[Stoves] Advocacy action: ask the GACC to stop promoting the WBT (Xavier, Frank)

[Traveller]

Ron:

Thank you for correcting my misimpression. So long as WBT - of whatever
type, VITA, Berkeley, Indian, Chinese - is seen as a work in progress with
serious misgivings about methods, reproducibility, predictability and with
no official standing as to the test protocols or equipment or operator
qualifications, certification authority, you and are on the same page. (I
hope you are not surprised.)

If I understand Xavier correctly, he is only asking for a halt and an end
to GACC "support", in anywhich way.

I don't think GACC - a private unregistered entity - has no standing of any
"official recognition" in the US. I also do not think ARC test protocols or
test laboratory is - even can be - approved by EPA for any solid fuel cook
stove testing in the US. I can't tell if GACC has "legal custody" of the
VITA WBT in any sense; PCIA did not have the legal authority to give GACC
such a "legal custody" or anoint WBT or any test lab as an "approved" item.
If GACC has indeed been demanding use of WBT and Approvecho testing
equipment as a condition of financial support, that's probably scandalous.

I am wholly sympathetic to your complaint "these lower tier stoves could
move higher in the Tier rankings". This is much more the case, I suspect,
with the PM2.5 emission rates than with efficiencies.

I have no idea how the IWA Tiers came to be defined and specific numbers
assigned. It is the PM2.5 target for Tier 4 that will be the death knell
for solid fuel cooking in households. (I can only rejoice that 500 million
households of the world are beyond the reach of Cooking Cops.)

(You and I differ on the relevance of efficiencies, but our disagreement is
irrelevant to whether a test does what it claims to do. My view on char is
simply that "cooking task" itself is an ill-defined concept and
ridiculously turned into mere boiling of water. Cooking extra and putting
it aside for later use is embedded energy just as char is just as leaving a
piece of wood unburned.)

The fundamental problem with all these tests is fixing too many variables -
and levels of PM2.5 emission rates - of relevance to cooks and instead
pleasing the professoriat. A "fuel free", "cook free", stove test is simply
"brain free".

I hope you soon sort out the equations for efficiency and help us out with
the PM2.5 measurements.

Nikhil


Nikhil







---------
(India +91) 909 995 2080


On Sun, Feb 19, 2017 at 4:45 AM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net>
wrote:

> List, Nikhil and ccs:
>
> I will respond later to more in this message (preferring to continue
> working off-line on exactly this topic), but want to apologize if I have
> left the impression anywhere that Nikhil’s following (about 6 paragraphs
> down) is correct:
>
>
>
>
> * "I am revisiting the IWA, and I find that the 90 experts resolved that
> "Resolution 1 The International Workshop on Cookstoves recognizes that the
> VITA WBT 4.1.2 protocol referenced in this document is not the only valid
> protocol for rating cookstove performance in the laboratory. "Why is Ron
> disputing the very first resolution? "*
>
> To emphasize:  I am in full accord with this “Resolution 1”.  I am no way
> disputing it  - and don’t believe I ever have.   In fact, my complaint is
> that the Tier credit given through what we have called the “Denominator
> Equation” (DE)  rather shortchanges those in the lower tiers who may have
> (or be able to produce more) char.    That is, these lower tier stoves
> could move higher in the Tier rankings with less char than is now allocated
> to them, using almost any allocation approach other than the DE.
>
> I am afraid that most of the concern on this list about the DE is based on
> thinking that the DE is incorrectly reporting test efficiencies.  It is
> NOT.  It is reporting what *would have* happened if no char had been
> produced.  I have stated that I couldn’t understand why the DE is stating
> an *inefficiency* (not efficiency) larger than is measured.  But this is
> because I too was thinking too much on the existing just-obtained lab
> results.  Stove inefficiencies will indeed grow with no char - as can be
> seen in the high rankings for char-making stoves - and few high rankings,
> if any, with stoves producing no/little char.
>
> I can now reproduce the Tiers without using the DE (but still using the
> same lab results) - but I can’t yet justify this or any (other than the DE)
> approach.  I may be getting closer.  Glad to include anyone interested in
> the topic (which obviously is neither trivial nor unimportant).  But I
> still need more time to compute different things.
>
> Ron
>
>
> On Feb 18, 2017, at 11:06 AM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Xavier:
>
> As an economist, I agree with you sunk cost has no consideration. I
> wonder, though, how much or how little work has been done anyway.  Lima
> Consensus or IWA promises seem to have wilted.
>
> I am sorry I am asking two serious questions rather late -
>
>    1. What is your evidence that GACC has "promoted" the WBT? Is it only
>    the VITA WBT or also the Indian or Chinese?
>    2. Do you know if WBT been mandated or officially sanctioned by EPA in
>    any testing by EPA for cookstoves in the US, and further if Approvecho or
>    any such testing facilities for household cookstoves have been accredited
>    by the EPA (and if so, on what basis) or have received ISO accreditation?
>    Has GACC demanded Approvecho equipment or training for non-US stoves
>    programs?
>
> It may well be that there is no legal authority for an unregistered
> private group - a project of the UN Foundation - to promote WBT, approve
> WBT, or approve any testing facility in the US, unless there are secret
> agreements with authorities in respective countries (US and elsewhere).
>
>
>
>
>
> *I am revisiting the IWA, and I find that the 90 experts resolved that
> "Resolution 1 The International Workshop on Cookstoves recognizes that the
> VITA WBT 4.1.2 protocol referenced in this document is not the only valid
> protocol for rating cookstove performance in the laboratory. "Why is Ron
> disputing the very first resolution? *
>
> <snip a lot, as not being pertinent to my above response>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20170219/52bb3d62/attachment.html>