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

Fri May 26 10:59:11 CDT 2017

Hi Karin

I was a bit curious why in your acknowledgements there was no donor mentioned. Can you share with us who funded the study?

thanks

Roger Samson
Executive Director
REAP-Canada

--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 5/26/17, Karin Troncoso <karintroncoso at gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Stoves] Another attack on solid fuels by public health Stoves Digest, Vol 81, Issue 19
 To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
 Received: Friday, May 26, 2017, 10:53 AM

 Dear list and
 NikhilI 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

 Subject: [Stoves] Another attack on solid fuels by public
 health

         adventurers

 Message-ID:

         <CAK27e=nkuo7S1Y_0Og0=c==xeO=6
 c6mL7V4nzNtb12jA94WAJg 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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