[Stoves] LPG Watch - Update 2017-07-03 (Paul on Kirk Smith Comments on the India LPG)

Thu Jul 20 10:38:31 CDT 2017

Paul:

Thank you. I am surprised that within a few days of declaring his challenge
to the biomass stove community
<https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53856e1ee4b00c6f1fc1f602/t/590b78d49de4bb6e66c97095/1493924052510/ESD+editorial+on+biomas.pdf>,
where he said there will be 25 million Indian households not covered by the
LPG subsidy scheme even by 2025, Prof. Smith seems to take away the market
for "supplemental" biomass stoves for the poor Indians who have just
started using LPG but haven't yet made a complete transition.

I quote from his challenge, "Now the bottom line in terms of advanced
biomass stoves. LPG (plus some natural gas and electricity) cooking for 90%
of the population, even if achieved, still leaves some 150 million using
poorly functioning traditional chulhas next decade."

Now he puts priority on ready refills because "Finally, health and other
benefits only fully occur with near 100% usage and thus near
elimination of the
biomass chulha for cooking."

He alone knows - or reserves the right to proclaim - what is meant by
"full" accrual of "health and other benefits".

+++

Arguendo, what he is suggesting is, "Forget those 150 million for now; make
sure the extra few billion dollars today go to guaranteeing reliable
refills for those who have signed up for the LPG connection, whether or not
they want the refills."

To me, this is a haughty anti-poor agenda with only one possible rationale
-- with even some households making complete, irreversible transition to
LPG, computing aDALYs as "health benefits of LPG" get some respectability
as they are measured "fully" (or fool-ly). Enough business potential for a
hundred PhDs and post-docs for the next 30 years of whatever long it takes
to achieve the Tier 4 nirvana. It's not as if the Berkeley crowd can put a
number on aDALYs in India from 50+ years of LPG use.

>From the viewpoint of energy and budgeting policies, Prof. Smith's argument
to guarantee reliable refills - even seek to mandate them - is academic
fantasizing at best and pernicious mania at worst.

What Prof Smith is advocating is a neat class division between those who
must completely get out of what he calls "chulha trap" as soon as possible,
on the one hand, and the remainder marginalized, "left behind" population.

It so turns out both these groups are about 250 million, assuming average
household size of 5 (it's slightly smaller and getting smaller).

i) the 50 million post-2014 household connections in India (22 million so
far, 28 million by 2019) that Prof Smith wants to make sure do not use
biomass chulhas unless he certifies them as "truly health protective", and,
ii) 50 million households that will be left behind in 2019. (With some
growth in connections but also in population, 2025 "have nots" will come
down to 150 million as he has projected. Currently, piped natural gas and
previous household LPG connections come to around 120 million. Commercial
cooking is gas, LPG, electricity as well as biomass and coal.)

A class division. California elitism, I might add. Prof. Smith and Ajay
Pillarisetti want to make sure "no worry about running out Sat
night just before a big party". Yeah, right. At the margin, we are talking
about households with monthly cash expenditures of $100 or less. Their big
Saturday night parties won't stop for lack of LPG.

+++++++

Then there are some 500 million others - whose subsidized LPG connections
were approved for the post-2014 scheme of DBTL (Direct Benefits Transfer
for LPG in bank accounts) plus households that have LPG connections without
subsidy, after "ghost" connections had been eliminated. (I am assuming that
about 100-200 million people or equivalent use only piped natural gas and
electricity for cooking and heating.)

Nobody knows how many of these 500 million to date have used LPG
exclusively or along with "stacking". My hypothesis is that the middle
class urban folks who got LPG back in the 1960s and 1970s "advanced" in all
manners -- education, income, diets -- and reduced their burden of disease
far much more than that can be attributed to getting out of the "chulha
trap". But heck, anything can be attributed to anything so long as you get
enough nods in the audience. Attribution is not causality.

While we wait for the cost of refills and purported "social benefits", let
me share some thoughts to ponder.

1. Stacking is consumer choice, not public health professors' prerogative.
Until all sources of PM2.5 - natural and anthropogenic - are banned so as
to keep exposures within WHO "guidelines" (worthless until adopted in
national laws and effectively enforced), there is no use even debating Kirk
Smith's theology of complete and permanent transition to LPG and
electricity by all poor people in India. Because if one household must make
such transition, each one must otherwise any leakage will lead to premature
deaths a la GBD algorithms - emission to death. Dream on -- not just
"overnight" but a few decades.

2. Behavioral change for improving health outcomes from cooking is not just
a problem of fuel/stove access and affordability but also of food access
and affordability. A "clean cookstove" is not a pill and an LPG refill is
not a condom.

3.  The quantity of subsidized LPG to household connections or the subsidy
per refill - or both - have to be kept in check. An argument can be made
that the productivity increase from quicker, cleaner cooking (and
outsourcing cooking) will increase tax revenues to subsidize LPG in
perpetuity (or "steady state equilibrium"), but that requires a million
dollar research grant.

Nikhil

On Mon, Jul 3, 2017 at 9:49 PM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:

> Stovers,
>
> FYI.    Attached is an update about the LPG program in India, entitled:
>
> Comments on the National LPG Programme of India
> Kirk R. Smith and Ajay Pillarisetti
>
> *[They] discuss two of the three major issues slowing usage of LPG by the
> poor in India and how the new national programme attempts to deal with
> them:  upfront costs and reliability of refills.   In a later post, we will
> discuss the third major barrier, the cost of refills for poor families.*
>
>
> The references to stove stacking and people using solid biomass fuel
> stoves (e.g., wood) do not include any TLUD micro-gasifiers, which are
> still all concentrated in West Bengal.   SOMEDAY (not yet) there will be
> sufficient LPG and TLUD stoves in the same area for comparisons to be made.
>
> Paul
>
> --
> Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
> Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu
> Skype:   paultlud    Phone: +1-309-452-7072 <(309)%20452-7072>
> Website:  www.drtlud.com
>
>
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