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

Wed May 31 00:49:16 CDT 2017

Dear Karin, Verena and All

I appreciate the explanations.

I have just emerged from the Black Carbon Summit organised by the Polish Government, ICCI, CCAC and the GACC in Warsaw. One of the major outcomes was a clear picture of the change that, while mostly in the mind, has its roots in the performance of advanced stoves: there is a decoupling of emissions from fuel type.

Fuels have chemistry, and stoves have  combustion efficiencies. The former leads to ‘inherent emissions’ and the latter leads to ‘combustion emissions’. Black Carbon is not an inherent emission.

The concept of a ‘clean fuel’ is, without doubt, rooted in the assumption that combustion emissions are in fact inherent emissions. This is a conceptual error.

There was a presentation on advances in coal combustion (it was a conference on small coal and wood fire heating stoves) using state of the art in Poland. The emissions of PM2.5 (which are combustion emissions and the lofting of particles of fly ash) were reduced to 4-5 mg per cu metre (O2 normalised to 6%) by the combination of their fifth tier boilers and the addition of a 1 kW electrostatic precipitator.

Testing at the China Agriculture University by Altanzul has shown that the TJ4.0 stove (which is two models behind the current one) has emissions in approximately that same range. This was achieved without electric controls, fans or stack cleaning. In short, there is no meaningful relationship between the fuel type (wood, as demonstrated by the Austrians and by the Masonry Heaters in the US or coal as demonstrated in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan this winter) and PM emissions. In the case of the Austrian and Americans, the standard (20mg) was met without electronic controls or stack cleaning.

Thus the concept incorporated in the thesis of the paper of ‘people moving to clean fuels’ is mistaken. They already use ‘fuels’ which if burned properly, produce very clean results, as much as 75% below the highest EU standard for air quality.

I agree that there is a war on solid fuels but as we heard in Warsaw, this is not limited to solid fuels only. For about 18 years now there has also been a war on paraffin (kerosene) waged on the basis that ‘it is burned badly in lighting appliances in India’ as if that somehow defined properties of the fuel.

Believe me, kerosene is still on the hit list of the WHO. It is classified as a ‘dirty fuel’ in spite of being the most widely used energy carrier for modern aviation. Ultra-low emissions kerosene appliances like aircraft, FLOX burners and stoves are ignored while 19th century wick lamps are held up not to illuminate the subject, but to cloud the issue.

I realise it is very fashionable in some circles to promote subsidised LPG. It would be far more effective far sooner and far cheaper in the long run to promote cleaning burning appliances than to subsidise LPG for the next few decades through its expensive, regulation-ensconced and inevitably long supply chain.

If we want transformation at scale, it is far easier to move a stove for a day than fuel for a lifetime.
Crispin

Dear Karin
Thanks for the exchange.
The gasifier solution is a true option and very promising. Even wood burning stoves are progressing, e.g. Rocket works stoves et al. I would love to see us not excluding solutions and always thinking in alternative options to choose from.
I would love to see who/paho also opening eyes for those alternatives.

However
I also hope you can disclose the funding background of the study /publication.

Thank you
Verena

Von meinem Windows Phone gesendet
________________________________
Von: Karin Troncoso<mailto:karintroncoso at gmail.com>
Gesendet: ‎26.‎05.‎2017 16:55
An: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Betreff: Re: [Stoves] Another attack on solid fuels by public health Stoves Digest, Vol 81, Issue 19
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<mailto:pienergy2008 at gmail.com>>
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
        <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>>
Subject: [Stoves] Another attack on solid fuels by public health
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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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