[Stoves] Advocacy action: ask the GACC to stop promoting, the WBT

[Nikhil Desai]

Jiddu:

Thank you.

In a way, because "a stove optimised using the WBT protocol is almost
certainly not optimised for field performance" that WBT needs to be junked
collectively. Since there is no official group -- GACC is only a UN
Foundation project, does not even have the status of a legally distinct
entity - this denouncement must come one at a time, such as from you and
everybody else who thinks "WBT harms stove development in many more ways
than we can imagine."

To assign GACC a "responsibility" to do so is side-stepping the main issue
-- there is NO legal basis for WBT as a testing protocol for cookstoves in
the US, the home of UN Foundation.

It is people who have chosen to be misled -- and to mislead others by
pretending that somehow the WBT is an "industry standard" or an EPA-blessed
standard in the US - who need to articulate whether or when GACC had misled
them.

GACC has no official standing of any kind. Nor does ARC or any other
biomass cookstove organization I can think of.

As usual, ready to be challenged and proven wrong.

The more fundamental issue is, how did "fuel efficiency" become the
performance metric in the first place, with such convoluted thinking of
"fuel-free" (standardizing wood quality beyond contextual relevance),
"cook-free" (standardizing the cook's operating behavior, again beyond
contextual relevance), and "food-free" (ignoring that the main cooking task
is preparation of a variety of foods, which also varies contextually)
mania?

A few weeks ago I posted a reference to an ARC piece on such fuel-free,
cook-free, food-free testing protocol that is its WBT.

I see no reason for fuel efficiency - or for that matter PM2.5 hourly
emission rates - to be a performance metric that any and all cook should
bother about. There is no proof that these matter in any relevant manner.

If I remember correctly, Paul Anderson called Jim Jetter's data on
emissions composition "irrelevant". I agree, but then unless there is an
"official" platform, who is to decide what is relevant?

Neither EPA, nor WHO have jurisdiction or competence in the matters of
cookstoves, emissions, fuel efficiency, or anything remotely connected to
the ISO TC 285 exercise. This is all an academic junket. We first need to
recognize the damage done over the last six years by this distraction, for
which GACC is hardly responsible. It began as an EPA game -- wild goose
chase or a witch hunt, if you know what I mean by such code words - and the
strategy was cast in stone before GACC appointed a new UN Foundation
Executive Director as its own "Chief Executive Officer".

Just what legal standing CEO of a project has is questionable. I happen to
be familiar with the legality of how a multilateral UN Partnership became
an independent entity by means of a legal instrument, and know of similar
transitions from a project to an entity over the last 25 years. GACC has no
legal existence, and it is not just a minor issue, quibbling over words.
Yes, anybody can use any protocol for any performance metric, it is when
such are enshrined in ISO "voluntary standards" that the fundamental
scientific vacuity of the metrics and the protocols must be questioned.




Nikhil

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(US +1) 202 568 5831
*Skype: nikhildesai888*


On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 5:25 AM, Jiddu alexander <san at nesware.net> wrote:

> Dear Nikhil,
>
> Any stove developer is entitled to use whatever performance testing
> protocol for their product development. However, the WBT has in my view
> been the standard (maybe less so since all the stovelist discussions). Most
> new players joining the field (funders, companies, universities, etc.) will
> generally gravitate to using the WBT. This leads automatically to the fact
> that many stoves are being developed and optimised using the WBT protocol.
>
> My opinion is that a stove optimised using the WBT protocol is almost
> certainly not optimised for field performance, it has a random influence on
> field performance. Not only because of CO, PM or efficiency, also due to
> boiling and simmering phases. Further more it contains bad science (of
> which simmering is a big part) that confuses scientists who come into the
> stove field.
>
> You mentioned:
>
> a) I see no reason to care if WBT is unreliable about efficiency and fuel
> savings. Has WBT use harmed anybody? I am still waiting for an answer.
>
> I think the WBT harms stove development in many more ways than we can
> imagine, partly as my opinion describes above.
>
> The GACC has a responsibility because so many players (th companies,
> funders, etc.) will follow their advice. I don't think a proper shift away
> from the WBT can be achieved without an official declaration by GACC.
>
> Best,
> Jiddu
>
>
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