[Stoves] News: Methanol cooking fuel for india...

Sun Dec 23 15:17:58 CST 2018

Crispin:

1. A simple answer to why the GoI doesn’t have a requirement for combustion
efficiency - for the alcohols or solid biomass - might be that efficacy in
use is impossible to regulate for small uses and small users. The
theoretical rationales for efficiency or emission rates - to save forests
or lives - belong in the grant-driven metaphysics of the pundit caste, not
proven in real lives. What can’t be controlled shouldn’t be attempted.

2. “Clean Fuel” is a dirty business. Biomass-derived alcohols are called
"clean" because they are presumptively "renewable energy" and presumptively
"climate neutral". There is no evidence of renewability or climate
neutrality; this is another instance of purported noble objectives
justifying pretentious pursuits. If at all, land or forest clearance for
large scale sugarcane farming places high demand on land prices and water,
and waste management is a headache too. I am sure experiences vary, but
from what I have seen and heard of the political economy of sugarcane,
sugar, and sugar-based alcohol, this business seems to depend on slave-like
labor of growers, even when they happen to own the land. (Anil can testify
to the sugarcane politics and finance of India. I have known in East
Africa. And then there is the history of imperial sugarcane business in the
Caribbean and elsewhere.) If at all, once you move away from the
physicists' beancounting of joules and carbon, sugarcane might be one of
the most environmentally and socially destructive agricultural products.

3. About CO and water content: I have heard of anhydrous sugarcane ethanol
- during a trip to a Malawi distillery. I don't know if production costs of
a 5% water product are much higher than a 10% or 20% water at a large
scale. However, it may well be that higher water content permits higher
overall efficiency in cooking - if, as I am thinking, the cook varies the
power level. (Varying power is why efficiency cannot be controlled in
actual use, irrespective of CO production.) I am speculating here on the
basis of some 50-years old memories of Bunsen burners in labs and different
kinds of kerosene stoves at home.

BTW, what Malawi subsidies for water and ethanol? Never heard of it in my
30 odd years of looking at Malawi energy sector now and then. Electricity
is the best cooking solution there as in much of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Nikhil

On Dec 23, 2018, at 9:44 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

Dear Anil

I found two things odd about the low concentration ethanol story and
perhaps you can comment. Why low concentration? Was it easy to make? Or
make without a distillation process? Or a *good* distillation process?

Ethanol is being tried in Madagascar maybe for the past five years. Kenya
is in their sights. The local producers have no problem getting 85%
concentration which is above the SANS requirement of 80%.

The energy content at 20% water is not great to begin with and when there
is more of it the stove's cooking power becomes ever-more hopeless.  So the
first question is why sell water as fuel in the first place?

There was a suspicious program in Malawi trying to sell water as a bonus in
ethanol looking at the energy from reformation of H2O without mentioning
the energy it subtracted to break it down. It got lots of subsidies.

Next is the expectation that ethanol is "a clean fuel". This silly talk has
been going on for longer than most stove makers might realise. Some of the
worst stoves are those thrown together in a garage burning ethanol or
ethanol gel with attendant claims that because " the fuel is clean" the
emissions are "safe".

Your story about the CO is not unusual at all. It is easy to create CO with
ethanol. So my question is why the GOI doesn't have a performance
requirement for combustion efficiency. It ethanol is that magical category
of "clean fuels" that are acceptable no matter what the emissions are from
the stove?

Thanks
Crispin
*From:* nariphaltan at gmail.com
*Sent:* December 22, 2018 9:06 PM
*To:* ndesai at alum.mit.edu; stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
*Reply to:* stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
*Subject:* Re: [Stoves] News: Methanol cooking fuel for india...

Stovers,

We pioneered in early 2000 the development of low concentration ethanol
stove
<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnariphaltan.org%2Fethstove.pdf&data=02%7C01%7C%7C182f652d235e4bb90ddd08d6687b4ccc%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636811276103212334&sdata=szrBG39BkSR0%2F1JGJ6%2BdTr%2Ff%2F6wLi7SfD5ML9tJq1hw%3D&reserved=0>.
However testing them in rural huts we found high amounts of CO emitted.
This gave headaches to few hut dwellers. There is a propensity of higher CO
emissions in ethanol/methanol fuels. They should be taken care of properly.
Thus the combustion systems have to be better designed.

GOI in its stupidity is pushing all these things irrespective of their
consequences. They are also pushing for ethanol production for cars from
different biomass fuels. Stovers might like to read about a small essay
that I wrote about it recently.
https://www.thebetterindia.com/167321/sugar-replacement-eco-friendly-ethanol-production-india/
<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebetterindia.com%2F167321%2Fsugar-replacement-eco-friendly-ethanol-production-india%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C182f652d235e4bb90ddd08d6687b4ccc%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636811276103368575&sdata=T8G6JENXMlLsmpXNSPQ5ozLDLw4TG22JiIqKsakzcjA%3D&reserved=0>

Cheers.

Anil

Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI)
Tambmal, Phaltan-Lonand Road
P.O.Box 44
Phaltan-415523, Maharashtra, India
Ph:+91-9168937964 <+919168937964>
e-mail:nariphaltan at gmail.com
           nariphaltan at nariphaltan.org

http://www.nariphaltan.org
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http://nariphaltan.org/narisouvenir.pdf
<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnariphaltan.org%2Fnarisouvenir.pdf&data=02%7C01%7C%7C182f652d235e4bb90ddd08d6687b4ccc%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636811276103368575&sdata=YEh7K6GCXEwEAzrINducQVPcqflgUUefwXXMN44HEiU%3D&reserved=0>
(Fifty Years of NARI)
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