[Stoves] LPG and solar (Re: Roger)

Nikhil Desai ndesai at alum.mit.edu
Tue Jun 6 00:51:08 CDT 2017


Roger:

Let's not blame GACC or Kirk Smith for being pro-fossil fuel.

1. LPG and electricity are proven to be consumer-friendly many times over.
They are WORTH subsidizing because governments are in the business of
pleasing the masses, not us. As Smith has pointed out, the sustainability
or GHG consequences of LPG promotion are minuscule, compared to the air
quality improvements if substituting for uncontrolled solid fuel combustion
on a mass scale. The only issue then is the burden of subsidies. In India,
the government subsidizes food, fuel, fertilizer, electricity to the tune
of perhaps 2-3% of GDP. If LPG subsidy is money-fixed (rather than
kg-fixed), it can absorb shocks from oil price spikes. In any case, oil and
public finance is a tricky business around the world; in the aggregate oil
industry pays a lot in taxes than receives in subsidies. And there is also
a bit of "supply side economics" -- if you drop the taxes on diesel, there
is a corresponding effect on GDP and employment, recovering some or all of
the tax loss and avoiding other expenses.

I would like to argue that LPG and electricity save enough time and avoid
drudgery for a large number of people, there may be a macro-economic
benefit in productivity. After all, today's middle class - educated women
in particular - didn't earn its degrees, jobs, laptops and cars by cooking
on Three-Stone-Fire or improved charcoal stoves. (Some did, like my mother
and I.)

Until our bishops of biomass give the cardinals of clean cookstoves some
wood stoves to compete with charcoal or LPG, I don't see much hope. The
fault lies in our stars. Or our failed starts at saving forests, climate,
etc.

I won't worry much about GACC strategy. It doesn't have any, except to host
dinners and workshops. It's not going to get any money to subsidize LPG and
electricity. I haven't given up hopes for biomass stoves -- beginning,
though, with commercial stoves -- and I trust nor has GACC. It should
target raising no less than $200 m at the next Clean Cooking Forum and
spending it strictly on biomass stoves for cooking and heating.

2. I wholeheartedly agree with you about solar electric (as with electric
generally). Back in 2010 - when I was gung-ho about pico-PV battery
charging for lighting, phones and laptops - I thought that by 2015 or so,
PV-induction cooking would be marketable. I am a few years ahead of the
times, I think, but a new constellation of efficient devices -- from
water-pumping and purification to agricultural implements and post-crop
activities, milking and chilling, refrigeration and air-conditioning - that
can be powered by stand-alone or grid-connected PV is emerging.

Any bet what we would be discussing on this List five years from now? WHO
Tiers, Water Boiling Test, and aDALYs? Why not some other performance
metrics more attuned to users' preferences?

Nikhil


------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(India +91)909 995 2080
*Skype: nikhildesai888*

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 3:10 AM, Roger Samson <rogerenroute at yahoo.ca> wrote:

> I just wish GACC would drop its obsession to push clean cooking with
> fossil fuels as its lead strategy. It's a low sustainability agenda
> subsiding fossil fuels and money intensive. It's no better than a win-lose.
>
> The future for much of the world for clean cooking will be with cheap
> renewable solar power. It is dropping in price at 20%/year. Check out this
> video how it will be a disruptive technology for the entire energy sector.
> Clean Disruption - Why Conventional Energy & Transportation will be
> Obsolete by 2030 - Oslo, March 2016
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM&feature=youtu.be
>
>
> The nice thing about solar powered cooking with electricity is that in
> much of the developing world, lunch is a big part of the thermal energy
> demand for cooking. Many overburdened women simply re-heat food for dinner
> to save labour and fuel.  Renewable power from solar energy is a great fit.
> You can do most of your cooking when power is cheapest and most reliable.
> We need to see more cookstove innovations around renewable solar including
> integrating solar thermal and electric cooking and heat retaining devices.
>
> regards
>
> Roger
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Sun, 6/4/17, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Subject: Re: [Stoves] Fine Particulates from a Selection of Cookstoves
>  To: "Discussion of biomass cooking stoves" <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.
> org>
>  Received: Sunday, June 4, 2017, 1:56 PM
>
>  Tom:
>
>  I agree. It is the US, Europe, and Japan experience from the 1960s and
> the 1970s that I  learned the history of clean air legislation and
> regulation  across the board. Later, while working on domestic coal use  in
> China, Vietnam, South Korea and Mongolia that I realized
>  how the easiest quick gains were in industrial and power
>  plant shutdowns/relocation, city gas rehabilitation, and
>  just plain new urban habitats. Towns and villages were and
>  are still a problem as far as ambient air pollution goes. In
>  India, peri-urban pollution from wastes, brick-making,
>  chemical spills is tremendous.
>
>  Why, the last I checked in 2015, India did not
>  even have emission standards for coal-fired power plants.
>  (The government had proposed some draft standards for all
>  "thermal" power plants, without any mention of
>  averaging periods or measurement protocols).
>
>  And GACC fantasizes regulating
>  500+ million stoves in this environment? Oversight by its
>  "implementation science" experts with not a
>  quantum of real life experience in regulatory
>  compliance?
>
>  Wow. It takes
>  such courage to believe in GACC and "clean cooking
>  solutions".
>
>  I sent
>  you one e-mail with different way of looking at stoves. As
>  far as the "way forward" goes, I do truly believe
>  people need to first be prepared to break away from the
>  decades long obsession with poor households (without
>  understanding the cooks and their immediate environments,
>  interests, assets) and energy efficiency. It is only by
>  saying "NONE OF THIS ANY MORE" that they will turn
>  to something else.
>
>  I see
>  such energies rising in some quarters. Please be patient. I
>  will design a strategy to spend $20 m to raise and spend $1
>  billion. Spending money well is not at all easy. And if
>  there is no money to spend, why bother devising a way
>  forward? Isn't the whole donor class taken in by TC
>  285's "international standards"?
>
>  Isn't GACC looking to
>  raise $500+ m in Delhi this October? Why don't we ask
>  how it has spent money to date and how it plans to spend it
>  in the future, other than holding "summits" for
>  black carbon to advocate banning of coal?
>
>  I beg your pardon and
>  patience.
>  Nikhil
>
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