[Stoves] Clean-stove response for India ...was Re: Off-topic news: World Bank opinion piece on LPG

Paul Anderson psanders at ilstu.edu
Wed Jul 12 14:05:36 CDT 2017


	

	

	

	

  Nikhil and all,

Your meaningful comments below were NOT "off-topic" for this Stoves 
Listserv.  And my reponse here certainly is "on-topic" and responds to 
your statement:
> "Clean energy" has so far bypassed the poor, and the risk is, so will 
> this "clean fuel" mania. Unless biomass stove community gets its act 
> together and offers a competitive choice. Kirk Smith's challenge is 
> loaded. 
Juntos Energy Solutions NFP (Not For Profit) is offering a competitive 
choice.  I have submitted a Juntos NFP proposal to the GACC program for 
Spark+ (currently being evaluated) and to other places in the search for 
assistance for implementation.   That document is exactly what I sent to 
GACC Spark+, except for deletion of some confidential information about 
business negotiations currently in progress.

You can read it at   www.juntosnfp.org/resources   (The JuntosNFP 
website is still being constructed and will serve as the site for the 
operational / scaling-up / financial contributions regarding projects 
with TLUD stoves.)

The included information is essentially a partial update on the "Case 
Study.. . Deganga" found at www.drtlud.com/deganga2016 .    This is a 
major success story, and it is time to scale-up.

I have nothing against LPG stoves reaching additional tens of millions 
of households.  But LPG authorities (Kirk Smith and the LPG 
organization) and the World Bank's May 2017 publication cited by Nikhil 
(below) have stated:
>    In the absence of targeted subsidies, LPG will not be the solution 
> for the world’s poorest people.
The proposal by Juntos NFP DOES include poorest of the poor.  And it 
will give LPG a run for its money  in terms of acceptance and financial 
viability and very clean combustion (which will get even better, as has 
already been shown, including by the Mimi-Moto TLUD-FA stove).

Looking forward to comments.

Paul   (Executive Director of Juntos NFP)

Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
Email:psanders at ilstu.edu
Skype:   paultlud    Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website:www.drtlud.com

On 7/11/2017 2:26 PM, Nikhil Desai wrote:
> Increasing the Use of Liquefied Petroleum Gasin Cooking in Developing 
> Countries 
> <http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/707321494347176314/pdf/114846-BRI-PUBLIC-add-series-VC-LWLJfinOKR.pdf>, 
> May 2107
>
> Mostly cite-o-logy and platitudes, some interesting new references I 
> will read and post later.
>
> What caught my eye is
>
> "Additionally, because smoke from neighboring biomass-burning 
> households or kerosene lamps could compromise the benefits of cooking 
> with clean fuels, GLPGP and other environmental health experts 
> recommend that all households within a community transition as fully 
> to LPG as possible at the same time, to ensure that the maximum health 
> benefits are achieved. Some Indian states such as Karnataka are 
> adopting this approach, with designated “smokeless villages.”
>
> This can be both promising - social pressures for behavioral change - 
> as well as dangerous - because when combined with government powers in 
> a fractured society that is India, it risks stigmatizing the poorest, 
> many of whom do not have permanent homes or kitchens, and not even 
> food from one week to another.
>
> Fuel per se is not the cause of "smoke", and "clean fuels" is not the 
> sole answer. Besides, smoke is not the only risk, nor necessarily the 
> most significant one.
>
> I suppose underlying the idea of "smokeless village" is the argument 
> that, "all households within a community transition as fully to LPG as 
> possible at the same time, to ensure that the maximum health benefits 
> are achieved."
>
> This claim from environmental health experts has no theoretical or 
> empirical validity. Besides, there is always a declining marginal 
> benefit per $ of expenditure on clean fuels, and this kind of 
> absolutism is dangerous in a democratic society.
>
> +++++++++
>
> There is more smoke in environmental health and economics 
> claims: "Household air pollution in low- and middle-income countries 
> caused an estimated $1.52 trillion in economic losses and $94 billion 
> in lost labor income in 2013 (World Bank 2016)."
>
> *** Yeah, compared to what? The woman in attached picture -- just got 
> it a week ago, trying to ascertain the location - is carrying roughly 
> 30 kg of wood balanced on her head, with a nursing baby in front. What 
> employment opportunity would she have compared to about $1-2 
> (depending on whom she sells to) she gets from this activity?
>
> I have no doubt many cooks want to save time, not health or forests or 
> climate, and earn $3-4 a day outside if someone else would do their 
> cooking and child care. But it is also the case that at the Bottom of 
> the Pyramid, simple nutritional intake is implicated in lifetime 
> productivity. Food insecurity data are rather weak, but child 
> mal/under-nutrition estimates are done annually. In South Asia there 
> are 60+ million children under 5 who are victims of "stunting", and 
> wasting is declared "a critical public health emergency" (28 million 
> children under 5) by WHO last month. In South Asia, no fewer than 15% 
> of under-5 children are at increased risk of death, says WHO.
>
> Food, not solid fuel combustion, is the crisis that leads to early 
> deaths and lost productivity.
>
> Says who? Well, WHO. In 2004,WHO attributed more deaths 
> <http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GlobalHealthRisks_report_part2.pdf> and 
> DALYs in low-income countries to "childhood underweight" than it does 
> to indoor air pollution from household fuels, with a large share of 
> child deaths from diarrhea, measles, pneumonia, and neonatal or other 
> infections attributed to undernutrition. But by 2012, IHME had changed 
> its methods and concocted new data on household air pollution - 
> emissions as well as exposures - and thrown in dubious assumptions of 
> equitoxicity and Integrated Exposure Review, to put big numbers to 
> fool those gullible enough.
>
> Anyway, the economic theory of sources of productivity growth and 
> estimation of lost productivity are as goofy and spongy as those of 
> premature mortality and risk factors. This World Bank (2016) report 
> was cooked up in part by IHME, with frank admissions for data quality 
> and assumptions. On that some other time.
>
> "Clean energy" has so far bypassed the poor, and the risk is, so will 
> this "clean fuel" mania. Unless biomass stove community gets its act 
> together and offers a competitive choice. Kirk Smith's challenge is 
> loaded.  ***
>
> Nikhil
>
>
>
>
>
> Inline image 1
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Nikhil Desai
> (US +1) 202 568 5831 <tel:%28202%29%20568-5831>
> /Skype: nikhildesai888/
>
>
>
>
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