[Stoves] Advocacy action: ask the GACC to stop promoting the WBT (time for a scientific shoot out at OK Corral has come!)

Sun Jan 29 12:28:24 CST 2017

Dear Cecil

Nice idea, but the WBT would probably win – because in my experience you can get practically any result you desire.  As for simmering - - words fail me at the lack of understanding behind the WBT “thinking”.

Prof Philip Lloyd

Energy Institute, CPUT

SARETEC, Sachs Circle

Bellville

Tel 021 959 4323

Cell 083 441 5247

PA Nadia 021 959 4330

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of cec1863 at gmail.com
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2017 7:08 PM
To: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott; Stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Advocacy action: ask the GACC to stop promoting the WBT (time for a scientific shoot out at OK Corral has come!)

Dear CPP, Nikhil, et al, 

I am in love with you hard headed physical scientists again. It appears an official marriage ceremony is imminent between to Mr Hard Science and Madame Soft Humanity. How great is that. 

The "two cultures" are turning their "confusing" differences into a strong "fusion" of these differences to create a disciplined "unity in diversity" that combines the measurement of hard science variables with the assessment of soft human preferences and judgments. It appears that the CSI stove test protocol created by you and your team in Indonesia intelligently converts culturally mandated patterns of stove use into technically observable variables that simulate actual household burn and cooking cycles‎ in the field. 

According to Crispin, the CSI stove test protocols, procedures, and instrumentation are much better than the WBT in predicting the performance of different stoves in the field. Is that claim by Crispin true?

Why not do some public science and objective observation to find out what stove performance test ensamble best predicts technical stove performance and customer perception of stove performance?  Why not have a high noon show down between the latest version of the WBT and the CSI test protocols and procedures? May the better stove performance test win!! 

Yes indeedy. I am calling out the proponents of the WBTesting and the CSI Testing.  It is time to put up or shut up. It is high time for a high noon "evidence based" duel to the death. Please my ‎brothers, sisters, friends and enemies let's do this thing and move on. I'd like to stop the trash talking and start the duel. I'm one of Crispin's retainers and there will be many others I am sure. Maybe Ron, Dean, Kirk Smith and others will be the retainers for the WBT. 

In fact if the Bioenergy Stove List organized a straw poll among its members on which test protocol and procedures they think is most likely to win the up coming shoot out at the OK Corral Such a plebicite would democratically measure the stove testing predelictions of this community of stove activists. W‎e could of course wager real money on the outcome of the shoot out between the two testing ensambles. A straw poll would be revealing in anticipation of the actual scientific duel beteen WBT and CSI test protocol ensembles.

Also,  the retainers for the dueling test protocols need to publicly agree upon the actual content of each ensembles metrics, instruments, and procedures but the test partisans get to decide what constitutes their best protocols AKA the WBT and CSI as the dueling parties AKA gunslingers. Maybe the WBT/CSI shoot out could be held at a mutually agreed upon neutral national lab some where convenient. 

I am hoping for a fatal outcome: maybe one, maybe both test ensembles will be killed off and buried. I can live with either outcome. It would be a blessing if we get a kill shot to the heart or head of either stove performance test protocol. Unfortunately we must be prepared for a range of non fatal outcomes from the long over due  shoot out between "competing" stove testing ensembles. 

Repeating myself: it's time to‎ "fish or cut bait", not both. This will be the Michelson-Morley experiment of stove science to determine whether or not the light and gravity propagate through an assumed medium of "aether"; in terms of stoves, is it useful or predictive of actual stove performance in the community to test stove efficiency out of cultural and social context? That is the question!

In search,

Cecil

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

From: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott

Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2017 1:33 AM

To: Stoves

Reply To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves

Subject: Re: [Stoves] Advocacy action: ask the GACC to stop promoting the WBT

Dear Nikhil

"...the Stove Performance Inventory and other test results do not have general validity. ‎"

There is no such thing as 'general validity' meaning 'true in all circumstances' or 'reasonably true' any more than a car can be tested with one grade of gasoline and be efficient and the conclusion drawn that it will 'perform well' with all other grades of gasoline. 

St‎uff and nonsense. 

Regarding the matter ‎of the 'burn sequence' (which is what a stoves does, ignorant of the contents of the pot). This is a critical matter. 

If you can, please read the documentation, what little there is, on the CSI test method. It describes in its simplest form how to observe a community, document various burn sequences, combine the mathematically into a single, technical test' that 'puts the stove through its paces' while simulating an 'average cooking sequence'. 

That average is mere guess, it is the combination of behaviours that represent, if conducted daily for a month, for example, ‎all the cooking that the stove would do in a month. This is far more sophisticated than guessing at a single meal's tasks. It can be weighted by meal and task frequency. It can be modified to represent seasons of the availability of certain fuels seasonally. 

The combination of stove, fuel and grouped tasks converted into a single technical test makes a reasonable prediction of how the stove will perform on average in a given context. 

We could even include fuel switching and occasional weddings if necessary. 

The method rests on properly identified behaviours and patterns of use, plus some understanding of how fuels are selected, used or avoided. 

The technical test (TT) is validated against the sum of, for example emissions, and registered with a number. I proposed this a number of times in various forums and it has been well received by many sectors. The point is to gradually build up a set of realistic TT's ‎so manufacturers anywhere can optimise their products to handle the fuels and tasks in particular markets. 

Labs that are not capable of validating technical tests can still use them once delineated. If I want to sell stoves in Guandong I will look up the TT's that are relevant to the scale of cooking: home, small restaurant, single working man, and develop the stove around that test sequence. 

The CSI provides a methodology for establishing the cooking sequences, then creating a TT, then running the experiment. Any relevant cooking simulation is in some way a facet of this multi-faceted jewel. The method is built on principles and two sound sciences, social and physical. 

Regards 

Crispin 

Crispin: 

Thank you for clarification about "burn sequence". From what I remember, the trouble with WBT - apart from the conceptual errors and manipulations of the protocol - is not that it is for boiling water but that the "burn sequence" is not representative of cooking tasks generally. Maybe in some contexts, but then we do not yet have an inventory of contexts and burn sequences. Combined with the fact that we do not have an inventory of biomass qualities (including chemistries), "traditional" stove types (other than "three-stone", even which has a great diversity in burn sequences), the Stove Performance Inventory and other test results do not have general validity. 

I don't think specifying one "burn sequence" is enough even for individual contexts. There should be at least five to ten burn sequences and variations in timing (daily, seasonal) and quantities (including for water/space heating as a co-product) for individual contexts. That way, some changes in cooking cultures can be accommodated over a medium-term (five  years). 

Any international standardization of household cooking is ludicrous. Hence, WHO IAQG and ISO IWA process are also, I am afraid, ludicrous. 

Or worse. 

Nikhil

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Message: 13
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2017 08:24:36 +0000
From: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott < <mailto:crispinpigott at outlook.com> crispinpigott at outlook.com>
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
        < <mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org> stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Advocacy action: ask the GACC to stop promoting
        the WBT
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Dear Jiddu

I want to take a moment to correct an impression you left in your timely message about the problems you have experience as a physicist and stove tester with the WBT.

?The WBT protocol is unreproducible. In my opinion largely due to its vague boiling and simmering phases, where I believe something like cooking power (in Watts) is much more suitable.

I am, like Camilla, a supporter of the CSI Indonesia protocol. It's repoducible and relevant. However, it is only relevant for Indonesia and hence more relevant protocols need to be developed.?

It is a misunderstanding to call the Indonesian cooking sequence a ?protocol?. That is a burn sequence, to be exact, and is not ?part of the CSI protocol?.

This must be understood clearly it has been widely and erroneously mentioned that if the test sequence (burn cycle, in outer jurisdictions) sis changed, it constitutes a ?different protocol?. This is a misunderstanding.

A testing protocol sets out what to measure and how well to do that, how to calculate and what to report, and in what form. It is not something to do with the sequence of operations of the stove that are being measured. You can have 1 protocol and 1000 tests sequences representing 1000 meals or patterns of use.

So in order to use the CSI protocol, all you need is a relevant use sequence starting with ignition and ending at some point. After the sequence (previously described) is validated as representing what you are trying to emulate you can use it to make assessments of how the stoves will perform on that basis.

The protocol remains the same.

This is one reason why the same protocol can be used to test low pressure boilers, space heating stoves, cooking functions or all three at the same time.

Regards

Crispin

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