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

Mon Jan 30 11:06:28 CST 2017

Dear Frank

I think Nikhil and Cecil are on the right track: the customer comes first. If you want to sell something to a target audience, you have to understand them to be consistently successful.

There are various ways to get people to buy your product. In 1910 just before Haley’s Comet reappeared, hucksters were selling pills that were assured to ward off the effects of the tail of the comet through which the Earth was going to pass. The motivation to part with money was baseless fear-mongering.

The Earth did pass through the tail, and the risk was -275.15˚C (absolute zero).
GM convinced the public in 1955 that buying a new car was important to remain fashionable. Apple in 2004 convinced the public to change iPods to a new one to remain fashionable and to throw away the old one. These are important milestones in marketing, watershed moments.

How can we convince people to change their fuel preparation habits? It will have to be for some reason that is very convincing. Fear-mongering about health might work, or fire dangers. On the positive side: convenience, speed, power control, low cost, reduced or eliminated smell on clothes.

Good marketers usually know how far they can push the envelope. Stove inventors rarely do. The profession that connects the two spheres of knowledge are called Industrial Designers. Most products you buy were handled by them, bringing the technical and social together into an acceptable form.

Regards
Crispin

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Frank Shields
Sent: 30-Jan-17 02:45
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Fuel qualities as the limiting factor, and getting rid of WBT (Was: Frank on helium surrogate)

Dear Crispin

I get the point.

Im not saying we need to prepare a novel fuel. If they like stick fuel (and most will) then they will like it even better if the sticks are sized and dried and the stove they use has been shown to burn these cleanly.

We have no problem getting people to use stoves - they already do. We just need to make them cleaner. And the variable (for now) is the fuel [Box 1] - as I see it. If that variable is not controlled then there is no need to be working on another variable or making changes to the WBT or develop any other test because the problem is still there. With variable fuels all the results from any test is meaningless.

Most studies and attempts to correct test problems has nothing to do with cleaning up the air. All the research I am suggesting is to directly clean up the air. More than study (again) how dirty it is.

So only when Box 1, the fuel variable is controlled do we move forward to Box 2. How the fuel is placed, rate of insertion, etc. to give best results. Perhaps make the door for the fuel a size that only allows so much at a time or pre-package a cylinder of biomass for a TLUD - I don’t know.

 Regards
Frank

On Jan 29, 2017, at 7:07 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com<mailto:crispinpigott at outlook.com>> wrote:

Dear Frank

How is this: ‎the anthropologist comes from the field and tells you that the community will not spend time preparing fuel, and you can only plan on burning stick fuel.

There is no problem attempting to sell a stove that needs novel fuel, or a processing method. But if you are told from the start not to bother, they will refuse to use it, it has to be treated as valuable information.

When an industrial designer assess what to create, the customer sets the parameters. Apple famously held that people don't know what they want yet, they have to be told. Well stovers, a lot of cooks know what they want and what they don't.

I think that's a good place to start. The designer can optimise the fuel chopping and sizing all they want: the community will refuse it.

We can't work in isolation from the market. That's the point.

Regards
Crispin

Dear Crispin,

I agree with the stove designer/selector criteria for guiding the process making a stove. But before taking it into the field I suggest it be tested using the biomass available and biomass optimized for that stove. That to be included in the instructions. I realize people are going to use the stove as they wish. But knowing how to prepare the fuel for optimum performance is a start.

Preparing the fuel for stoves takes time and energy and may seem silly and likely not going to be done. BUT if the fuel is the variable that now needs control we will never get cleaner stoves until this is done - no matter what stove they use. I think a process that sizes and dries, splits, chips - whatever the available fuel before use is the best next step to cleaner stoves.

Frank

On Jan 29, 2017, at 2:41 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com<mailto:crispinpigott at outlook.com>> wrote:

Dear Frank

"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."

I think we are cleverer than that. It is quite reasonable to set before a stove designer/selector a set of 10 criteria of which half are hard science numbers or ranges and the other half are soft science requirements.

A good designer can then create or pick a few candidate‎ technologies for verification and trials.

The trials would be performed by experienced cooks and product reviewers from the target community. Cecil wants it to go in stages of 'weeding' and he wants it done before the technical evaluation. He often points out that the most acceptable and widely adopted product may not be the ones with the best technical specifications.

That is why Toyota sells more cars than Lamborghini.

Regards
Crispin
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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<mailto:fShields at keithdaycompany.com>

franke at cruzio.com<mailto:franke at cruzio.com>

_______________________________________________
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for more Biomass Cooking Stoves,  News and Information see our web site:
http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/

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<mailto:fShields at keithdaycompany.com>

franke at cruzio.com<mailto:franke at cruzio.com>

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