[Stoves] Fuel qualities as the limiting factor, and getting rid of WBT (Was: Frank on helium surrogate)

Frank Shields franke at cruzio.com
Sat Jan 28 11:06:00 CST 2017


Dear Crispin,

I agree with what you say about getting with the program regarding definitions. I’m bad. 

I think its important that we have a lab test at the beginning that results in a list of workable stoves that use a representative biomass source for a certain area. If we don’t we are back to only the connected having the opportunity to market their stoves and all other backyard tinsnips designs don’t have a chance. Once that list is made you can add on all the additional requirements you want. The stove passes or doesn’t make the second list. The stoves can be field tested and users decide. But at least we know beforehand that the stove under some operational condition will produce that meal using the available biomass. 

As an example; it is pointless to test for low power and high power using processed biomass then expect the stove to do the same using unknown wild biomass. That biomass may not even light in the stove. So we need to first quantify the fuels. That is much more than just ‘oak’ and ‘pine’, ‘dung’ and 'pellets'. How to do that? I have ideas and I am sure you do also. We need money for the research. I have worked with biomass for many years and most of my ideas i have tested many times. But I don't know how well the test will pertain to actual stove combustion. I have yet to make that connection. 

We need to do this step-by-step or we go in circles OR we end up with only the privileged few selling their poor quality stoves.   

 Regards

Frank





> On Jan 28, 2017, at 4:24 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Frank
>  
> I must protest that the WBT is not ‘just a test procedure’. Please everyone, get with the program (definitions).
>  
> A protocol is a way of testing, which includes two things: A test apparatus set up to a certain specification (quality) and a set of calculations that are performance on the result. 
>  
> What you do during the experiment  is separate from what you measure and how you calculate. You can pick any test sequence of using or not using a lid, lighting, ramping up and down and so on.
>  
> A test may have a ‘standard duty cycle’ or ‘stove operation sequence’ of steps, as the WBT does, but that set of steps is not the test protocol nor the calculations.
>  
> The WBT has multiple failures on all counts:
> It is a poorly conceived experiment that makes numerous conceptual errors about what to measure and what metrics will mean when reported
> It contains multiple mathematical errors which are propagated through subsequent calculations, including larger variability in the output than the inputs – a clear indicator that there is something fundamentally wrong with it
> It has a fixed and largely irrelevant sequence of steps which while intended to replicate a cooking task, do not.
>  
> In rural Laos, (the Lao Republic) a WBT was being conducted in the presence of a group of village women. After a time observing the test they started giggling to each other, bursting out laughing occasionally. Asked what was so funny, they said, “No one cooks like that!”
>  
> It does not take an anthropologist to tell you that these women, seeing a single episode, know that whatever the rating of the stove will be, it will not be relevant to them or their choice in stove product.
>  
> Regards
> Crispin
>  
>  
> Nikhil,
>  
> What's the line: "by God, I think s/he's got it (right!) or as we old civil right/anti-war/pro environment & women ACTIVISTS used to say with much gusto: " RIGHT ON MAN, RIGHT ON!". 
>  
> In memory,
> Cecil 
>  
> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
> From: Traveller
> Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 12:33 AM
> To: Frank Shields
> Reply To: miata98 at gmail.com <mailto:miata98 at gmail.com>
> Cc: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves; Cecil Cook; Xavier Brandao
> Subject: Re: Fuel qualities as the limiting factor, and getting rid of WBT (Was: Frank on helium surrogate)
>  
> Frank:
> 
> Pray tell, why is that a critical feature - starting with the fuel and ending with a completed cooking task? 
> 
> I never saw mere heating water as a major "cooking task", nor the relevance of various measurements of combustion efficiency, heat transfer efficiency,control efficiency, all measured in reference to particular fuel and particular pot.  
> 
> This is a decades old obsession of bean-counters of thermodynamic efficiency, fuel consumption, trees saved, etc. that has a partial but not a controlling place in design of usable cookstoves for specific uses in specific contexts of cooking and markets for fuels. 
> 
> Now WBT is extended to CO and PM2.5 hourly emission rates, no matter that the rather baseless WHO IAQ Guideline is in terms of annual average exposure. 
> 
> I submit WBT has no valid purpose. I am not technically qualified to address whether any other test is any better, just that if performance metrics are not relevant to the cook, no matter of lab fanaticism will get the biomass stove movement anywhere. 
> 
> Time to question purported science. If it doesn't serve the needs, it is deficient. We didn't  use thermodynamicists alone to design furniture, did we? And furniture is a bigger business than biomass stoves. 
> 
> I go back to my very post back in June or July -- what is the service standard and what is the objective of standard setting? Nobody has yet dared to propose an answer. 
> 
> Nikhil
>  
> (India +91) 909 995 2080
>  
>  
> On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 11:33 PM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com <mailto:franke at cruzio.com>> wrote:
> The water test must NOT ‘Go’. It is just a test procedure that needs modification FOR THE PURPOSE of what we want to interpret the results. It is the only test I have seen where we start with the FUEL and end with a completed COOKING TASK. Starting with the fuel and ending with a completed task is a MUST. 
>  
> Thanks
>  
> Frank
>  
> On Jan 27, 2017, at 9:33 AM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com <mailto:miata98 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>  
> Frank: 
> 
> Thank you. This comports well with my understanding of coal combustion in industrial/power generation use and also childhood experience with woody fuels and charcoal. 
> 
> Specifying lab tests with "oak", "spruce" etc. is intellectual imperialism. WBT must go from IWA. 
>  
> Nikhil
> 
> 
> --------- 
> (India +91) 909 995 2080
>  
>  
> On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 3:26 PM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com <mailto:franke at cruzio.com>> wrote:
>  
>  
>  
>  
> You ask:
> 
> 
> I have two reasons to ask: 
>  
> a) the importance of fuel chemistry (instead of some pre-specified wood, having a range of locally used biomass or new processed biomass) at various stages of combustion; and, On Jan 27, 2017, at 1:21 AM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com <mailto:miata98 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Others will know more; but the chemistry of the biomass (carbon particle density, packing carbon density, void space, fixed and volatile fractions, moisture, ash  etc.) is much more important to know than ‘oak’ or ‘spruce’. I believe its the preparation of the gases before entering the secondary thats most important and thinking we might be able to make adjustments if we can learn the mix that burned hot and clean. I’m thinking the helium surrogate thats bled in with the primary air at a very controlled and constant rate will be very useful when monitoring the gases entering the secondary. I’m sure someone must have tried this. Perhaps Tom Reed or Jim Jetter?
>  
> Thanks
>  
> Frank    
>  
>  
> Thanks
>  
> Frank
> Frank Shields
> Gabilan Laboratory
> Keith Day Company, Inc.
> 1091 Madison Lane
> Salinas, CA  93907
> (831) 246-0417 <tel:(831)%20246-0417> cell
> (831) 771-0126 <tel:(831)%20771-0126> office
> fShields at keithdaycompany.com <mailto:fShields at keithdaycompany.com>
>  
>  
>  
> franke at cruzio.com <mailto:franke at cruzio.com>
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> Thanks
>  
> Frank
> Frank Shields
> Gabilan Laboratory
> Keith Day Company, Inc.
> 1091 Madison Lane
> Salinas, CA  93907
> (831) 246-0417 <tel:(831)%20246-0417> cell
> (831) 771-0126 <tel:(831)%20771-0126> office
> fShields at keithdaycompany.com <mailto:fShields at keithdaycompany.com>
>  
>  
>  
> franke at cruzio.com <mailto:franke at cruzio.com>
>  
>  
>  
>  
> 
> 
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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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