 	Re repeatability, I am working up more on fuel shape, which is a main feature of the L’Orange et al paper.  Fuel shape also not covered in the TLUD paper I noted with the 10% efficiency that Crispin has since commented on.
> 
> 	Twenty years ago we had some fine comments from a Professor at Washington University - who (I vaguely recall) was interested in some seeds that performed well for cooking because of their high oil content - that had no other use, because they were poisonous.
> 
> Ron
> 
>> On Dec 16, 2017, at 9:01 AM, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com <mailto:pienergy2008 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On-the-ground research reveals true impact of cook-stove emissions in India <http://indiacsr.in/on-the-ground-research-reveals-true-impact-of-cook-stove-emissions-in-india/>.  India CSR Network blog, 15 December 2017
>>   "We conducted real-life cookstove tests and burned a wide variety of biofuels, cooked different meals in a number of varying ventilation situations, then recorded the resulting emission levels using high-tech particle measurement devices.
>> 
>> Once the data was crunched back in St. Louis, the results were startling:  In some cases, more than twice the emission levels were detected when compared to the previous lab findings, revising what people thought they knew for decades about this pervasive and dangerous problem."
>> 
>> I wonder what protocols and fuels were used, and also whether they only measured emissions but also concentrations and tried to model the two. 
>> 
>> Or whether the alleged "previous lab findings" are comparable or this research team is just boasting. 
>> 
>> I hope the revisions are not as shoddy as the history. What people thought they knew was what they chose to or were instructed to believe. 
>> 
>> Related press release at Engineers work to fight pollution at home, globally <https://source.wustl.edu/2017/08/engineers-work-fight-pollution-home-globally/>, Erika Ebsworth-Goold  August 11, 2017. Haven't yet located the full paper. 
>> 
>> Nikhil 
> 

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