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

[Traveller]

Ron:

I would like to correct myself.

I wrote "I don't think GACC - a private unregistered entity - has no
standing of any "official recognition" in the US."

I meant to write "I don't think GACC - a private unregistered entity - has
a standing of any "official recognition" in the US."

I regret the confusion if any. You probably got what I meant.

Nikhil

-----------


On Sun, Feb 19, 2017 at 11:27 AM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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 <+91%2090999%2052080>
>
>
> 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>
>>
>>
>
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