[Stoves] Kirk Smith: A challenge to the biomass stove community

Wed Jun 28 22:57:56 CDT 2017

Crispin:

Health and disease are very different concepts. Public health folks deal
with health, medical professionals deal with disease. The two do not see
eye to eye; I suspect medical professionals do not even care to read the
research literature on public health. Medicos save actual lives, public
health folks make vague promises of avoiding statistical deaths.

That may explain the vacuity of PM2.5 premature mortality claims -- the
underlying data are spurious and so is the quantification. Remember Kirk
Smith -- attributable does not mean avoidable.

For example, GACC claim
<https://cleancookstoves.org/binary-data/RESOURCE/file/000/000/495-1.pdf> -
"If 5 million households in India transition to LPG, then nearly 19,000
deaths (including more than 500 children) could be averted annually"
(Progress Report December 2016) - is indefensible nonsense (except that
"could be" could be interpreted to acknowledge the fact that there is no
way "averted" deaths can be identified).

No medical doctor would find such assertions credible. We are all convinced
that efficiency is good, and lower emission rates of some pollutants are
good. The rest is "innocence and ignorance". Just because IHME's 700+
co-authors of GBD pass on HAP being a risk factor for premature mortality
and disability doesn't mean that their quantitative attributions are
sacrosanct.

Did you ever read a claim that quitting cigarette smoking prolonged an
ex-smoker's life by x years on average from 1990 to 2015? Or that all the
post-mature deaths of the 2015 cohort - some 2-3 million people who died
past the age of 86 - had no exposure to solid fuel emissions in their
lifetimes (going back to 1930s)?

Of course not. Other risk factors and inherent confounding in individual
bodies and their environments come in to cause disease or death, and some
deaths, even before age 86, are often inexplicable.

In response to your objections, all I can say is that the context matters.
For certain geographies in India -- which now has a logistics network big
enough to serve the half a billion people with piped gas, electricity, and
LPG, and has a government ready to commit to LPG subsidies (don't take them
for granted, though) - the cost of delivering is low enough and the
benefits in reduced emission loads are high enough. (Kirk Smith has lived
through extreme air pollution in Delhi, and there are fairly reliable
indicators that solid fuel use - in and outside homes - is a major
contributor to ambient air pollution throughout northern India. Whether the
PM2.5 loads overall will be reduced and will show up in reduced disease
incidence remains to be seen. Past is not enough of a guide to the future.
India needs an overall urban air quality management strategy, along with
changes in physical planning and operations; not going to happen in my
lifetime.)

You object:

"Because of the high cost of doing so. (*** Depends. By eliminating phantom
LPG connections and liberalizing LPG supplies to commercial cooking,
subsidies have become more manageable. Still, oil products pricing in India
is a Kafkaesque tale that I stopped bothering with five years ago. The
government-owned oil companies have complex tax and subsidy regimes along
with government fixing all prices, including non-subsidized LPG. Go figure!
I am guessing that a new "LPG connection" at the rate of 142 kg per year
per household has a net burden on the exchequer of about $20 (based on
current price difference between non-subsidized and subsidized LPG cylinder
of 14.2 kg, roughly Rs. 100 or $1.5). ***

Because of the bloody inconvenience of trundling gas cylinders around.

*** Sure. When I was living close to a village, one of the workers in the
clinic took an afternoon off to take two LPG cylinders in the village to a
town nearby using a four-wheeler that runs a private taxi service. All
around that hilly area I saw four-wheeler vans for transporting people and
goods. In time, more people will be served by the retailers' trucks; I have
seen many in small and big towns, even some villages. Road access is
important. ***

Because public transport operators won’t allow it in their vehicles. ***
Depends on context. ***

Because there are better things to do with the money. *** Depends on
whether they value the cook's time in outdoor activities or the cook is
home-bound anyway but they can afford to hire a cook. ***

Because some people perceive it as a dangerous cooking system. *** It is.
Depends on their getting used to handling. ***

Because it creates unemployment throughout the entire biomass fuel chain.
*** I see no point whatsoever in keeping people occupied in
low-productivity, high drudgery employment. The whole biomass fuel chain is
in need of major technological advances, and I would readily support a
scheme for investing finance, knowledge, and equipment all over India to
modernize the biomass fuel chain. Just think -- charcoal can be produced
from acacia in rather arid land of Gujarat to sell at 5-7 USc/kg, 20 kg
package. But that doesn't mean ***

Because it uses up precious foreign exchange. *** Yeah, right. What makes
"foreign exchange" precious? What else is it going to be used for? (India
just signed major contracts for weapons and gas imports.) ***

Because it creates dependence on foreign suppliers of a commodity known to
be controlled and price-manipulated by a cartel that acts capriciously in
its own interest (globally, in June 2008, for example). *** Can be said
even of food imports. I don't think world users of oil products care much
about your conspiracy theories. They go on driving cars and planes, and
will keep on cooking with gas and electricity. ***

Because none of its technologies (carriage, distribution and combustion)
can be managed by locals in most countries – they are reduced to being mere
consumers of the products of others. *** Depends. All this changed in many
parts of the world, including South Africa and Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda,
Rwanda, Tanzania over the last 20 years. "Being mere consumers of the
products of others" is the essence of life - whether the products are holy
texts or guns or LPG cookstoves. *** "

The real objection ought to be that we haven't yet produced a class of
usable, marketable products and we don't know our customers nor have a
commercial intermediary. It is "we" who need to re-think, and leave fuel
fetishism of the behind. Just as there is nothing inherently bad about wood
or coal -- though there is about crop/tree waste and animal waste -- there
is nothing inherently precious about them either. Drop the religion of
"renewable biomass" and smell the coffee.

I do agree that "highest social value of LPG" is unknowable. Smith believes
his own models and ideology, but what matters more is that customers like
more LPG and that more customers like LPG, electricity, piped gas, even
kerosene. (I do not at all agree with WHO's campaign against kerosene even
for non-lighting uses. Smith's opposition to kerosene is immaterial. India
still consumes about 5 million tons of it, though subsidized quota has been
curtailed as LPG sales have grown. I happen to think this is a wrong idea;
kerosene still has a transitional role before LPG or electricity or some
"modern biomass cookstoves" take over.)

I also agree with you about chimney stoves. I have never seen any real data
in Smith's work --- or for that matter anybody else's -- about the use of
chimneys in the developing world. Sure, cold regions often have homes with
chimneys and I have heard of chimneys in old as well as new homes in
villages in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra, many of whom do have
fairly cold temperatures (night-time lows of 5-10 C). I have also seen and
heard from people how they use different kinds of wood for different
purposes -- cooking, heating outside, heating inside. There is simply no
evidence to support Smith's opposition to chimneys in all cases. It
requires blind faith in his PM2.5 models with very little "real data"
coming from consistent exposures.

Of course, "clear-combustion stoves or in lesser devices fitted with
chimneys" has been going on for decades. In the rural middle class if not
for the poorest.

It is this fashion of charity -- wanting to foist expensive woodstoves on
people who may want to add an extra room or might not even have a home or
secure food supplies -- that has kept us from recognizing the critical
importance of usability (which you and Cecil have confirmed) on the one
hand and marketability on the other.

Leave Smith's 2014 arguments aside. I don't think the ISO bandwagon is
going to do anything - unless Gold Standard Foundation comes up with
marketing $/tCO2e and $/aDALY drivel to Goldman Sachs and UN Foundation.
Buyers beware - snake oil is pretty.

Nikhil

On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 7:16 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> Thanks, Nikhil.
>
>
>
> Kirk asks “Thus, it could be argued that LPG is found anyway will be used
> somewhere no matter what – autos, petrochemicals, or being flared are the main
> other uses besides households. Why not divert as much as possible to its
> highest social value use, cooking for the poor?”
>
>
>
> Because of the high cost of doing so.
>
> Because of the bloody inconvenience of trundling gas cylinders around.
>
> Because public transport operators won’t allow it in their vehicles.
>
> Because there are better things to do with the money.
>
> Because some people perceive it as a dangerous cooking system.
>
> Because it creates unemployment throughout the entire biomass fuel chain.
>
> Because it uses up precious foreign exchange.
>
> Because it creates dependence on foreign suppliers of a commodity known to
> be controlled and price-manipulated by a cartel that acts capriciously in
> its own interest (globally, in June 2008, for example).
>
> Because none of its technologies (carriage, distribution and combustion)
> can be managed by locals in most countries – they are reduced to being mere
> consumers of the products of others.
>
>
>
> In any case the last sentence is not correct. The pitch throughout the
> piece was medical. It should have read at the end, “Why not divert as much
> as possible to its highest medical value use, cooking for the poor?”
>
>
>
> The highest *social value* of LPG is unknown. If you asked Indonesian
> cooks what it is, they would probably reply that making tea on comment has
> the highest social impact.
>
>
>
> I detect once again in Kirk’s writing that chimney stoves that emit
> nothing into the room are still ruled out, as are, in the long term,
> biomass, coal and kerosene. Kerosene is a longer chain ‘paraffin’ than LPG.
> Opposition to it makes no sense. Biomass can be burned both in
> clear-combustion stoves or in lesser devices fitted with chimneys.
>
>
>
> The reduction to exposure to inherent emissions is accomplished by
> increasing the efficiency of the devices and dilution to appropriate levels
> – just as for any other pollutant like CO or SO2.
>
>
>
> If the USA has a surfeit of LPG, let them market it to the millions of
> wealthy homes that are currently switching from gas and oil to wood fuels
> for space heating and social enjoyment.
>
>
>
> Biomass fuels are not the choice of the poor only.
>
>
>
> Crispin
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Nikhil Desai [mailto:pienergy2008 at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 29-Jun-17 05:47
> *To:* Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.
> org>
> *Subject:* Kirk Smith: A challenge to the biomass stove community
>
>
>
> Below a Guest Editorial Why both gas and biomass are needed today to
> address the solid fuel cooking problem in India: A challenge to the biomass
> stove community
> <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0973082617304635>by
> Prof. Kirk Smith in the journal Energy for Sustainable Development (June
> 2017; available
> <https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53856e1ee4b00c6f1fc1f602/t/590b78d49de4bb6e66c97095/1493924052510/ESD+editorial+on+biomas.pdf>
> for free on his website). I wonder what you all think. It is addressed only
> to the current Indian situation.
>
> The title acknowledges that the "solid fuel cooking problem" is to be
> solved by both gas and biomass, often a "solid fuel". (Apart from
> coal-fired electricity, which too has eliminated a lot of solid fuel or
> kerosene requirements in cooking and heating water/space.)
>
> He says, "Although there are far better biomass cookstoves than in the
> past, they have not progressed to the point that they are equivalent to gas
> in terms of reliability, flexibility, durability, efficiency, and
> cleanliness." Still,
>
>
>
> "It is not enough just to have a cleaner cooking technology sitting in the shop,
> what is needed is to find an effective way to promote and provide these
> clean and efficient products to the 25 million households who will still
> need them in 2025. The biomass stove industry is going to have to think
> well beyond the technology itself, to how to disseminate at the scale
> needed and promote consistent usage over time and reduce use of traditional
> methods. In the places needed. To the women who need it."
>
>
> Seems like this is his second epiphany, after the first in 2012 that young
> women in India were immediately taken in by a new woodstove that "Cooks
> Like Gas!" And this is also his second challenge to the biomass stove
> community. Back in November 2014, announcing the WHO Guidelines for Solid
> Fuel Use in Households, he had written,
>
>
>
> "Beginning this week, for the first time in human history,* it will no
> longer be possible to claim a stove is truly "improved" or "clean"*
> without reference to *authoritative global set of health-based guidelines*.... Notably,
> this document formalizes what was only stated conceptually in the 2005
> AQGs, which is that the guidelines should apply in every *non-occupational
> micro-environment where people spend significant time *-- indoor or
> outdoor. ... The document also addresses chimney stoves as well as having
> sections on coal and kerosene as household fuels -- discouraging both
> because of apparent extra toxicities...
>
>
>
> . *The** quantitative recommendations will
> be a challenge to the biomass stove community in that, in keeping
> with the health evidence, truly low emission rates of unvented stoves will
> be needed to protect health adequately.  We firmly hope that the ongoing
> process of creating stove standards under the ISO process will adopt these
> recommendations, as was agreed previously..  I might add in this context,
> that newer evidence since 2005 on the health effects of combustion air
> pollution, as for example found in the latest Global Burden of Disease
> estimates, would indicate that when the next revision of the AQGs is done
> (as now planned), the limits will become even
> lower.  The stove community thus should probably therefore consider what
> this document recommends as likely to tighten further over time."*
>
>
>
> (Emphasis added. Presumably, occupational exposure of children in Indian
> commercial kitchens and
>
>
>
> I for one don't believe that the WHO "Guidelines" and Emission Target
> Rates for Tier 4 are "health-based" - a fake "health metric" generated
> precisely so as to threaten non-existent regulatory control "likely to
> tighten" further. They are not "authoritative global set" nor based on
> "newer evidence" -- just model estimates based on unverifiable or easily
> refutable assumptions and spurious data.
>
> Leave my quibbling aside. His new "performance metrics" of "reliability,
> flexibility, durability" are a leap beyond the faith of TC 285 (that
> voluntary standards will flood the market with better biomass stoves). His
> challenge - "how to disseminate at the scale needed" reflects a lesson from
> India: the Indian Advanced Biomass Stoves project went "Up in Smoke"
> <http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/smoke-india-perfect-cookstove> -
> the fire may be relit - and the fracking revolution changed the oil and gas
> industry, handing over Modi a chance to rekindle his predecessor's LPG
> promotion scheme (which had little to do with avoiding DALYs).
>
> Only time will tell how many Indians' premature deaths are avoided - by
> 2025, compared to say 2015 - by some $100 billion cumulative subsidy over
> the lifetimes of the future dead. (The total number of deaths in India will
> rise because of aging, and separating HAP from other air pollution
> exposures and diseases they contribute to will require even more heroic
> assumptions). But millions of users seem to want to use gas and
> electricity?
>
>
>
> This new challenge is both appropriate and necessary -- how is that "last
> mile" or "last 100 mile" user population going to be reached where it is
> too difficult for oil companies and electricity companies to reach?
>
> If biomass stoves can deliver good enough reliability, flexibility, and
> durability - not "like gas" necessarily -  for the "right markets", they
> will not be "siting in the shop". Time to rethink the problem and the
> solution. (It's the economy and versatility, not thermodynamics.)
>
> Just aim to produce contextually appropriate, usable, marketable stoves
> with minds planted firmly in those contexts, not Switzerland. It doesn't
> matter what high priests in Swiss mountains (WHO, ISO, GSF) say and do.
>
>
>
> Nikhil
>
>
>
> ------------------------
>
> Why both gas and biomass are needed today to address the solid fuel
> cooking problem in India: A challenge to the biomass stove community
>
>
>
> Kirk R. Smith
> <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0973082617304635>
>
>
>
> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2017.04.001
>
>
>
> Before 150 years ago, the entire world used solid fuels for cooking,
> biomass and coal. Now more than 60 percent use gas and/or electricity –
> fuels that are basically clean at use. This is serious progress in terms of
> air pollution and health impacts, even if there are close to 3 billion
> people who have not yet been able to change.
>
>
>
> Although there are far better biomass cookstoves than in the past, they
> have not progressed to the point that they are equivalent to gas in terms
> of reliability, flexibility, durability, efficiency, and cleanliness.
> Confirmatory evidence is that few, if any, women who have the option will
> change from gas to biomass, but many tens of millions do the reverse every
> year when given the chance. New biomass stoves are still coming, however,
> and we can hope that some will perform well enough over time in village
> households to be true competitors.
>
>
>
> Cost and accessibility of gas fuels is still a barrier, and has led to a
> slower growth of gas than might have occurred with active policies to
> expand both access and supply to the poor. In India, for example, although
> growing at about 6 percent a year, LPG (liquefied petroleum gas)/PNG (piped
> natural gas) grew only fast enough to cover growth in the middle class.
> About 700 million of the poor were stuck in the *chulha* (open cookstove)
> trap for 25 years at least. Until recently, there were no special programs
> or efforts to accelerate growth in this population.
>
>
>
> Starting in 2015, the GOI and OMCs (Government of India and the 3 oil
> marketing companies that market LPG) embarked on three major programs to
> actively promote LPG to the poor – each pioneering, aggressive, and relying
> heavily on both sophisticated social marketing and what is summarized in
> India as “JAM” (electronic bank accounts, biometric ID cards, and mobile
> phones). The first program, Pahal, shifted to paying subsidy fuel payments
> into people’s bank accounts and thus all LPG is now sold at international
> rates in the market, greatly reducing diversion of LPG to the non-household
> sector. The second, “Give it Up,” persuaded middle-class households to give
> up their subsidies to connect the poor. The third, Ujjwala, underway now,
> will provide connections to a total of 50 million poor households by 2019
> and has reached 20 million already by April 2017.
>
>
>
> In addition, although starting from a small base, PNG connections have
> been growing at more than 11% annually with a goal of 20 million by early
> next decade. Each of these frees up LPG to be moved to rural areas and
> reduces the LPG import burden.
>
>
>
> The result is a remarkable increase in the historically modest expansion
> of clean fuel connections. The country expects to cover more than 90% of
> all households early next decade, although the official target is currently
> 80 percent by 2019. This at least doubles the historical rate of growth in
> clean cookfuel.
>
>
>
> What is the cost of the LPG program in India? Not so easy to say because
> in 2015 the program first greatly cut the inherent waste (“leakage”) in the
> past subsidy system, saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year that was
> going to restaurants, etc instead of households, although difficult to
> estimate because of changes in world petroleum prices that were occurring
> as well. In addition, it persuaded, to date, some 13 million middle-class
> households to give up their subsidy that was shifted to poor households,
> something like a $1.5 billion zero-sum internal “foreign aid” program over
> 10 years from the well-to-do to the poor. Much of the additional funding
> came from the CSR (corporate social responsibility) funds required to be
> spent by corporations by recent changes in Indian tax laws. The GOI has
> committed $1.2 billion today to the current program through 2019, but this
> is less than the other major inputs and probably results in a net savings
> to the taxpayer from the situation before 2014. It was a brilliant idea to
> treat the old LPG subsidy as an asset, if shifted and targeted well, rather
> than a liability and embarrassment as most of us had thought.
>
>
>
> I might note that none of this came from the health or environment
> sectors, which nevertheless will be benefiting. Nor has it affected the
> budget of the renewable energy ministry, which still runs the biomass stove
> and biogas programs.
>
>
>
> As we all know, whenever a new technology of any sort is adopted, it
> rarely displaces the old instantly. High usage is still needed as well as
> reduction in use of the old polluting technology for full benefits to be
> obtained. As LPG seems nearly universally aspirational in India and the
> GOI/OMC programs have found a way to provide access to hundreds of millions
> of people, *my and others research agendas now focus on ways to enhance
> usage – to shorten the “stacking” period in stove parlance, i.e. to
> substantially reduce the use of biomass a*s well. This is typical for
> health interventions – not enough just to deliver condoms, bednets,
> latrines, etc. – ways are needed to incentivize people to use them and to
> stop the unhealthy traditional practices.
>
>
>
> 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. By itself, this population would be the eighth
> largest country in the world, and this is just in India. There is a huge
> opportunity to provide cleaner and more efficient stoves to these people
> who are not going to be able to afford or have access to gas in the next
> 15 years. As well as those in other countries. Divide the market into its
> appropriate segments and plan accordingly.
>
> One of the lessons of the LPG experience in India, however, has not yet
> been fully taken onboard by the biomass stove community – the implications
> of scale. With 18,000 local distributors, each with 30-40 employees
> operating house to house, and plans to hire 10,000 more distributors
> underway, the LPG industry will soon have an army of a half million
> outside of cities to wield in promoting and servicing its product
> locally. And a well-functioning infrastructure from port to household to keep
> it going. And a high degree of quality control and transparency (national
> website with every LPG customer) and moving toward near universal cashless
> transactions via JAM. This is substantial job creation and contribution to
>  the national economic agenda.
>
> LPG is a unique fossil fuel. No one looks or drills for it, but it comes
> as a byproduct these days nearly all from natural gas development. With
> great expansion of natural gas from shale gas (“fracking”), there is
> suddenly a surfeit of LPG globally – the USA itself has gone in three
> years from a net importer to the largest exporter in history. Thus, it
> could be argued that LPG is found anyway will be used somewhere no matter
> what – autos, petrochemicals, or being flared are the main other uses
> besides households. Why not divert as much as possible to its highest
> social value use, cooking for the poor? In any case, all projections
> indicate a large LPG/PNG supply for decades ahead although, of course,
> projections in this industry have sometimes gone astray.
>
> Thus, I end by posing to the biomass stove community the same challenge posed
> once to the Indian LPG community. It is not enough just to have a cleaner
> cooking technology sitting in the shop, what is needed is to find an
> effective way to promote and provide these clean and efficient products to
>  the 25 million households who will still need them in 2025. The biomass
> stove industry is going to have to think well beyond the technology
> itself, to how to disseminate at the scale needed and promote consistent
> usage over time and reduce use of traditional methods. In the places
> needed. To the women who need it.
>
> *Kirk** R Smith* is professor of global environmental health at the University
> of California Berkeley and a principal of the Collaborative Centre for
> Air Pollution Policy in New Delhi. He has worked with advanced biomass stoves
> in India and elsewhere since the 1980s and now focuses his research on
> ways to enhance usage of clean fuels such as LPG.
>
>
>
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