[Stoves] In praise of Michael Johnson - WHO Review of Model for linking household energy use with indoor air quality

[Nikhil Desai]

And of Rufus Edwards, Kirk Smith, Lida Morawska.

Below my review and commentary on *WHO Indoor Air Quality Guidelines:
householdFuel CombustionReview 3: Model for linking household energy use
with indoor air quality.
<http://www.who.int/indoorair/guidelines/hhfc/Review_3.pdf>*
Convening lead author: Michael Johnson, Lead authors: Rufus Edwards , Lidia
Morawska, Kirk R. Smith. Contributing author: Mark Nicas.

(No date; sometime in early 2014, I suppose because WHO came out with fully
cooked blather of HFC "guidelines" by November 2014. Not an official WHO
publication. I suspect rushed in order to push for SDG agenda in 2015.
Another instance of ideological bureaucratic incentives and crookedness?)


These modelers admit how little is known and how thin and shallow the
received wisdom is. Perhaps "the best of science" but not good enough for
ISO DIS or any pronouncements on emissions and health via aDALYs or snake
oil massage. The "box models" of emissions and concentrations do nothing
but box the gullible into their favorite confinements of security. I on the
other hand find the BAMG models a box on my ear. Both sides. I have a brain
to protect.

I remember Michael Johnson's webinar last year. Ron got upset with me, but
he should have heard Dr. Johnson's candid admission then - or read this
paper critically.

My faith in the integrity of scientific process may be returning. It is the
process, not the individuals or the substance of their model results, that
matters for credibility. Just that someone has to read instead of relying
on press releases and GACC-in gas.

------------------

In *Background*,

"A model well suited for accounting for the variety of household
environments and cooking demands in the developing world is used to provide
quantitative guidance on what emissions performance levels are required for
meeting WHO Air Quality Guidelines (AQGs)"

** This is utter nonsense. All the model does is produce concentration of
fuel pollutants, which is a portion of the total indoor air concentrations.
WHO beyond idiotic to specify AQG for just one source of pollutant --
that's like EPA setting guidelines for lawn mower PM2.5 and ignoring
vehicular PM2.5. ***

In *Conclusion*:

"Research recommendations are made for development of standardized testing
or analytical approaches which better predict emissions performance of
cookstoves in homes during normal use, in order that benchmarking of
technologies against emissions guidelines can indicate a more realistic
estimate of performance for the end user. Finally, further development of
models which can be used to link indoor air quality with emissions
performance are recommended, as well as tools for producing
location-specific emissions rate guidance. "

*** Begs the question what is meant by "better predict", and "more
realistic". That is, just how ridiculous this model is (or was in 2014) and
how utterly unrealistic its findings. This is where Kirk Smith based his
"truly health protecftive" mantra - Make Stoves Great Again! ***

Finally, in *Recommendations for future research* (the usual academic trick
of making bald claims and then covering their rear by

*8.1 Improvements in stove performance testing *

As discussed in Review 2 (Emissions pollutants), stove emissions have been
measured in highly controlled simulated cooking conditions in near
laboratory settings as well as in largely uncontrolled conditions in homes.
Although measurement of a stove’s emissions during normal use clearly
provides the most realistic estimate of performance, testing of devices in
homes is generally not as suitable for benchmarking against a performance
standard due to the inherent variability and lack of replicability of
uncontrolled test conditions. C*urrent laboratory testing protocols,
however, which are better suited for benchmarking stoves, do not generally
produce emissions performance estimates that are representative or
predictive of normal use in homes*. Efforts are needed, therefore, to
develop standardized test protocols and other analytical approaches which
are *more predictive* of field performance, and can be readily and fairly
conducted for benchmarking stove performance metrics. *Better linking *of
laboratory and real world performance through new protocols has also been
recommended in the International Workshop Agreement: Guidelines for
evaluating cookstove performance (41).

*** This is a damning charge against WBT, probably the only lab protocol
BAMG and UC-Berkeley had most experience with at the time. The BAMG stove
performance booklet for GACC also had enough complaints against WBT. There
is zero defense of WBT, given that Tami Bond has claimed that it was only a
"placeholder" in the Lima Consensus. Ergo, any claim by ARC on producing
"ISO Certificate" using WBT is baseless; it is useless and meaningless. The
question in my mind is, if "new protocols" are not given by the DIS
19867-1, only a "standard protocol" that suffers from the same limitations
as what this Review 3 pointed out, just what stagnation has been
perpetuated by GACC and ANSI? The way Donald Trump has been amusing me
here, "Drain the Swamp!" This ISO exercise is a charade of science. Nobody
had the money or the competence to guide the process in the way Kirk Smith
and BAMG have been recommending since at least 2012 (and earlier, going
back to their critique of WBT for Shell Foundation. ***

*8.2 Improvements for future modelling efforts*

8.2 Improvements for future modelling efforts Future improvements in model
inputs and approaches would assist in providing a *more robust *means for
linking household energy use with indoor air quality and exposure.
Recommended steps are outlined below:

*** Which only means that the model Johnson has discussed in this Review
3.0 is weak. How weak? Depends on the gullibility of the user (including
himself). I remember Johnson being very honest and cautious in the Winrock
webinar in September 2016. If I were to put words in his mouth, I would
say, "There's nothing here to see, folks; move, move along." ***

 Models could be improved with m*ore comprehensive and region-specific
input data. Published data on kitchen volumes, stove burn times, and
ventilation rates are relatively scarce*. To facilitate development of a
systematic and comparable database,* a set of standardized protocols for
collecting these data could also be provided*.


*** Of course, anything that doesn't pass laugh test can be "improved".
When input data are themselves based on non-existent protocols - the
problem I first saw discussed in Grant Ballard-Tremeer's PhD thesis at the
University of Witwatersrand - what is this model worth? Even zero, or,
rather, negative, considering the way it has been propagandized? There
isn't even money enough to carry on with "improvement", so why didn't some
reviewer of this Review 3.0 point out there is no there there? All I see is
a comedy of errors - nobody but Kirk Smith really knows what is going on,
and he just gets along for the sake of getting along with his clients at
EPA. ***

 Modelling IAQ from multiple emission sources would aid in understanding
the relative contributions from lighting, heating, and multiple cookstoves.


*** Which means no understanding currently exists. Remember Tami Bond's
plea for metrics for multiple uses of a stove? My question is, without this
modeling that provides "understanding", what business does Kirk Smith have
in taking the route of health fascism - "No stacking"? I guess the answer
simply is, "for being intellectually consistent". His own assumptions and
support for modeled estimates trap him. ***

 Modelling of ventilation improvements of various kinds would also be
valuable.


*** This would satisfy Crispin and Paul about assumed ventilation rates.
Basically, what the model did then was indefensible and worthless, and
Johnson et al. are rightly looking to produce something "valuable". ***

 User-friendly software platforms for predicting indoor air quality based
on location specific input data would aid in providing guidance *more
appropriate for specific locations*. Relatively simple web-based tools or
software could be developed such that users can produce distributions of
predicted PM2.5 and CO concentrations for the fraction of homes with
specific characteristics which would meet the WHO AQGs.


*** Where was or is TC-285 in developing "User-friendly software
platforms"? I am now more confident of my advice to reject the DIS 19867-1.
It is produced as a "deliverable", and after this, best ignored as another
academic junket. Crispin, Cecil, Xavier would appreciate that "appropriate
for specific locations" means "contextual", not the "standardized"
gibberish of DIS 19867-1. ***

 More studies reporting emissions performance *during normal daily stove
use from various stove/fuel combinations being used around the world would
provide a baseline and valuable context for model results and for comparing
laboratory and field results*.  Ideally these studies could be combined *with
real-world kitchen concentration data *to inform on emissions-IAP
concentration relationships and help validate future model development.
Extending these efforts to include exposure estimates would also provide *a
valuable step for understanding links with health impacts. *


*** Amen. I couldn't have put it better. All I would have been able to say
is, "Sorry, folks, I know this is worthless for any real use. But I have
PhD students and post-docs to support. We'll get there some day. "

 *Better accounting of pollutant mixing* would help address the
stratification of IAP concentrations in kitchens. *Multi-zone modelling or
incorporation of mixing factors* into the modelling approaches could be *an
important refinement to increase model accuracy*. In addition, to our
knowledge,
*there are no published studies which have sought to explicitly
characterize the fraction of emissions that vent outdoors before being
mixed throughout the kitchen.*


*** In other words, since we are academics and survive on cite-o-logy, we
are free to assume anything that we don't find a published, pal-pampered
source for, because we know that the only thing you can challenge us with
is real-life observations. To us, even a murder we witness is not real
until an expert committee has examined and published the evidence. Our
ruling ideology is to keep blinders on and help each other keep them on. We
are not accountable for model accuracy. We are free to kill people by
assumptions; we dare  you to do better after and will drown out any squeaks
you make in criticizing us. ****
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