[Stoves] A proposal regarding WBT past and future

[Cecil E Cook]

In so far as I understand Nikhil's proposal I see no harm in agreeing forth with to stop using the WBT - as an abstract specification based stove assessment methodology - to evaluate the performance of biomass burning stoves in kitchens, restaurants, schools, food processing enterprises, etc. The retirement of the WBT would be a giant step forward in the direction of a more user centered stove performance methodology which protects and privileges the culturally recognized and valued cooking, heating, agricultural, and other economically and environmentally valued functions of a appropriately contextualized stove performance assessment methodology. 

Such a comprehensively contextualized stove performance assessment begins and ends with particular communities of stove users and therefore grows from the consciously recognized values, interests and needs of identifiable groups of stove users!! What does the stove mean to the end user and how are candidate stoves evaluated - by what criteria - when they are rated in terms of the performances of primary users?

The human health impacts of indoor and ambient air pollution and the social, economic and environmental impacts of greater and lesser combustion efficiency can of course be considered but they will typically be of secondary importance to the primary cooking, heating, and stove work preferences of the primary users of small "domestic" stoves.

Right now the movement to design, fabricate and distribute ever more efficient and lower emission small stoves - from the perspective of the carbon fearful residing in over developed countries - are viewed in somewhat self serving terms as being more virtuous stove technologies because they protect forests, improve respiratory health, and help to radically reduce the carbon footprint of human civilization on planet earth. It could be argued that the WBT is an instrument of oppressive top down expert driven globalization rather than an instrument of villager and poor people driven bottom up globalization!I

So I stand in the line forming behind Nikhil and Xavier which is how illiterate people in Swaziland vote for who will represent them in parliament. I am technologically illiterate but I know what kind of cooking and heating stoves make me happy and satisfied. 

On June 23, 2017, at 8:19 PM, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com> wrote:

Friends: 

Some debates on efficiency are still pending, but let's keep the metrics debate separate from those on stove testing protocols. 


There will be more on Xavier's thread on WBT as well, but for now I offer the following proposition for consideration, revision, negotiation, and hopefully ratification by individual votes in this community:  


"Various types of Water Boiling Tests have been developed over the decades, primarily for research into fuel efficiency and emission rates. There is no official basis for the WBT identified in the IWA or subsequently applied by any organizations for purposes other than technical research. Given the conceptual, measurement, computational problems of WBTs, repeated failures in reliable predictions and irrelevance of hourly emission rates to identifiable disease risks or risk prevention, we hereby agree to forswear the use of WBT. We also undertake to ignore the history of all WBT measurements, and from here on, to emphasize contextually relevant stove testing protocols for different geographies and seasons, fuel varieties, cooking practices, and cuisines. We also suggest that any such stove testing results be submitted for re-validation after year 1, 5, and 10 for the same contexts." 



Nobody has to defend anything in past errors and mischiefs. Just offer empirical reasons why this is not a peaceful resolution of decades-long arguments, now that Ranyee says (or implies) that we are all past WBTs anyway. 

In my piece on getting past "improved woodstoves", I had introduced some qualitative aspects of cooks' desires. 

These are "beyond science", but that is not a problem. Cooking is an art. Chef Jose Andres will readily agree. (Now that I am back, I would be happy to go taste his food, if someone pays for it.) 


Nikhil

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Nikhil Desai

(US +1) 202 568 5831
Skype: nikhildesai888

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