[Stoves] Stove Conf in Poland this month

Fri May 5 11:16:17 CDT 2017

Dear Nikhil

I have had a little time to check on some things. I agree with your perspectives:

>"Clean energy" is a deliberate betrayal of poor people.

Agreed because 'clean energy' is based on the concept of 'clean fuel' which is a misnomer - only combustion systems with fuel can be judged to be clean.

>I am serious. "Global Environment" became the dominant narrative, not "Development".

Agreed but in fairness the funding (as per Copenhagen Agreement) was to pay for development, with all identified needs somehow argued to be 'climate reparations' or 'adaptation' in one way or another. Improved stoves definitely felling easily into both. Improved fuels, well that is a harder sell because processing fuels is often not net energy positive (saving).

>The lords of the theory class - Nick Stern, R K Pachauri, et al. - liked baking their breads on the fires of poor people's homes.

The moneyed classes have done very well. Those who already had funding got more.

>...that LPG must continue to be taxed because it is a fossil fuel.

Grinning....LPG is a clean fossil fuel, right? And therefore it should be subsidized to the content of the LPG associations. We have identified with Cecil's help applications where TLUD pellet stoves can displace both wood and LPG, particularly for heating water (not boiling it). Not too surprisingly, a lot of people heat water in order to have....hot water!

>In order to save the Bangladeshis from sea level rise in 2100, Africans today must die of the drudgery of renewable biomass; premature deaths from smoke extra.

Bangladesh deltas, like the meandering rivers in northern Botswana, are rising, not subsiding. The reason is similar to the rise of the Pacific Islands: the importing of material that deposits continuously on the existing land.

The stove community in Africa suffers from two main impediments: the over-reliance on the WBT as a way of developing and evaluating stoves, and the near fanatical devotion to making char, as if Africa needs char-making stoves to save itself. As one brand of missionaries leaves Africa, another arrives to tell people when they do and do not sin.

>There IS a class war against the energy poor.

And it takes different forms. I am going to point to the upcoming conference in Poland that will discuss coal-fired space heating stoves. This is an initiative by a government that admits there are coal burning homes, that they will continue to do so, and that we should do something about trying to improve their performance. They will also discuss wood burning stoves that heat and cook (as if coal stoves are not used for cooking).

This is an imposition of reality into a rather ethereal space where fad-du-jour dominates.

Back to topic:

>In turn, I think that is based on a 2001-2 paper by Kirk Smith and Sumi Mehta, with additional assumptions about Ventilation Factors, exposures, and if I am not mistaken, dose-response curves.

I recall that it did indeed have dose-response curves. The claim was, for another ten years, the unless emission from cooking stoves were brought down 90% significant health benefits were not going to be realised. When stoves that clean were produced, (Mongolia for example) the number was raised to 95%. When that was achieved there was un-rooted gloom about solid fuels and (really expensive and impractical) "clean fuels".

What is going on? It is obviously not only about exposure and health, it is 'selling something'. It suspect it is LPG.

>Just as biomass energy "resource gap" or deforestation data were cooked up.

Now there are health impacts being cooked up. Not much changes, eh?

>All of which grew into the GBD and BAMG song and dance. Assumption-philia, but not a war against the energy poor.  (The State of Global Air report a few weeks ago says that IHME and WHO databases are different, but when it comes to household fuel combustion, that is most likely a difference in name with no distinction.)

Assumptions often trade at par for real dollars these days. Take for example this<http://ehsdiv.sph.berkeley.edu/krsmith/Presentations/2016/SRU%20Oct%2016%20used.pdf> article titled "Environmental Health in India: What are the Issues and what is India doing about it?" It could just as well be "Environmental Health in India: What are the Assumptions and what is India doing about it?"

I will end with the point that getting all a stove's emissions into a chimney dramatically reduces personal exposure, and if that home is located in a clean air environment, the outdoor air pollution is virtually nil. If the combustion is cleaned up as well, it becomes obvious that vented stoves are the future for a whole group of reasons.

LPG, like kerosene, is often burned in unvented stoves. Maybe that is not better after all, certainly not without checking first. In a recent presentation on ethanol stove standards to a national standards committee I was at pains to cite tests of ethanol stoves that showed high (and variable) emissions of CO under conditions as 'diverse' as changing the pot size. Changing the power level can increase CO 10-fold. Prof Lloyd can comment on the VOC's.  The committee were under the impression ethanol was 'a clean fuel' because it look pretty clean and that is how it is advertised.

It is 'clean' in a stove that has been tested for VOC's and CO. Until then, it is just another fuel.

Regards

Crispin

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