[Stoves] Another attack on solid fuels by public health Stoves Digest, Vol 81, Issue 19

Fri May 26 09:53:55 CDT 2017

Dear list and Nikhil

I am glad that my paper reached your attention, I was planning to share it
with the list anyway.

The purpose of the paper was to do an exploratory analysis of the effects
of LPG subsidies in LAC on reducing the use of solid fuels.

Nikhil said that the paper does not mention LPG prices or subsidies. This
is not true. It says:

“Subsidies vary significantly between countries. For example, in 2013 the
cost per kg of LPG with subsidy was USD$0.65 in the Dominican Republic,
USD$0.6 in Brazil, USD $0.44 in El Salvador, USD$0.33 in Bolivia, USD$0.13
in Ecuador and USD$0.07 in Venezuela (OLADE, 2012; Kojima, 2013b).” The
idea was to compare level of subsidies between those countries and
therefore we use the same unit (kg).

We did not mention firewood prices, as they vary a lot even in a given
country, and precisely in the paper we acknowledge that firewood usually is
cheap or even free in LAC. With the exception of some urban cities, LPG
would never compete with firewood prices, unless there is a big subsidy.

Nikhil is right, we give an example without mentioning the size of the
cylinder or the amount of firewood bought. We wrote: “Kojima’s studies on
the response of users to relative prices indicate that firewood prices
would need to increase considerably before a household would consider
replacing firewood for LPG for economic reasons. In Mexico for instance, a
study performed by the authors (to be published) in two rural communities
of Chiapas in February 2017, showed that 59% of the households already pay
in average 370 pesos (US$ 20) per month to buy firewood. The cost of a LPG
cylinder is 300 pesos (USD 16) and people that use LPG exclusively in these
communities buy a cylinder every three or four weeks. When asked why not
they use LPG to cook all their meals, 96% said because they cannot afford
it. When asked if they will use it if the cost of the cylinder was 50
pesos, 82% said they would use it, but 14% said maybe and 4% said no,
because there are other considerations besides the price, as for example,
the difficulty to make tortillas with a regular LPG stove.” The reason we
did not have the need to give that information was again, because what we
wanted to show was that many households are already spending almost the
same amount of money per month in firewood that what they would need for
LPG. The example was intended to show that reasons behind firewood use are
more complex than just the assumption that because you already spend money
buying firewood you are going to switch to LPG. It is a good example that
to take something from a paper completely out of context can be misleading.

We mentioned India with the only purpose of showing the efforts of some
countries to modify universal subsidies that are very difficult to reform:

“Many countries are seeking strategies to reform universal subsidies to
better target the poorest population, as is the case of El Salvador. In
India, a national program called "give it up" is asking middle class
members to give up their LPG subsidy (US$ 30-40), which will be transferred
to a poor family. 30,000 people each month are donating their subsidy,
representing a shift of US$ 1 trillion to the poor (The Economic Times,
2016).” It is completely irrelevant for the paper. Again, why do you center
your attack to the paper in examples that have nothing to do with the main
line of research? That it is: subsidies seem to have helped switching to
LPG the solid fuel users in urban areas in Bolivia and El Salvador and
almost everybody in Ecuador and Venezuela. Targeted subsidies may be an
option to increase access to clean fuels by 2030.

Finally, we do not represent public health and promoting clean fuels when
possible is not a war against solid fuels. It is my aspiration that one day
everybody has access to clean fuels for all their needs, and this may
require switching to electricity, biogas and other clean fuels (clean from
the point of view of health). It may require the development of new
technologies that may use solid fuels. Helping poor people to have access
to LPG or electricity with a subsidy may be part of the solution.

Karin Troncoso

>
>
>
> Message: 13
> Date: Sat, 20 May 2017 09:52:49 +0530
> From: Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com>
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
>         <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: [Stoves] Another attack on solid fuels by public health
>         adventurers
> Message-ID:
>         <CAK27e=nkuo7S1Y_0Og0=c==xeO=6c6mL7V4nzNtb12jA94WAJg at mail.
> gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Available for free for a few days more. LPG fuel subsidies in Latin America
> and the use of solid fuels to cook
> <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421517302719>,
> Karin
> Troncoso, forthcoming in Energy Policy Volume 107, August 2017, Pages
> 188?196
>
> "This study analyzes the relation between fuel subsidies to LPG and solid
> fuel use."
>
> Without mentioning LPG price or a subsidy. Where the price of a cylinder is
> mentioned, the size of the cylinder is not mentioned. And when expenditure
> on fuelwood is mentioned, the volume/weight of the purchase is not
> mentioned.
>
> It's cite-o-logy galore, peppering platitudes by throwing in some names and
> dates at the end, as if that shows any proof of validity of the assertion.
>
> Any purpose to this?
>
> Simple. The Quixotic war against solid fuels.
>
> Public health (profession) can be a risk factor for solid fuel use.
>
> Take this sentence "India opted for a voluntary program called ?give it up?
> that asks middle class LPG consumers to give up their LPG fuel subsidy
> (US$16 per year), which is transferred to a poor family. As of April 2016,
> 10 million people had adhered to the program (The Economic Times, 2016
> <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421517302719#bib41>
> )."
>
> What utter baloney to say "10 million people had adhered to the program".
> GiveItUp and alleged transfer of the subsidy to a poor family is a gimmick.
> Most of those "given up" subsidies were fictitious or not utilized in the
> first place, but our Modi government is as good at cooking up numbers as
> WHO and if $16 a year or less than one US penny a day per capita is the
>  LPG price subsidy in India, there are a few billion dollars somewhere in
> the gutters of Indian cities.
>
> Lesson: Skip the whole paper. I am collecting gratitude at the rate of
> $1.90 per capita per day.
>
> DOES ANY BODY CARE
>
> Nikhil
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Nikhil Desai
> (India +91) 909 995 2080
> Skype: nikhildesai888
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