[Stoves] CO2 drawdown (Re:Jock)

Crispin Pemberton-Pigott crispinpigott at outlook.com
Sat Feb 4 10:53:44 CST 2017


Dear Jock

I am not sure you get the point.

I have read all your contributions. What is your position on misreporting the cooking efficiency (fuel consumption) to make charcoal making stoves appear to use less fuel than they do? I have not seen you take a position on this.

If you are not clear on the matter I will provide a step by step walk through the matter so there is no misunderstanding.

Ron has for years sought to legitimate the raising of the cooking performance efficiency (also known as the WBT thermal efficiency metric) by deducing the energy in the char from the energy in the fuel fed into the stove.

Before we get to what happens to the char after than, we should come to some common understanding on the legitimacy of that procedure, (or not) and the correctness of how it is done, if it is in principle a correct thing to do.

Very briefly, my problem with the metric and formula is that stove that consume more fuel than a baseline three stove fire are being rated as using less than half that much.  This has been going on for some time, and the method (WBT) is being required as a test method for rating performance before money is provided to improved stove programmes.

What happens after that to the charcoal has no impact on the stove’s performance. It does have an impact on the system in which the stove is working – no doubt about it – but that is not what the metric reports.

>1. I only support Stoves that are attractive to users and that make social and economic sense. Hopefully  they do not also damage the environment for which we ALL have serious responsibilities.

Fully agreed. Like Ron, I have been promoting sustainable solutions for more than 40 years.

2. Draw down of excess atmospheric CO2 is a global task and obligation.

As mentioned, please read the Kyoto document and you will see where it was agreed responsibilities lie. This has nothing to do with cooking stoves in developing countries. Speaking for myself, I am promoting stoves that reduce coal consumption for winter heating by 66%. Some object to this work because it involves burning coal! Can you believe it? Without coal they will freeze to death. In many places there is nothing else to burn.

>The more Stoves and thermal energy devices around the world that can contribute to that process, that also meet the conditions in #1 above, the better.

We do not agree on the definition of what constitutes ‘damage’ and by whom. You cannot define for billions of other people what their responsibilities are. Listen to them first.

3. The issue at the moment is that charcoal for regenerative agriculture is not yet priced highly enough to make it a no brainer.

Correct. The benefits are specific to certain soil types, certain crops and certain loads. Ron and I have discussed this several times on this list, looking at the time it would take to convert a field to a ‘char dosed’ one. Using biomass raised on the same farm it would take between 2000 and 8000 years.

Virtue signalling is not helpful. Let’s take Tajikistan. The agriculture Ministry wants to stove the people burning so much animal dung because it should be going onto the fields. The best way to do that in the short term is to make highly improved stoves available through normal channels. We are trying this with 40 homes this winter. Some of them are dung burning. Some not. If there is a proposal that all the dung could be charcoaled and then used as ‘fertiliser’ (not reducing consumption) with the alternative being 50% being burned to ash and the remainder + ash put on the fields, that is something that can be tested side by side. Which is better?

The current policy supports reducing consumption and adding the dung to the fields. That is they decision. I am not clear what you man by ‘regenerative agriculture’. I have to presume you mean Rodale etc. Is a comparison available between adding dung v.s. adding char? Will a char making stove produce meaningful amounts of char?

>If I can make money making charcoal for agriculture and at the same time do my cooking, or space conditioning, then I have a compelling twofer.

I agree provided it is compelling. Nothing wrong with that at all.  But no one gets a free pass to make any claim they like because sit could work in theory. Come join me in the field and make a demonstration. If all the fuel is consumed and there is a nice big pile of char to put in the fields, and the cooking is done, and the performance report says that only half the fuel was consumed, then we are in an alternate universe.

If you want support and assistance from professionals the numbers have to add up. Declaring that there is energy in the char so only have the fuel was consumed will not fly.

>It has to be the case that cooking makes money, not costs money. We are not there yet.

>Clear enough?

Are you clear that there are already people making money creating char using cooking stoves? I just described some in Indonesia, there are others in India. In Vietnam they sell the rice hull char – not sure if it exceeds the cost of rice hull, but in principle it might.

Reality also has to be face that there are a lot of people who had no interest in ‘making money’ making char while they cook. Handling char is a messy business and (usually) they have to feed in more fuel because of the lost energy. Where to get it? Most people are very practical. If it sounds like more work they are usually not interested.

Regards
Crispin

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