[Stoves] stoves and credits again

[Nikhil Desai]

Andrew:

I have heard CDM rules are changing, and I have recently downloaded new
Gold Standard Foundation documents on cookstoves for CO2 reduction but have
not read them. So, some tentative answers based on my recollection of old
or current rules:

a) "My original wish when starting this thread was to understand how carbon
credits might be paid to a stoves user. So the fact that charcoal for
cooking is higher in the hierarchy of desirable fuels for cooking or it's
logistics aren't relevant."

*** The idea behind aggregating individual stove users in a project, or at
the national level in a PoA (Programme of Action) aggregating such
projects, is that the credits do accrue to the stove user but that the
intermediary is paid, upon the agreement of the user, with the idea that
the intermediaries' costs are "transaction costs" or "delivery costs". For
the project developer or stove supplier, this stream of revenue may help
reduce the sales price of the stove to the user, so the user is the
ultimate beneficiary; stoves don't grow in the yard like wood does and the
user won't qualify for the carbon credit if he grew his fuel in the yard.
Buother intermediaries who do the Monitoring and Certification can be
high-cost parasites (sorry for my cynicism). Buyers of Emission Reduction
Credits don't pay to these "middlemen" which may also include brokers if
the ERCs are traded in a market. (This is why Goldman Sachs got interested
in cap-an-trade and even stoves, as also C-Quest Capital.)

I don't think charcoal stove projects qualify under CDM. They don't under
new Gold Standard rules. ***

b)  "when I asked if the stove user was also likely to be a grower I was
mostly asking about whether they were likely to cultivate a plot of land
for growing food, rather than growing fuel-wood,"

*** A million dollar question. If the stove user grows his/her own
fuelwood, there is NO carbon credit under CDM rules or Gold Standard rules.
To earn these credits, fuel use HAS TO BE NON-RENEWABLE, which in effect
means arbitrary delineation of project boundaries and then some
mumbo-jumbo. But you are suggesting a great possibility - "Run down your
fuelwood stocks and grow organic vegetables in a greenhouse, grasses for
cattle-feed, or cash crops like peanuts and tobacco. Earn carbon credits
for non-renewable biomass." I think this is in fact happening, so stove
people may have some difficulty in accurately portraying baselines. ***

c) "My question is a carbon credit available to the stove user to cover the
additional cost  of using 161 grams of extra wood fuel to boil 5 litres of
water?"

*** I think the question is moot under current rules. Char gets no credit
for sequestration (Ron: correct me if I am wrong). Using extra fuel to boil
five liters of water is not the issue, the issue is simply enough cooking
with extra fuel to produce char as a by-product. My understanding is, "Yes,
this is entirely possible. Just put baseline use equivalent to a larger
quantity of wood use under traditional stove and define the project
intervention as same use with primary  fuel savings. Make sure the wood use
is "non-renewable."

If you recall, this is why I asked Ron some time ago whether from climate
point of view, leaving wood on the tree versus char in the soil was
equivalent. I don't think he answered me, but this is the dilemma with
current rules.

And this is also why fuel efficiency determination of a cookstove is
absolutely critical.

It is on the basis of lab tests and efficiency determination that CDM or
Gold Standard compute their "avoided CO2 emissions reductions".

Which is why Crispin has been so vocal that CDM and Gold Standard use of
WBT - at least as a default - is misleading, a deceit in fact if not in
intent.

Illogic is at the root of all disputes. In this business of cookstoves,
single stove efficiency ratings and hourly average PM2.5 emission ratings
have the potential to destroy supposedly well-meaning instruments of
"results-based" financing.

I hope I have answered your questions.

Nikhil





On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 2:57 PM, Andrew Heggie <aj.heggie at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 25 September 2017 at 13:41, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> > Philip
> >
> > I suspect something is not correct,
>
> You may well be right but we have already been admonished by Tami for
> attempting to compare apples with oranges.
>
> My original wish when starting this thread was to understand how carbon
> credits might be paid to a stoves user. So the fact that charcoal for
> cooking is higher in the hierarchy of desirable fuels for cooking or it's
> logistics aren't relevant.
>
> Also when I asked if the stove user was also likely to be a grower I was
> mostly asking about whether they were likely to cultivate a plot of land
> for growing food, rather than growing fuel-wood, as then they also have the
> ability to utilise the char produced as a soil amendment and  benefit from
> that, both in returning the mineral element, possible soil structure
> element but mostly to receive payment for it in excess of its foregone fuel
> value.
>
> Plainly the discussion about the carbon content of the char is relevant
> but, at this level energy efficiency is not, just the cost of the fuel and
> cooking task or it's opportunity cost if fuel is not purchased.
>
> Energy efficiency  is about getting stoves accepted by funding bodies or
> part of marketing.
>
> >
> > 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%.
>
> <snip>
>
> My question is a carbon credit available to the stove user to cover the
> additional cost  of using 161 grams of extra wood fuel to boil 5 litres of
> water?
>
> You will see in my scenario the extra 41% of wood is smaller than Philip's
> 47% and without actually testing the energy contents of the char and the
> wood I don't think we can reconcile them.
>
>
> Andrew
>
>
>
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