[Stoves] Biomass stoves v. PV-induction cooking (re: Frank)

[Traveller]

Dear Frank:

Delighted. Thank you. You bring "meal" and "toast" in the discussion, not
just wood quality and combustion and heat transfer in the abstract.

Food, fuel, stove, operating practices - everything can and will change.
(For one, average family size in India is probably 4 or 3 for perhaps 50%
of the rural families. I did some numbers in 2012 and didn't get into
district details. A cook now frequently works outside, even with two
babies. At least, she doesn't have two babies at home for more than five
years of cooking time.)

Yes, "A toaster is for making toast. "  On the other hand, why "We have
biomass >> and >> a fully cooked meal. "??

You do recognize "We need one for frying and another for hot oil cooking
etc. " and also that biomass varies.

So, boiling water should evaporate, as should WBT. Have a kitchen
performance test. Find PARTIAL solutions instead of a "fully cooked meal".
Get away from the GACC gabbing about "health benefits" from "complete and
irreversible transition to clean cooking solutions".

Make a stove for one task, specific to a context. Forget this top-down
idealism of "doing something for the poor". Watch what poor have done for
themselves. There are too many variations in four billion people, and think
of some half a billion coming on every decade.

David Stein had written a few days ago about solar cooking with biomass
backup -- to have an "integrated" cooking solution.

I would instead have a "dis-integration" of the meal. Some portions are
"outsourced" - primary foods are no longer produced and stored at home but
bought from others (grains, eggs, milk, oil). For the urban poor, leavened
bread, tortillas, injeras are increasingly bought in the market. Same with
snacks and such.

Some can be fragmented at home - one stove for heating water, one for
frying, one for stewing, and one for home-made breads.

Someone just needs to go tour the new peri-urban areas, villages within
cities, conurbations of quite a variety. Poor people migrate. Some are
transient.

Foods vary, not just across groups but over time.

To me, this "test first" mentality is a handicap of scientists. If I really
mean to get mean, I would say it is an elitist fancy (or worse).

More so with what to me are irrelevant metrics - fuel consumption and PM2.5
hourly emission rates. Metrics are more important than methods. We lost our
way in pursuing false gods - saving forests - and are doing more of the
same now in GACC's "Evidence Base" party - health, climate, livelihoods,
gender relations.

Nikhil



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


On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com> wrote:

> Nikhil,
>
> The stumbling block is people believing cause is: “are irrelevant
> performance metrics - fuel consumption and emission rates” . : )
>
> A toaster is for making toast.  The energy comes from an electrical
> outlet.  What is between the energy outlet …. and …. perfect toast is some
> man made object that does the job. So first it must make excellent toast
> from the energy from the outlet.  Conditions we apply is safe to use, low
> energy consumption, looks good, etc.
>
> We have biomass >> and >> a fully cooked meal. We first establish the
> conditions to get to that stage. Wet wood will not work. Sawdust will not
> work in a Rocket Stove. So we first establish the limits for the biomass
> for a stove. Then we establish a task that is completed and acceptable to
> the cook. Water boiling is one that can represent several meals (rice
> etc.). We need one for frying and another for hot oil cooking etc.
>
> Only after this is done do we apply Conditions that must be met. Safe, low
> smoke, low wood use, fast, low energy + high energy - whatever we want. But
> this only done after we get the Fuel established that using this combustion
> chamber will cook this meal.
>
> There are no shortcuts!
>
> You (and others) have listed several procedures that I have not seen.  The
> only test I know of that is even close to do what we must first do is the
> WBT. But it is so poorly designed is does not work. I believe it can be
> corrected and I have made suggestions to that over the years.
>
> And there is research needed to see if we can do some of the things I am
> thinking of. A lot of work is still needed before an official test can be
> presented. If we do anything else different than the above we will just be
> back here next year. Same O - Same O.
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Frank
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 27, 2017, at 9:42 PM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Frank:
>
> The stumbling block to progress are irrelevant performance metrics - fuel
> consumption and emission rates for, heavens, BOILING WATER!
>
> Electricity and gas folks are skewered by ultra-Greens for their
> fuel-cycle GHG emissions, just to make sure the earth is balanced on the
> backs of the poor.
>
> But they had an advantage - the purportedly "exhaustible" fuels were used
> some four times over what was supposedly "left in the ground" in 1970 and
> the purportedly "renewable biomass" was costly, inaccessible, or had better
> uses. (Even that 1909 Journal of Home Economics article said there are
> superior uses of wood in America than burning it in the hearth.)
>
> Unless the biomass folks stop obsessing over bean-counting and
> manufacturing "co-benefits" in health, climate, livelihoods and women's
> empowerment - in other words, unless they get their heads out of the
> firebox and put ":cook" back in "cookstoves", they will keep arguing among
> themselves.
>
> After all, they seem to want to ensure that their egos are sufficiently
> fed. The ethos of ETHOS, I might say.
>
> I am tempted to put a slogan below my signature - "Usable Stoves Suited to
> Contexts", or USSC. Think I will raise $300+ million? :-)
>
> Nikhil
>
>
> ---------
> (India +91) 909 995 2080
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 6:11 AM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com> wrote:
>
>> My only point was that at the rate and direction we Stovers are heading
>> the pv  people, no matter how many years, will likely solve the problem
>> before we do regarding smoke.
>> Frank
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Frank
> Frank Shields
> Gabilan Laboratory
> Keith Day Company, Inc.
> 1091 Madison Lane
> Salinas, CA  93907
> (831) 246-0417 cell
> (831) 771-0126 office
> fShields at keithdaycompany.com
>
>
>
> franke at cruzio.com
>
>
>
>
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