[Stoves] News: Cooking pollution by propaganda - GACCing India

Traveller miata98 at gmail.com
Fri Jan 6 12:59:40 CST 2017


There is an item in the Times of India -  Cooking emissions an overlooked
contributor to air pollution
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/cooking-emissions-an-overlooked-contributor-to-air-pollution/articleshow/56224624.cms>
28
December 2016,

Supposedly a news item (from Kolkata), not an opinion piece, it claims,

"the effect of air pollution is different in Eastern India as compared to
the rest of the country, where millions still depend on coal-based heating
and cooking medium."

** I am willing to grant that PICs from traditional ("uncontrolled",
disputable) combustion of coals have different effects than from other
sources, but I doubt there is much exposure measurement or dose response
studies showing different patterns of disease. Besides, I think Jharkhand
is the only state in Eastern India (if it can be considered Eastern) that
has sizable residential use for coal. **


"Biomass burning not only causes indoor pollution but destroys a key
resource for soil rejuvenation."

** Again, I grant the theory but I doubt there is enough evidence that can
be generalizable over large varieties of Indian agro-climatic zones and
soils. Looks like hype. **

"According to The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), nearly 40% of
India's air pollution comes from domestic fuel burning. For decades,
researchers, experts and NGOs have looked for ways of convincing people to
switch to more efficient and cost effective cooking methods."

** Oh, yeah? There is no citation, but I doubt there can be any about a
fairly precise "nearly 40% of India's air pollution". Pollution is neither
emissions nor concentrations - which are poorly measured - but exposures
(of different intensities and durations), for which there are proxies, few
direct measurements for ambient air. I appeal to the list members in India
to correct me if necessary. **

Then the usual litany of "cancer, pneumonia, heart disease" (who knows,
maybe impotence and infertility, neo-Malthusians would celebrate with
champagne CO2) and SLCPs, deforestation, rivers of tears, etc., after which
I discover

"Earlier this year, an online database established with support from the
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, an initiative by the United Nation
Foundation
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/United-Nation-Foundation>, began
tracking the impact of household energy consumption on more than 640
districts across India. The data showed that almost *30% of the country's
outdoor air pollution is due to household energy combustion*. In some
districts, household air pollution contributes over half of outdoor air
pollution, making it clear that reducing outdoor air pollution requires
addressing indoor air pollution as well."

** Oh, really. I mean, what blather. There is no conceivable way to monitor
the quantity and quality of fuel use in households across India.
Assumptions on these by region and household types are not empirically
verifiable, nor the assumptions on average emission factors.

Also, air quality data may be available from satellites but has no
conceivable link to exposures. It is exposure that determines pollution,
not emissions and concentrations, so the entire claim about "30% of the
country's outdoor air pollution" is baseless. ***

Of course, every such story has to end with the CEO of GACC, who says,

""Household air pollution from cooking is a leading cause of illness and
death in India. Switching millions of people from cooking with solid fuels
to consistent use of clean fuels could deliver huge benefits to health and
the environment, especially air quality,"

*** This is either deceit or nonsense. The trouble is NOT with "solid
fuels" -- "pollution" doesn't reside in solid fuels, it is just produced by
poor combustion devices and practices, and emissions don't matter,
exposures do. Nor is "consistent use of clean fuels" some panacea, even if
users adopted it en masse. (She can't just wish away "stacking"; she needs
"consistent use" only to show off "benefits" in "health" or "climate" as
cooked up by WHO/EPA exercise. Make no mistake, this is a crusade against
solid fuels.) ***


What is to be done? Academically inclined friends - caught in the cult of
peer-reviewed journals that is increasingly corrupted by cite-o-logy - ask,
"How can one do better? Surely all this effort is incremental; the theory
is correct, but data quality needs improvements. We will eventually get to
better data and better models."

That is similar to the belief in biomass stoves -  "We will eventually get
to better stoves, improvements are needed, just point to protocol errors
and design problems."

Oh maybe in 30 more years of this list. Unless these TLUDs take 10% of the
market in five years, now or by 2025.

However, GACC propaganda has nothing to do with the design and promotion of
clean biomass stoves, which - as Cecil and ESMAP Indonesia project showed
us - can only be done "contextually". Like politics, most chemistry for
biomass combustion is local -- fuel composition, combustion practices, air
chemistry, and of course dependent on dwelling design and local ecosystems.

Rather, the theory is wrong. We are boxed in the "box paradigm" of USEPA,
WHO/BAMG and ISO/IWA. And the GoBbleDygook of IHME. ***

Nikhil
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