[Stoves] Solar Cooking facilities for all rural households in India

Thu Jul 12 23:04:23 CDT 2018

 In these light-dependent reactions (at photosynthesis centers), some
energy is used to strip electrons <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron> from
suitable substances, such as water, producing oxygen gas. The hydrogen
freed by the splitting of water is used in the creation of two further
compounds that serve as short-term stores of energy, enabling its transfer
to drive other reactions: these compounds are reduced nicotinamide adenine
dinucleotide phosphate
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_adenine_dinucleotide_phosphate>
(NADPH)
and adenosine triphosphate
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate> (ATP), the "energy
currency" of cells.

Anil K Rajvanshi, Ph.D.
Director and Hon. Secretary
Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI)
Tambmal, Phaltan-Lonand Road,
P.O.Box 44, Phaltan - 415523
Maharashtra, India

Ph: +91-9168937964 (office)
www.nariphaltan.org

http://www.nariphaltan.org/writings.htm (AKR's articles and talks)
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/dr-anil-k-rajvanshi/ (Huffington Post blogs)
http://nariphaltan.org/nari-in-press/ (articles and news published about
NARI)
http://www.thebetterindia.com/author/anilrajvanshi/ (ocassional blogs in
Better India)
http://www.speakingtree.in/anil-rajvanshi (Speaking Tree blogs)

alternate e-mail:
nariphaltan at gmail.com

On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 8:35 AM Nikhil Desai <ndesai at alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> Anil:
>
> STACKING!! Keep your wood stove around!
>
> You would want it anyway. The induction stove isn't a perfect substitute
> except for - well, boiling water.
>
> Or go to rural cafeterias for the working poor! Read Anil Rajvanshi.
>
> I already said most of these PV induction stoves would be on-grid, because
> of the grid-connected rooftop PV program. It is only a matter of metering
> and setting the feed-in tariff. On-grid induction stoves will only fail
> when the grid and the sun both fail.
>
> What is this gobbledygook about the nature using photoelectric effect "to
> produce food"? Have you gone Pachauri?
>
> At ANY voltage, electricity wins. Except as lightning.
>
> Nikhil
>
> ------------------------
> Nikhil Desai
> (US +1) 202 568 5831
> *Skype: nikhildesai888*
>
> On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 9:37 PM, Anil Rajvanshi <anilrajvanshi at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> In this solar powered induction cookers has any thought been given to
>> what happens on cloudy days? Generally 3-4 days cloudy days storage has to
>> be factored in any stand alone PV systems. That increases the battery size
>> and cost.
>>
>> And finally it does not make sense to produce electricity from the sun
>> and then convert it to heat. Only 20% energy in the sun spectrum is able to
>> produce photoelectric effect whereas 60% of solar energy has utilizable
>> heat component.
>>
>> Nature utilizes the photoelectric effect to produce food and the heat is
>> used for driving wind and evapotranspiration for cooling. We should follow
>> the natural process in our scheme of things and get away from the
>> "electric" mentality.
>>
>> Cheers.
>>
>> Anil
>>
>> Anil K Rajvanshi, Ph.D.
>> Director and Hon. Secretary
>> Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI)
>> Tambmal, Phaltan-Lonand Road,
>> P.O.Box 44, Phaltan - 415523
>> Maharashtra, India
>>
>> Ph: +91-9168937964 (office)
>> www.nariphaltan.org
>>
>> http://www.nariphaltan.org/writings.htm (AKR's articles and talks)
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.in/dr-anil-k-rajvanshi/ (Huffington Post
>> blogs)
>> http://nariphaltan.org/nari-in-press/ (articles and news published about
>> NARI)
>> http://www.thebetterindia.com/author/anilrajvanshi/ (ocassional blogs in
>> Better India)
>> http://www.speakingtree.in/anil-rajvanshi (Speaking Tree blogs)
>>
>>
>> alternate e-mail:
>> nariphaltan at gmail.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 11:32 PM Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Sujoy:
>>>
>>> Let's first recognize that Piyush Goyal is a smart minister in the
>>> Government of India. With portfolios of finance (temporary), railways and
>>> coal, not only is he the most powerful minister other than Modi, He has
>>> also held power, new and renewable energy, mines, at junior levels.
>>>
>>> He was the one to  up the solar PV target for India from 20 GW to 100
>>> GW, most of it from grid-connected solar parks and farms.
>>>
>>> He is in a position to give away induction stoves to everybody at a 50%
>>> discount. Grid stoves at 220V cost around $30-40 on amazon.in, and
>>> about the same in retail shops in cities and towns. Their ex-factory costs
>>> are likely to be $20-30, which means the government can subsidize the
>>> manufacturers $10 apiece if they simply rolled out 100 million more stoves.
>>>
>>> True, that may not be all of rural India, nor used exclusively. People
>>> without grid connection or a home capable of holding rooftop PV, batteries,
>>> and  internal wiring would of course not behefit; we have enough of those
>>> in India, but this government is not for the "upliftment of the
>>> downtrodden", just "survival of the fittest".
>>>
>>> Of the 300 million households in India of 2025, I imagine 150 million
>>> can have LPG and grid induction cooking, and another 50-100 million by 2030
>>> on one or the other.
>>>
>>> That still leaves a market for "better biomass stoves" at 50-100 million
>>> for advocates of BBM if they get past Kirk Smith's imaginary threshold of
>>> "truly health protective" and his insistence on "complete, permanent"
>>> transition away from solid fuels.
>>>
>>> Stacking is a virtue. A cook needs to achieve total economy - food,
>>> water, time, fuel cost, stove cost, other electrical appliances, and cash -
>>> that only she knows how.
>>>
>>> Nearly ten years ago I had declared "The lighting problem is solved,"
>>> once I found China-made LED flashlights in Vanuatu. I also became an
>>> advocate of grid-PV, which was such a turnaround, I did not have to
>>> persuade fellow skeptics.
>>>
>>> Then in 2010 came a question from a senior friend who has been in this
>>> "cooking energy" work for decades. He asked me, "How long do you think
>>> before PV-induction cooking can be viable?" I said, "Come back in five
>>> years."
>>>
>>> Then right in 2014/5, some proposals started floating. My take then was,
>>> "Considering that anything takes at least three years from concept to
>>> realization, the time has now come to take this seriously."
>>>
>>> Why, I think already around 2014, Himachal Pradesh (a state in India)
>>> Chief Minister or his rival was offering free induction stoves if elected.
>>> I was only playing the same tune.
>>>
>>> Now about grid, off-grid, batteries, and all that jazz.
>>>
>>> First, note that Goyal says India has "100% power surplus" right now.
>>>
>>> He boasts, but this is the tragedy of Indian power development. The
>>> government has invested or incurred sovereign liability of about $1
>>> trillion in propping up this sad situation where people don't have the
>>> finance to invest on their side of the meter. Why is India only so sparsely
>>> air-conditioned? Why can't air-conditioning and refrigeration be spread in
>>> 50% of the households and all throughout the food chain, since there is
>>> enough supply capacity? What is the point of putting up 100 GW of solar
>>> (including some solar thermal) if not to mothball all the nuclear plants
>>> and all the coal plants built before 1990?
>>>
>>> What "power surplus" means in this context is that a) most of the
>>> induction stoves will run on 220V grids, including in "rural" areas; b)
>>> "rooftop PV" - which is also a huge "scheme" under GOI - will also be
>>> grid-interactive; and c) strictly off-grid solar induction cooking, with 48
>>> V supply and battery - has a negligible potential.
>>>
>>> What I see Michael Trevor, Crispin, and Andrew discussing here is for
>>> another world, not rural India as it is now and if its grid reliability
>>> problems can be solved soon. (One reason for "power surplus" is that the
>>> distribution entities are short of money and their state governments cannot
>>> subsidize them any more; it is another ball of wax altogether, a major
>>> headache - "In India Only, Sir!" variety.)
>>>
>>> Still, look at this way - suppose (i.e., assume, since I know better!)
>>> that about 30% of "cooking" (not boiling chai) in India is now done outside
>>> of homes, and the fraction keeps increasing at about 2-3 percentage points
>>> per year before plateauing out at about 50%.
>>>
>>> That means, the real commercially competitive market for cooking -- and
>>> indeed, to reduce the solid fuel pollution WHO cooks up from just numbers
>>> of household, without attention to how much fuel is used and how - is
>>> OUTSIDE homes.
>>>
>>> This is how the world has changed in the last 20 years -- greater
>>> urbanization, with many cities having doubled in size; greater grid
>>> electrification; higher cash incomes and financial inclusiveness. In this
>>> environment, the hippy-style romance of "cookstoves for rural poor
>>> households to save forests, protect the climate, improve health, and
>>> empower women" has to be rethought.
>>>
>>> Solar PV could cause a revolution to put most of us to permanent sleep.
>>>
>>> Nikhil
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Nikhil Desai
>>> (US +1) 202 568 5831
>>> *Skype: nikhildesai888*
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jul 10, 2018 at 9:30 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
>>> crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Small contribution Andrew:
>>>>
>>>> 48 VDC is much better for control electronics, as you say, and all
>>>> bicycles are 48 Volts, that I have looked at. It seems the electric vehicle
>>>> industry is settling on that because it is regulated less stringently.
>>>>
>>>> I don't know how many of you have any electronics training but "when I
>>>> was young" any Class C circuit was permitted without safety because it was
>>>> incapable of blowing anything up, even itself. A short circuit caused
>>>> nothing untoward.  Heaven knows what they call that now but the principle
>>>> still applies.
>>>>
>>>> If 48 is safe to touch and the parts are 1/4 the size, why would anyone
>>>> go for 12 volt anything? What voltage is produced under a nominal load from
>>>> 20 Li-ion batteries?
>>>>
>>>> The CAU students and I looked at induction cookers to see what they
>>>> delivered. First, they deliver less than the claimed efficiency, closer to
>>>> 75% than the claimed A, B, C ratings (respectively 88, 90, 92%). Second the
>>>> power rating is the consumption, not the cooking power.
>>>>
>>>> Cooking at high power would still draw at least 30 amps, 40 from a big
>>>> unit (2 kW), from a 48 volt pack. Would it be better to store heat?
>>>>
>>>> Regards
>>>> Crispin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Stoves <stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org> On Behalf Of
>>>> Andrew Heggie
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2018 12:18 PM
>>>> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <
>>>> stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Stoves] Solar Cooking facilities for all rural households
>>>> in India
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 10 Jul 2018 at 10:24, Michael N Trevor <mntrevor at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > WANT TO KNOW A WHOLE LOT MORE.
>>>> > GOOGLED 12 v INDUCTION COOKTOPS
>>>> > SOME VERY NICE EXPENSIVE STUFF.
>>>> > BIGGEST THING LOTS OF FANCY ELECTRONICS THAT WILL NOT HOLD UP IN
>>>> RURAL
>>>> > WARM COASTAL MARINE CONDITIONS
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> All the time the aggregated cost of the PV panels and battery storage
>>>> are so high I cannot see solar to electric induction being viable.
>>>> Currently  any battery storage I can buy is a couple of times more
>>>> expensive than buying from the grid in UK so it doesn't pay me but it may
>>>> pay me to heat water from excess PV electricity. Just as PV panels have
>>>> halved in price as production capacity has increased it looks like LIon
>>>> batteries are coming down by ~15%  as installed capacity doubles, whether
>>>> there is enough lithium  mined to sustain this is another matter and there
>>>> are other storage technologies.
>>>>
>>>> Michael what is the common failure mode of fancy electronics in your
>>>> environment?
>>>>
>>>> The circuits for induction heaters seem remarkably simple, a couple of
>>>> MOSFETS  in push pull oscillating at ~150kHz  and a simple control circuit
>>>> (the one I bought following Nikhil's promulgation is too coarse on the
>>>> control side) but I see no reason to store or distribute even DC
>>>> electricity at such a low voltage, 48V seems more sensible and then the
>>>> MOSFETS handle less current.
>>>>
>>>> Andrew
>>>>
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>>>
>
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