[Stoves] Coal and biomass in India (Re: Ron)

Sun Jan 8 01:13:33 CST 2017

Dear Ron:

My apologies, though it seems like you don't read me, don't read even what
you send out, and also don't read Kirk Smith, GACC, and GBD, whose names
you keep dropping?

The earlier thread that you are so upset about started out about air
pollution in India - a lot of which is from BIOMASS combustion, not coal.
And I stand by the factual basis for my statements regarding manipulation
of emissions and their reporting; it goes with the territory, "data from
measurements" are substituted by "modeled estimates".

Please read the news item, "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." along with GACC webpages on the
study New Report Tracks Household Energy Emissions for 640 Districts in
India
<http://cleancookstoves.org/about/news/03-15-2016-new-report-tracks-household-energy-emissions-for-640-districts-in-india.html>,
in turn to Emissions – Household Cooking & Heating
<http://www.indiaairquality.info/emissions-cooking-heating/>.

Were you not familiar with the general view that biomass accounts for a
large part of household energy consumption in India? I am so sorry. The new
item and the original post were about pollution from biomass cooking. Check
with GACC if you don't trust me.

Subsequent thread in the discussion shifted to coal, a serious competitor
to biomass in certain parts of India as I noted.

If you claim to be so passionate about "cooking and health", how could you
not be interested in emissions from coal combustion? Or you only want to
save people from biomass smoke and not coal smoke?

I claim this to be a statement of fact: "*Emission inventories manufacture
emissions*," (If they use manufactured emissions, they might as well be
blamed for manufacturing emissions. I know how to manipulate numbers. Just
read the assumptions on the page referred to. Or WHO Database. Or for that
matter USDOE/EIA methodology reports. Or even UNFCCC inventories
<http://unfccc.int/ghg_data/ghg_data_unfccc/data_sources/items/3816.php>
prepared under IPCC Guidelines for Emission Inventories.)

****
Now about your climate claims:

I also deny your epithet of a "Climate Denier". NOT according to your own
definition.

I trust you know the definition of GHGs
<http://naei.defra.gov.uk/overview/ghg-overview> and that *a political
choice* was made for FCCC purposes not to include "criteria pollutants"
(CO, NOx, NMVOC, SO2) which are also GHGs.

And I trust you know that black carbon, while not a gas, is considered to
potentially have second largest warming impact
<http://www.eesi.org/files/FactSheet_SLCP_020113.pdf> with its radiative
forcing computed as possibly exceeding that due to coal CO2.

A 2011 paper <http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/pr178.pdf> claimed that
"The fundamental insight gained from this field study is that cooking with
solid biomass fuels is a major source of ambient BC over the IGP region."
(BC = black carbon; IGP = Indo-Gangetic Plains.)

So, this may be the Inconvenient Truth for you -- cooking with solid fuels
in India is a significant contributor to climate change.

Which means that substituting traditional biomass cooking by electricity,
even if coal-fired. might be good for the climate? (Because new coal-fired
power plants emit CO2, but no methane, black carbon, and little if any CO,
NMVOC and whose SO2 emissions help cool the earth.)

Who is the climate denier now? I stand with you on favoring biomass because
with or without GACC, WHO, EPA, and ISO, the poor are going to continue to
use biomass. How does one make it easier on them in a way that is
climate-protective?

Unless, for climate faith, you want to push LPG and coal-fired electricity.

If you have any counter-argument to my statements below, please provide it.
I stand by these as statements of fact.

"Because, per kg of coal, the more efficient the combustion, *the more the
CO2 portion* of carbon emissions.

Therefore, *under the **current method of IPCC inventories, more efficient
solid fuel devices will be strongly discouraged!**!*"

I have computed and reviewed IPCC inventories, and as I said was also
marginally involved with the creation of IPCC guidelines for them. I
suggest you read some. (Start with 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National
Greenhouse Gas Inventories
<http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/>. Revisions
are planned for 2019, look here
<http://ipcc.ch/meetings/session44/l3_adopted_outline_methodology_report_guideline.pdf>
for
*"Refining the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
<http://ipcc.ch/index.htm>. *)

***
It would be nice to be challenged on facts - nothing gives me greater
satisfaction than new facts that change my mind. If you find me irrefutable
on facts, and insufferable to read the facts, you don't have to read me.
But if and when you do, please read in entirety.

As for the NY Times November 2014 article
<https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/world/coal-rush-in-india-could-tip-balance-on-climate-change.html?_r=0>
I cited, Ramanathan thunders that “If India goes deeper and deeper into
coal, we’re all doomed" - in my view a fantasy of doom - while Goyal
says, “India’s development imperatives cannot be sacrificed at the altar of
potential climate changes many years in the future.” One is arguing against
coal for India, the other is arguing in favor of coal for India; you read
it as "mostly arguing against coal for India". It makes no difference.
USDOE/EIA (IEO May 2016) projects that compared to 2012, India's *coal-fired
generation will only double by 2050 whereas nuclear generation will grow
more than eight-fold.* (I find your devotion to China unfathombable - its
coal-fired generation in 2040 will be 2.8 times that of India.)

The Nature and Grist pieces you sent links to have these problems:

 i) the Nature piece is about attribution - not cause - of BOD of the
cohort that died in 2010 due to air pollution. What has that got to do with
the projection of BOD in 2050 except via assumptions the authors note? How
about the scenario where more than a half or two-thirds of cooking and
heating in India is from LPG,, electricity and other non-biomass sources?
What claim can you make about air pollution impacts of ISO/IWA blessed
biomass stoves over the next 30-40 years? Remember, any stove is beneficial
only so long as the user find it "usable". IT SAYS NOTHING ON COAL IN INDIA.

ii) the Wired <https://www.wired.com/2015/11/climate-change-in-india/> piece
couldn't be less pessimistic -"Coal is cheaper, and there is little mystery
about how to use it. It says, "In 2010, India announced seven solar-energy
storage projects, one of them in Gujarat. Only one, in another state, has
been built. The others were abandoned when the builders discovered that the
air is so hazy their initial estimates of potential solar power were off by
as much as a quarter." I started advocating grid PV for India in 2009 and
distributed PV around 2015, then gave up; others are doing much better job
at that.

Did you read what you suggested that we should read in order to contradict
me?

Nikhil

---------

On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 7:58 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net>
wrote:

> List:  cc Nikhil and Crispin
>
> Please note that the terms biomass and biomass stoves nowhere appear
> below.
>
> I take this whole message as proof again that we are hearing from a
> climate denier;  the whole world couples the words “coal” and “climate”.
>  Not here.
>
> I have underlined and bolded Nikhil’s terms below that lead me again to
> this sad “denier” conclusion.  Glad to explain my underlining if anyone
> doesn’t understand how out of place this whole message is on this list.
>
> The last three sentences are incomprehensible - and are NOT supported in
> any way by the NY Times article that is referenced.  I read it as mostly
> arguing against coal for India. Apparently Nikhil views it oppositely.
>
> Along the way,  I came across these two on coal and health in India:
> http://www.nature.com/articles/nature15371.epdf?referrer_access_token=
> oPeC6dMw8E4sF-wJpHFKKdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0P7-mtyJ35yzVDTICbqYE-
> HmpWfKkzyRVYn1vpVPXnMBvMSXCFBNhib1tmNYqxPwBhH4iuV771SpdzIBDOJNBo8kBjWzyk_
> QX4lD7LU26XKSnKplulipZuS368wPUJmIPhDa2DhAMnAPfoufW0lL-
> vMldUqBJjocJsxa4rmPr5QxsIXX-r3_-i41wAMFKzMthxZNl6wBXPJkAElbxn8
> P4Z9vTEs7D4sYVGy9VjWy4k54A%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.theguardian.com
> <http://www.nature.com/articles/nature15371.epdf?referrer_access_token=oPeC6dMw8E4sF-wJpHFKKdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0P7-mtyJ35yzVDTICbqYE-HmpWfKkzyRVYn1vpVPXnMBvMSXCFBNhib1tmNYqxPwBhH4iuV771SpdzIBDOJNBo8kBjWzyk_QX4lD7LU26XKSnKplulipZuS368wPUJmIPhDa2DhAMnAPfoufW0lL-vMldUqBJjocJsxa4rmPr5QxsIXX-r3_-i41wAMFKzMthxZNl6wBXPJkAElbxn8P4Z9vTEs7D4sYVGy9VjWy4k54A==&tracking_referrer=www.theguardian.com>
>
>
> https://www.wired.com/2015/11/climate-change-in-india/
>
> But I propose that we drop the topic here on this list.  I’ll join Nikhil
> on another list of his choosing - with my expectation that much of the
> discussion about coal will have a climate flavor totally absent from
> Nikhil’s message below.  That climate topic is an important part of many on
> this list’s reason for discussion on the carbon negativity aspects of
> charcoal-making stoves.  India appears to be the main stumbling block to a
> happy climate future - while likely also having an even greater pollution
> than their #1 position today (both Indoor and outdoor).    I had hoped for
> better from Prime Minister Modi.  Thank goodness that China is on a
> different path.
>
> I urge others to decide whether Nikhil continuing negative reactions to
> Kirk Smith (very active in India), GACC (very active in India) and DALYs
> (highest in India) are somehow related to his defending India’s likely
> growing (not declining) use of coal.  I repeat I am planning to not talk
> any more about coal (and especially coal in India) any more on this list.
>
> Ron
>
>
> On Jan 6, 2017, at 2:49 PM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Crispin:
>
> *No news*. *Emission inventories manufacture emissions*, whether or not
> they actually show up in air quality anywhere. It is *usual deceit* to
> claim emissions kill. Of course they don't, no more than "fuels kill" or
> "cooking kills".
>
> To the extent that polluting exposures occurred largely in confined areas
> - home or elsewhere - adoption of cleaner cooking devices and practices can
> be expected to *appeal to coal users*, and health gains will probably be
> measurable.
>
> However, with this kind of modeling, without any specific assumption about
> "ventilation factor", ambient air quality will not change until there was a
> mass shift to *cleaner coal* stoves. AND no other source of pollutants
> "compensated" for such emission reductions from *cleaner coal* stoves.
> (E.g., dust from construction and transport activities or land-clearing.)
> AND that new emissions or natural events - dust storms - did not increase
> the aggregate toxicity. (You see, this is why specific PM2.5 chemicals are
> NOT identified. Because then *fuels can be blamed* for deaths and
> disability, climate change, or whatever else The *Gold Standard* folks
> next *want to raise money* for.)
>
> Household *coal *use in *India* is concentrated in one state - Jharkhand
> (which was previously a part of Bihar). It is widely distributed on
> bicycles, as in attached picture. Reminds me of Lilongwe-Blantyre road.
>
> In other states, it is concentrated near *coal mines or coal power*
> plants. (Used to be near railway stations and some industrial sites where
> *coal* was used, because it was easy to pilfer some.)
>
> Now, *why would anybody bothe*r with CO2 emissions from poor people? Coal
> Rush in India Could Tip Balance on Climate Change
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/world/coal-rush-in-india-could-tip-balance-on-climate-change.html>,
>  Gardiner Harris, NY Times 27 Nov 2014.
>
> Because, per kg of coal, the more efficient the combustion, *the more the
> CO2 portion* of carbon emissions.
>
> Therefore, *under the **current method of IPCC inventories, more
> efficient solid fuel devices will be strongly discouraged!*
> *!*
> Nikhil
>
>
> <image.png>
> ---------
> (US +1) 202-568-5831 <(202)%20568-5831>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 2:41 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
> crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Darpan
>>
>>
>>
>> As you are working on a problem shared in focus by several other graduate
>> students I would like to introduce you to three other teams working on the
>> same issue.
>>
>>
>>
>> I will write separately on the contacts.
>>
>>
>>
>> I am very interested that you think that CO from coal-fired cooking
>> stoves is a measurable pollution problem anywhere. It might be in the
>> vicinity of the fire, but in the ambient air? That would be news.
>>
>>
>>
>> It should be obvious (but may not be) that if the coal were burned with
>> extremely low PM and CO emissions, the perception and reality of using coal
>> as a domestic fuel would be changed dramatically. For those who are
>> interested in getting extremely poor people to reduce their emission of CO2
>> annually, a fuel-efficient coal stove would also be of interest.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you for noting and providing some numbers on the increase in coal
>> use as a domestic fuel in a tropical country. There is often a broad
>> assumption that hot countries use biomass exclusively for cooking.  You
>> will no doubt be impressed that in some places the portion of people using
>> coal for at least some of their cooking approaches 100% in winter.
>>
>>
>>
>> Are you willing to share more specifics on the focus of your research?
>>
>>
>>
>> Many thanks
>> Crispin
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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