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

[Xavier Brandao]

Dear Nikhil,

 

You may have a very nihilistic point of view, or one which is really within the bounds of the law.

 

« If there is no harm alleged, who would bother? »

Those who think there is no place for junk science, even the harmless one. And the WBT is not harmless, see below, even if there are until now only a few allegations.

I believe Crispin told you well why he bothers. You could ask also the scientists who bothered reviewing the WBT and finding it questionable? Or the other people, mostly practitioners, who care. I’ll soon post a list of some of the people who care.

Their stoves have to be tested, so they made it one of their problems.

There are many people who care about having testing protocols with reliable results.

 

« Where did you ever see a piece of regulation that says cookstove testing protocol has to give reliable results? »

Nowhere, only common sense told me so. Humanity didn’t wait for pieces of regulation to do what they thought was right.

 

You say the cookstove testing and the WBT custodianship is in a legal vaccum. It is in a grey area. Hence it doesn’t really exist, doesn’t really matter, no one does and should really care.

I am interested about and find important the legal aspects of it, but not quite as much as the impact it can have on development.

 

You know Nikhil, the problem is not that the WBT exists. If it was somewhere lost in the EPA archives, or somewhere on a shelf, it wouldn’t matter that much.

What matters is that the WBT is being promoted and taught, as the main cookstove testing protocol.

 

I don’t care about the WBT, I actually care about reliable protocols being pushed aside by the WBT.

I care that practitioners are being influenced to keep using the WBT, instead of better alternatives. The problem is the WBT replacing something better, the problem is opportunity cost.

Practitioners have the right to be given reliable tools to test their stoves. No one has the right to fiddle with their testing.

« There’s a loophole in the emission testing system of Volkswagen. It allows cheating. But, you say we have no way to clearly know how emissions are harmful to the population. So, we shouldn’t care if the engine is clean or not, and if the test is unreliable or not, because we don’t know the effects of emissions on health anyways. So should we change the system or not? Should we ask Volkswagen to use a testing system that is reliable?

*** The comparison is invalid. There is a legally established authority for setting emission standards for auto vehicles in the context of legally set standards for ambient air quality. I have repeatedly told  you that what goes on in the name of "clean cookstoves" has no legal authority nor a theory of improving household air quality. There are no baseline data - other than spotty measurements collected in the WHO database of studies - for household air quality anywhere in the world. What WHO did is simply slap on assumed concentrations by age (up to 5 and 25+) and sex to all people supposed to be using solid fuels for cooking (which too is another model estimate with no data on quantity and quality of fuels consumed or emission rates). You don't want to acknowledge that all this is a charade, only to satisfy people engaged in it and snowed by it so they can keep publishing papers and making speeches to raise money. Including from Gates Foundation and HHS. I have yet to see any argument that suggests to me that I am on the wrong track here. *** »

So you basically say: that wouldn’t happen anyways, because there is a law that make sure automobile manufacturers respect the emission testing procedures.

Sure, but besides the legal aspects? What if the automobile standards for ambient air quality were voluntary? Maybe someone at Volkswagen, maybe an individual whistle blower would ask to change that system. Would that make sense if he/she did it?

My simple question with that metaphor is a philosophical one: « Should we correct something that we know is wrong, even if we have little to no idea of its potential consequences? »

Is the mere fact the thing is wrong (we know for sure it is wrong) enough for us to take action?

I am convinced of the answer: yes it is, we cannot leave it. We have to thrive for science, we have to thrive for truth, even if we don’t know yet the impact of lies. I’m sure we’ll know soon enough anyways.

 

« You, sir, are taking the drama as if it were a real life event. No, it is not. »

Yes, it is real. I believe we had this discussion before, and that I already said the following.

While you are having legal considerations, the earth keep spinning, and stakeholders are acting according to their own will, they are leaving an impact, in this legal vaccum. Projects are happening, stoves are being developed, for better or worse.

 

« Who cares and why? I have yet to see anybody in the manufactured stove distribution business to claim that s/he relied on WBT to design and sell his/her stove. »

Maybe not totally relied on it, but that it had an important influence on the development of the stove. See what Kirk Harris wrote. I believe he should be concerned.

 

« How do you measure the impact of the unreliability of the WBT? Do you have a methodology?

 *** Why should I care? »

Exactly. I don’t care either. I don’t have to measure the impact. Something unreliable has to give in.

 

« No personal offense intended and I hope you don't take any. »

None taken! We’re here to confront points of view.

 

And as Crispin said, there is an impact.

As I told you Nikhil in my email of the 24/06 :

« I have been struggling for weeks in Benin, back in 2011, performing WBT with different designs of charcoal stoves, the ones from my workshop, as well as traditional or improved ones. CCTs helped me understand better, and eventually I did some sort of KPT, I left stoves at neighbours houses for days, which gave me much more usable data. It was the same with the institutional stoves.

At Prakti, we were also having difficulties with WBT testing, back in 2013 and when working on a charcoal model. We started to focus more on wood and multi fuel stoves and Jiddu and the research team increasingly implemented the HTP in the lab. It helped a lot. 

Vahid and Camilla mentioned how the WBT tests made their work at ILF and Prime Stove difficult.

Crispin mentioned this USaid project in 2007-2008 which was a big failure, largely because of initial incorrect Water Boiling Tests results. Crispin thinks because of this failure, the USaid was reluctant to conduct stove projects for a while. »

 

And Crispin said in yesterday’s email :

« Who was harmed by the WBT? The entire cooking stove industry. Every donor, every stove recipient. Through ignorance or design, the WBT has been impressed upon the stove programmes outside China and India. »

 

All reasons are now gathered to stop using the WBT.

There is no valid reason, none at all, to keep using it now.

 

Best,


Xavier



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