[Stoves] Stoves and credits again

[Nikhil Desai]

Crispin:

The political strategy is this - keep advocates of solid fuel stoves
arguing over definitions and protocols for efficiency. Hit them on the head
with "aspirational targets" for PM 2.5 emission rates to make solid fuel
stoves that are too expensive and to beg for subsidies on a competitive
basis.

And in the meantime, advocate more subsidies for LPG and put down solid
fuel advocates as a quaint incompetent group of nuisance makers who cannot
produce and market "truly health protective" biomass stoves.

Do I need a different pair of glasses or what? This is what Kirk Smith has
been saying for the last three years.

Conceptual errors stare in the eye for anybody who can see - in testing
protocols or metrics or proclaimed "health benefits". But if you can fool
enough people long enough, there is a pot of gold in easy reach.

You ask, "But how else to raise funds?"

Ask those who rode on false premises and made false promises, even false
reporting. But they raised money.

Nikhil



On Sep 30, 2017, at 8:50 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

Dear Nikhil



A couple of pertinent responses:



>To record agreement: "A char-producing stove is not in the same category
as other stoves, so it needs its own rating system". (A failure of IWA and
TC-285).



OK. It can still be rated as a cooking stove but if it has a special
function, such as those stoves that also produce space heating hot water,
it needs additional metrics because it is dual-purpose.


>Now a question - Granted, "The IWA low power metrics of emissions per
minute per litre simmered are in a different class." Why does it matter
that "there is no connection between the water mass simmered and the fuel
consumed or the emissions from that fire"?



Because as Jiddu pointed out here, it takes a useful number (arguably)
which is the mass of PM emitted during a portion of the test and divides it
by a random number. That is conceptually invalid, no matter what happens
with the number afterwards. Any test method which allows random, deliberate
or accidental cheating must be corrected or dropped.



>Emissions stand on their own, for the task  under consideration, with the
given fuel and environmental conditions (wind, ambient temperature,
humidity, etc.)



Sure, if expressed in a valid manner. You can’t divide by 3 because it is
Tuesday and 4 if it is Wednesday.



>The fundamental weakness is in linking such emissions - on an hourly
average computation leading on to annual average, which is what WHO
guideline for IAQ is (perhaps a daily max, I forget) - to health.



That is a separate conceptual error, and separately invalidates the
conclusions inferred.



>There is not an iota of "first principles" or medical evidence of
causality between household solid fuels emission rates and, say,
non-communicable diseases.

We know that. But how else to raise funds?


>The latest "study" is

How indoor air pollution is leading to stunted growth in India’s children
<http://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/how-indoor-air-pollution-is-leading-to-stunted-growth-in-india-s-children/story-2LrX34JQjgMJvzMLptkSrJ.html?platform=hootsuite>
*- *India has 61 million stunted children and there is evidence that
exposure to indoor air pollution from burning solid fuels increases the
probability of stunting among children. Anca Bailetti and Prateek Mittal,
Hindustan Times 18 September 2017.



Good luck supporting that claim! Wow.  How do they know it wasn’t cause by
eating more food? Or less?



Crispin
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