[Stoves] Biomass stove design and implementation warriors (re: Frank)

[Traveller]

Frank:

"Boil the problem down to that simple problem."?

I agree that is how it would seem from a stove designer's perspective. At
least from the cooking methods - ingredients, dish, timing, quantity,
peripheral activities (getting water to take a child to the toilet to any
other range of activities in and outside homes) - perspective, changing the
habits may not be as simple.

Or worth the trouble. Some cooks are very fussy and some eaters very picky.
I have seen the staple dishes - say, some 50 in the part of India I come
from - vary from home to home. Why, in my apartment building with 20
households, I suppose there are perhaps 30 different ways of making chai.

The one market where biomass stove makers may make some headway is the
"commercial" market -- the chaiwallas on the street or in shops to
bread/naan/tortilla makers to cooks in eateries, restaurants, cafeterias,
collective kitchens, sweet and snack shops, or brewers or distillers. They
have smaller variations, their clientele have choices, they face money
costs for fuel and labor that households may not, and they have better
financing options.

For households market, I think there are two options: i) stoves specialized
to narrow range of uses, and ii) stoves specialized to specific biomass.
This means "stacking", which some pundits abhor:


"One of the key conclusions from the IAQG was that, despite impressive
exposure reductions of 50–80% in the best stove programs, in absolute terms
average post-intervention concentrations remained well above the WHO
interim target (35 μg/m3 annual mean)—that is, levels estimated to be
necessary to yield significant health improvements (WHO 2014). Based on the
limited data available at the time, clean fuel technologies [e.g., liquid
petroleum gas (LPG), biogas, electricity, ethanol] performed best overall,
but households using them also fell short of the target. Stove stacking
(using multiple stoves and fuels) and other pollution sources inside (e.g.,
kerosene lamps) and outside the home were likely explanations. These
findings suggest that near exclusive, community-wide use of clean fuels is
needed to meet the PM2.5 guideline and to maximize health benefits (Johnson
and Chiang 2015)." 1/


This begs the question whether the WHO PM2.5 guideline is worth bothering
with. The WHO lie is that somehow hourly emission rates translate into
concentrations and exposures on an annual average basis and that "maximum
health benefits" come solely from transitions to LPG and electricity, all
other pollutant exposure profiles and confounding factors in total health
rendered irrelevant.

With pundits like these, who needs potters?

I mean, who needs biomass stove designers?

Make no mistake - the clueless are now in charge of "IMPLEMENTATION
SCIENCE".

More on this some other time; brother Ron has failed to heed my warning of
a war against the poor and solid fuels.

Nikhil

1/Implementation Science to AccelerateClean Cooking for Public Health
<https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/125/1/EHP1018.alt.pdf>
http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP1018 Joshua Rosenthal, Kalpana Balakrishnan,
Nigel Bruce, David Chambers, Jay Graham, Darby Jack, Lydia Kline,
Omar Masera, Sumi Mehta, Ilse Ruiz Mercado, Gila Neta,
Subhrendu Pattanayak, Elisa Puzzolo, Helen Petach, Antonello Punturieri,
Adolfo Rubinstein, Michael Sage, Rachel Sturke,  Anita Shankar,
Kenny Sherr, Kirk Smith, and Gautam Yadama.



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


On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:04 PM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com> wrote:

> Dear Nikhil,
>
> Well how is this all working for us so far? Year after year going nowhere
> and on the road to continue.
>
> Its real simple.
>
> We go from (a specific) biomass and through some one specific device we
> use that energy to cook one specific meal. Boil the problem down to that
> simple problem. Work it out in the lab to find the limits to the biomass
> fuel for that device. And how best to use utensils to cook that food. Then
> we have done the job.
>
> If others want to add conditions for safety, air quality, color and shine,
> stable, weight etc - then let them. Not our problem.
>
> Regards
> Frank
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 28, 2017, at 12:04 AM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> 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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