[Stoves] "Char-MAKING stoves" Re: Stove Conf in Poland this month

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Paul

Thanks for what I consider to be a comprehensive reply.

1)  Bet #1.      LPG

LPG has big money behind it and is riding on government subsidies. LPG pricing is not related to cost of production, it is related to its energy value based on the price of oil. When oil goes up, as it did in 2008, LPG suddenly disappears from the market (an artificial shortage) and reappears a couple of months later at a higher price that happens to match the energy value of oil. In short I am saying there is a Trust in the classic sense.

When the price of oil goes down, the LPG price does not drop to match it as 'its value is established in the market'. By squeezing the market in this way, selling 'clean cooking', the pressure is on governments to subsidise LPG to those who cannot afford the 'established market value'.

This price is bolstered by two additional arguments: that solid fuels (all of them) are 'dirty and cannot be burned cleanly enough to provide significant health benefits/gains' - what I call the Kirk Smith argument - and that the 'health benefits' are immediate and real.  The latter is based on pretend-arguments about exposure to stove smoke. That is in turn based on several false claims which are the target of several contributors to this list.

The claim that solid fuels cannot be burned cleanly is fatuous. Obviously they can, if the conduction system is right. Arguing that the combustion system is not right is a very different thing from claiming, as the GACC does at the end of each piece of correspondence, that solid fuels are only permissible as an interim measure until 'clean fuels' are available (even if they are unaffordable). Having shown that solid fuels can be burned cleanly (for simplicity, you with wood, me with coal) the objections are that burning these solid fuels produces all sorts of toxins.

Nikhil is pointing out that there is a big difference between something toxic (like LPG, the chemical in lithium batteries or PM2.5) and exposure to those things. The principal purpose of the Berkeley Air Monitoring Group (BAMG) and the WHO exposure model they created is to claim via computer modeling that people are statistically exposed to emissions even if they are not in reality, and to make a mountain out of a statistical molehill saying that solid fuels can't provide 'health'.

Clearly this has nothing to do with the real world. This is 'positioning' in order to sell something, apparently large quantities of LPG.

Way Forward:

We have to provide clean burning cooking and heating stoves that reduce exposure to near-zero. I think that is possible as several have demonstrated. We should work with those who care the most about improving people's lives as they currently suffer through them. That is what has made working on the Mongolian and Kyrgyz stove programmes such fun.

Disingenuous arguments about how chimney stoves are estimated to leak 50% of their emission into a standard room with instantaneous and homogeneous PM distribution can be ignored unless they show up in an ISO standard, in which case they should be demolished in the Journals as unscientific mutterings.

I hope others will answer some of the remaining points you raise.

Regards
Crispin

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