[Stoves] Various WBT equations; A matter of principle

Thu Jan 19 16:37:14 CST 2017

Dear Tami

Thank you for taking time to respond to several points raised on the list. I know you are very busy.

Because it takes time to locate conceptual errors it is helpful to have them presented in well constructed arguments. To that end, several papers, the result of long discussions about causes and alternatives, have been published in the last three years.

One in Systematic and conceptual errors in standards and protocols for thermal performance of biomass stoves ‎

Last I heard it has about 750 reads so it is getting some attention. This covers a a few of the most important issues. We have uncovered problems in every single method examined, even the Chinese national standard had a difficult to spot math error.

At the moment we have some serious misrepresentations of performance going on. From my perspective the immediate problem is ‎to stop causing harm. Very briefly, the rukus that led to the Seattle meeting caused the WBT 4.x to be written. As you know there were deeply vested interests which ensured that the basic calculations remained unchanged. This was followed by the IWA prequel. I provided several cogent comments and basically all were dismissed in the review process resulting in the WBT being written into the IWA without review or correction. There were two type of comments I received: 'too small to consider' and 'not yet'. Not yet has just been repeated.

There followed after the IWA a number of corrections which can be characterised as typos but no change was substantial changes were made in spite of a new round of communications. Central to this resistance were the same groups who created and promoted the test.

When the GACC was formed by a small group of scientists reporting to the State Department there arose new hope for fixing the whole mass (prior to the IWA). That as you know turned out to be a complete disappointment with the test now in v4.2.3 and still making the same mis-attribution but now including three new and completely invalid low power metrics with no credibility at all. (Declaring something credible doesn't make it so.)

The acceptance by the GACC to be the custodian of the WBT gave it the authority to make substantial corrections but that has not happened.

Two matter arise now: Ranyee asks for more time to have the RTKC's report on their tests and round robin work which must be the third time that has happened. Such work does not involve a rigorous review of the test method itself. They cannot, as sponsored entities receiving funding from GACC , and be considered independent reviewers.

The second is your request is to wait for the ISO standard to be published, but that also is no guarantee. ANSI, which is running the show, announced at the start they had no intention of applying the Standard to the USA. They appointed something like 30 people as experts to the working groups and pretty much told them to support the IWA as it is. We know this because of the initial impossibly short timeline that was estimated by GACC to complete the Standard, something they talked about before the process started. ‎It was the same old freight train passing through Lima, then the Hague, now the ISO.

I believe the plan was to rubber stamp the IWA and tweak the tiers. The IWA is not a useful document inspite of the occasional praise afforded it. It has ten metrics three of which do not even have a physical basis. It claims in its top line that the WBT is a valid test method, which is a dubious assertion, not the result of a professional judgement or experience in the field.

The GACC has had ample time to correct it's conceptual flaws such as the assertion in it that testing using a fixed test sequence with a standard fuel tells us something 'inherent in the stove's performance' that is portable from one context to the next. It doesn't. It can't. It doesn't report something about the fuel consumption in its standard format and it is, in my view, unfixable.

As the GACC has offered a number of projects and a number of countries large sums of money on condition that the WBT be used to select the stoves to be popularized‎, even in countries that have a national standard with fewer errors, we have to object to using it at all.

I reviewed the bidding documents for the Nigerian GIZ stove programme and it included a requirement to select the stoves on the basis of performance tests using methods 'approved by the GACC'. They only have one approved method that I know of and that is the test they host‎. They are not the custodians for the CCT nor the KPT. Anyone condemned to using the WBT is turning what should be an improved stove project into a crap shoot because the WBT cannot predict fuel consumption or emissions performance. A rating on the stove comparison chart, which is WBT-based, can't help because the WBT as a method cannot place stoves confidently on the chart in the first place, even with 20 replications.

Three important countries that use a lot of cooking stoves burning solid fuels are India, China and Indonesia. They have together a population of 2.75 billion people. All three governments have rejected the WBT as a test method. If the ISO standard looks anything the WBT they will not use it.

Kenya published a draft national standard for charcoal stoves that was based on the WBT but withdrew it after receiving comments from the public. Presumably it was unfixable.

There is only one solution. Delete the method, adopt one that solves the myriad problems by avoiding them altogether ‎with a new method. It cannot be decontextualised like the WBT, it cannot consider any contextual assessment to carry any information evaluation outside that contex so an 'international conparison' is not pointless.  It must be accurate and precise enough to be able inform financial and regulatory decisions. If it includes what the WHO showed us in September, that is ruled out. The calculations are conceptually flawed.

We have no assurance that the ISO standard will protect us. All the historical evidence suggests we should expect another grand failure caused by a failure to admit the conceptual flaws of the WBT.

I was taken aback by Xavier's ‎call to advocacy - he has read deeply now and appreciates the dangers the stove community faces.  I did not anticipate anything other than the slow progress of publishing paper after paper identifying the issues and talking up examples of tests that didn't have those problems. Maybe Xavier is right. It is time to disavow the WBT, and that abandonment should come from the GACC and the CDM+Gold Standard, if they want to lead. Use something else in the meantime.

Regards
Crispin

Hello friends,

I certainly cannot keep up with all your traffic, sorry!

I do not post here much so I may have to re-introduce myself— I work a bit on field testing of stoves and I am Convener of TC285 (ISO) Working Group 1, Conceptual Framework (hereafter WG1). I was also one of the flunkies running around the Lima conference attempting to gain support for the “consensus” document.

I would like to respond to a couple of the points made here:

b.  In 9 days, I will be at the ETHOS meeting with many of the people with whom you have been arguing.  I shall report back to this list whether ANY of them agree with your position.  I will be talking with many of the 15 signers of the Lima-consensus, whose names can be seen at https://www.pciaonline.org/testing/lima-consensus<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.pciaonline.org_testing_lima-2Dconsensus&d=DwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=EfROsFehGP6InILrJ6I2RRu_XfTinnpJMLtzie69RNw&m=Gq4M61Tt3QgoU6dDkEONxUFgENQiV4t0EL7GfuPMY8I&s=ehcEALT6M_wx4K5k6nKsu08AIV3IPPZWC6z-BuJdKVs&e=> .

At the time of Lima, I did my best to (1) talk to as many representatives of different countries as possible, and (2) to understand their objections that needed to be addressed before moving forward. The document did undergo many revisions in order to account for those. However, I should emphasize that there WERE many points to be worked out, that the “Consensus” was just an agreement to move forward with a TEMPORARY placeholder, and that we should welcome discussion of those matters that hadn’t been worked out. The “Lima Consensus” was not a holy-water blessing on everything that came after it— likewise the IWA. It was a handshake, an agreement to work together and begin, and while some kind of beginning platform was agreed upon, the process does also include questioning and evaluating previous assumptions. This is a normal part of the scientific process, and I should be very uncomfortable if it were dismantled.

...what is behind your inexplicable rejection of the simple equation that everyone has been using for decades. Do you now support the legitimacy of testing using 4.2.3 for a charcoal-making stove, or not?  Or do you reject 4.2.3 in all circumstances?
[snip] ...And, from what I hear, essentially one person alone (Crispin) is critiquing it.  I urge those supporting Crispin to do some more background research.

I have to disagree with this statement. Within WG1, where we are now discussing the definitions of efficiency, there are several people who support the critiques, and I believe they have a firm and technical basis. The final outcome of the present discussions, I hope, will recognize and account for all valid technical critiques. I also hope that the final outcome will provide acceptable and welcome methods for stakeholders to communicate the benefits of charcoal-making stoves.

I may not support all of Crispin’s positions, but I thoroughly respect his ability to identify potential technical critiques and ways forward, and this statement does come from a lot of background research. On the chance that an error has persisted for decades, why then, urgency to examine it is greater, not less.

Neither might I support all of Nikhil’s positions, but I read his messages as a call to take all assumptions (technical and programmatic) with a grain of salt, in the search for continual improvement.

As a scientist and engineer, I welcome these critiques, as I feel that continual questioning drives us toward excellence, which is a tough target to achieve in the face of complex physical, social and programmatic contexts. We often hear about the “2.5 billion” or “3 billion” people who rely on biomass fuels, and we know that the stakes are high. I would argue that the stakes are *too* high to leave room for pride, carelessness, failure to re-evaluate assumptions, or reliance on anything but the best evidence.

I also encourage all colleagues, as I do in the WG1 process, to state their criticisms concisely and respectfully so that others may have the benefit of considering them. Crafting the message does take extra care, but triple-time spent to write a clear message is a lot more effective than saying the same thing three times.

With best regards,

Tami Bond

---------------------------------
T. C. Bond - Nathan M. Newmark Distinguished Professor - John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow 2014
U of Illinois: Civil & Environmental Engineering - Atmospheric Sciences (Affiliate) - Women & Gender in Global Perspectives (Affiliate)
publish.illinois.edu/humanenvironments<http://publish.illinois.edu/humanenvironments>; www.hiwater.org<http://www.hiwater.org>

The only problem worth solving is the problem of how we govern ourselves. — Karl Schroeder, Degrees of Freedom

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