[Stoves] Radical ideas from Paul and Philip {re: stoves and credits again}

[Cookswell Jikos]

Cookstoves in the Kenyan news. An interesting article from Caroline
Toroitich (cc'd in above).


Modern stove in the kitchen our saviour
''By CAROLINE TOROITICH

Of the issues informing global geopolitics and commerce, climate change and
the dilemma of biofuels have a special place.

But we tend to forget the device we use to cook and heat.

Only 6 per cent of Kenya’s nine million households can afford electric or
LPG cookers. The rest depend on biomass-combusting jikos.

These are the common jikos or hearths that mainly use firewood or charcoal
and are mostly highly inefficient in combustion and heat preservation.

HOUSEHOLD POLLUTION

Household air pollution, the World Health Organisation says, causes more
than 15,000 deaths and an equal number of respiratory health complications
yearly in Kenya, with women and children bearing the brunt.

Sadly, we hardly notice this phantom because that has been our lifestyle
and the impact may not be immediate yet millions of people suffer silently.

Besides, inefficient stoves are wood guzzlers — meaning with an
ever-growing population, depletion of the environment is higher.

Kenya loses 7,000 acres of woodland to cooking; we are not out of the woods
yet (literally).

ROBUST POLICIES

Use of environment-friendly improved stoves that use less fuel and have
minimal emissions can only be achieved in a streamlined setting with robust
policies including strict standardisations and consumer awareness.

That can be achieved by adopting the 2013 Improved Biomass Stoves
regulations.

The urgency of innovation and uptake of clean stoves in Kenya cannot be
gainsaid in the wake of an imminent environmental Armageddon.

Kenya needs to take regional leadership in this sector. In the 1980s, the
country developed the Kenya Ceramic Jiko — since adopted in countries such
as Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. But, three decades down the line, we have
not improved our technology.

MULTI-BILLION SECTOR

Thirty years in purgatory is a long time in research. Countries that are
passionately engaged in research and innovation on stoves are exporting to
us.

Cooking is a multibillion-shilling sector that is easily ignored. Yet every
day we have to cook and heat.

Were our research and development robust, we would have a vibrant industry
exporting stoves, employing our youth and saving the environment and our
health.

Luckily, the civil society is leading a charm offensive in ensuring that a
new regime of clean improved stoves becomes a reality in Kenya.

STANDARDISATION

Standardisation will help to control entry and production of counterfeits
and sub-standard jikos not only inefficient in combustion but deadly. Kenya
Bureau of Standards has its work cut out for it.

In all fairness, Kenya has an improved stove standard — KS1814: 2005 — that
gives guidelines on safety, efficiency and durability. But it failed to
recognise the genie of emission that lurks dangerously in millions of
households.

It’s commendable that, last year, the State waived duty on imported jikos.
This is good but there is a challenge: The waiver is per consignment,
requires the minister’s approval and tax reimbursement is cumbersome.

This frustrates business. Also last year, the government cut import duty on
stoves from 25 per cent to 10 per cent under the East Africa Community
Common Market Protocol.

EMPOWER ARTISANS

Kenya now needs to go the whole hog and zero-rate stoves.

Importantly, we need to empower our artisans and manufacturers with the
skills to produce stoves for domestic use and for export.

With 70 per cent of our energy demands biomass against a wood deficit of 10
million tonnes, set to hit 15 million tonnes by 2030, we are headed for an
energy crisis.

We also need more effort towards alternative fuels, which can easily be
developed from biomass waste — such as biomass pellets and briquettes.



*Cookswell Jikos*
www.cookswell.co.ke
www.facebook.com/CookswellJikos
www.kenyacharcoal.blogspot.com
Mobile: +254 700 380 009
Mobile: +254 700 905 913
P.O. Box 1433, Nairobi 00606, Kenya

Save trees - think twice before printing.






On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 8:24 PM, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Paul:
>
> @ Philip's calculations: I am not used to kJ calculations, so this is how
> I understand: (100-15) refers to raising the water temperature from 15C to
> 100C and 4.186 is the conversion factor kJ/kCal. Wood LHVs are contextual
> and I imagine so too charcoal LHV, depending on the input and operating
> conditions. am not sure about his Case 2; a little confusing.
>
> Anyway, Philip is introducing the concept of "system efficiency". This is
> radically different from "stove efficiency" whose computations there seem
> to be allocating different inputs to different outputs.
>
> And you wrote of "FUEL efficiency measured by communities, not by single
> stoves."
>
> Together, you two seem to suggest that whatever the lab tests and ISO TC
> 285 ratings, project design must be informed by appropriate contexts of
> fuel availability and relative costs, and a collective measure of "before"
> and "after" service requirements and community-level performance.
>
> I may add that "communities" also include users of wood and charcoal other
> than household stoves.
>
> It is ridiculous under CDM rules to have to destroy "old" cookstoves, or
> under Kirk Smith's rule to not permit "stacking". Projects with large
> enough % of users in a particular context, finding new cookstoves
> acceptable, cleaner, and usable enough to do many or most of the tasks from
> "old" cookstoves, are likely to yield measurable benefits promised. (Except
> climate benefits and aDALYs which are fictional.)
>
> Boiling water for coffee this morning as the weather is turning cooler
> around here, I realized that even boiling water is a multi-purpose
> activity, the steam warming up the kitchen. A cookstove will often be used
> for multiple products and "single stove" efficiency ratings for just
> boiling water have no practical counterpart. Or meaningful application.
>
> But we are on to the search for savior stoves. Let's pray.
>
> Nikhil
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Nikhil Desai
> (US +1) 202 568 5831 <(202)%20568-5831>
> *Skype: nikhildesai888*
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 8:41 AM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Philip
>>
>> I suspect something is not correct,
>>
>> 1.  In your example, the 0.395 kg wood contains 5930 kJ of total energy.
>> 2.  You calculate that the char produced would contain3163 kJ.   That
>> would be 53.3% of the total energy is maintained in the char.
>> 3.  Later you write that "the efficiency of char production would have
>> been ... 36.4%.
>>
>> I leave it for you and others check this out.
>>
>> 3.  At the end you say
>>
>> this would have been statistically indistinguishable from the efficiency
>> with no char production – i.e. it would have shown no benefit to char
>> production.
>>
>> That statement could also be written "it would have shown no benefit to
>> cooking the regular, full-combustion way, without char production."
>>
>
>
>> And since produced char can be stored for later use, is essentially
>> smokeless cooking for ventilated "indoor" cooking, and can be used for
>> other purposes, cooking with char-producing stoves could be viewed as
>> having some benefits.
>>
>> I respect those of you who are good number crunchers and know the
>> formulae.   Please comment on the above.   I am here to learn.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>> Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
>> Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu
>> Skype:   paultlud    Phone: +1-309-452-7072 <(309)%20452-7072>
>> Website:  www.drtlud.com
>>
>> On 9/25/2017 4:29 AM, Philip Lloyd wrote:
>>
>> I carried out a thought experiment.
>>
>>
>>
>> In case 1, a cookstove burning wood boiled 5 litres of water at an energy
>> efficiency of 30%.  The useful energy provided was 5*4.186*(100-15) =
>> 1779kJ. This required 5*4.186*(100-15)/0.3 = 5930kJ.  If the as-fired wood
>> had a LHV of 15MJ/kg, it would have needed 5930/15000 = 0.395kg wood
>>
>>
>>
>> In case 2, the same stove was operated to produce charcoal while also
>> boiling 5litres of water.  More wood would be needed, because not all the
>> wood would be combusted – some would be left as char. If you fed 0.395kg
>> wood to be turned into char at 29% efficiency, and the char had an LHV of
>> 28MJ/kg, then the char would have an energy of 0.395*28000*0.29=3163kJ. The
>> wood from which it was prepared had an energy content of 5930kJ, which was
>> what was needed to boil the water in the absence of char production. So
>> 5930-3163 = 2768kJ of additional energy* would be needed to boil the water
>> if there was char production. At 15MJ/kg, this is 2768/15000 = 0.185kg
>> extra wood, or an increase of 47% in the wood supply. The total energy
>> supplied would then be 5930+2768 = 8698kJ.  The energy efficiency of
>> cooking would therefore fall to 1779/8698*100 = 20.5%, while the efficiency
>> of char production would have been 3163/8698*100 = 36.4%.  The system
>> efficiency would have been 20.5+36.4 = 56.9%
>>
>>
>>
>> If you used the WBT formula, the efficiency of boiling with char
>> production would have been 1779/(8968-3163)*100 = 32.1%.  Given the
>> measurement errors inherent in the WBT method, this would have been
>> statistically indistinguishable from the efficiency with no char production
>> – i.e. it would have shown no benefit to char production.
>>
>>
>>
>> Prof Philip Lloyd
>>
>> Energy Institute, CPUT
>>
>> PO Box 1906
>>
>> Bellville 7535
>>
>> Tel 021 959 4323
>>
>> Cell 083 441 5247
>>
>> PA Nadia 021 959 4330
>>
>>
>>
>> *This assumes that there is no endotherm in the pyrolysis of wood in the
>> presence of air, and that all the pyrolysis products except the char burn
>> to provide heat. There is evidence in the literature of no endotherm in the
>> presence of air.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
>> <stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org>] *On Behalf Of *Paul Anderson
>> *Sent:* Sunday, September 24, 2017 11:27 PM
>> *To:* Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
>> *Cc:* ndesai at alum.mit.edu; Andrew Heggie; Crispin Pemberton-Pigott
>> *Subject:* Re: [Stoves] stoves and credits again
>>
>>
>>
>> Philip, Tom and all,
>>
>> Philip is mostly correct.  Actually wood takes up (has) too much WEIGHT.
>> Wood has 3 times (or more, if the char is poorly made) the ENERGY value of
>> charcoal that could come from that char.   But it has about 5 times the DRY
>> weight of the char, plus there can be 20 to 50% moisture  content to make
>> the wood even heavier.
>>
>> And the charcoal has  almost double (30 vs. 16) the energy content by
>> weight, but char is so much lighter per unit of volume.  So the trucks are
>> buldging upward and sideways with the sacks of charcoal strapped to them.
>> Weight of charcoal is not a problem for most transport.
>>
>> Apart from the transportation issue, I believe that the appeal of
>> charcoal is that it does not smoke (not much).   CO is invisible and
>> deadly, but the people learn to cook on the balcony or keep some  air
>> flowing.  And it does not turn the bottom of the pots black.
>>
>> Charcoal is an attractive fuel.   Too bad it is made by processes that
>> throw away 2/3rds of the energy.    (So, let's promote TLUD stroves and
>> collect the char for sale to the urban folks.  Only one third of the
>> cutting of wood/forest.)
>>
>>  So, if 100,000 households (mainly in rural or peri-urban areas) would
>> use TLUDs, the resultant char would equal to the energy needed for an
>> approximately equal number of households (mainly urban) that would want to
>> burn charcoal.
>>
>> Now that would be FUEL efficiency measured by communities, not by single
>> stoves.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>> Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
>>
>> Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu
>>
>> Skype:   paultlud    Phone: +1-309-452-7072 <(309)%20452-7072>
>>
>> Website:  www.drtlud.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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