[Stoves] Fuel and the inherency of emissions

Fri Nov 16 22:11:44 CST 2018

A slightly edited version.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crispin:

This is the psychosis of cite-o-logy. Notional "environmental health"
> researchers are lawless adventurers throwing numbers like hoodlums throw
> rocks.
>
> Let me speculate on the context of this paper Lam et al. (2012). I don't
> know what Gauthier had to do in this paper, but the main author (Lam) and
> two other co-authors (Smith and Bates) have made it their business to
> concoct deaths from household fuels they hold to be "dirty" by definition
> ("solid fuels"). This was the EPA push upon WHO. For this purpose, Smith
> also needed to kill kerosene, which can be a more effective fuel
> substitution for solid fuels (for the first 20 years of my life, for
> lighting and cooking, as for some 50 years of my mother's and grandmothers'
> lives, along with stacking).
>
> By 2010-11, he had bought into LPG companies and the cult of WHO/IHME
> Global Burden of disease. This was also the time when he and his
> accomplices were rushed into quick, superficial "reviews of evidence" for
> WHO, as part of the machinations for GBD and the WHO publication Household
> Fuel Combustion Guidelines - Solid Fuels (HFCG, 2014).
>
> HFCG was an illegitimate excursion into energy policy by the jokers at
> WHO. Imagine the NIH issuing fuel combustion guidelines in US, or even
> worldwide.
>
> This is why I call these "public health" pundits lawless adventurers. They
> have no business lecturing energy policy makers or technologists. You and I
> may choose to attack them, but they are (deliberately?) ignorant of both
> facts and science.  Leave "health" researchers to promote their careers in
> pal-pampered publications in "environmental health", just like biomass
> stove researchers have done on boiling waters.
>
> This Lam (2012) paper came to me in September 2012, during a time when
> Kirk Smith was excited by some trivial epidemiological study that he
> thought would be the death nail for household kerosene cooking.
>
> It does acknowledge "As highlighted in the exposure assessment section,
> this is complicated by the fact that the nature and concentrations of
> pollutants emitted may be strongly influenced by the source of combustion
> (e.g., stoves, lamps, heaters). "
>
> And stoves, lamps, heaters vary in technologies and combustion practices.
> As does kerosene quality. Kerosene can be a wondrous fuel, and has been
> such for over a hundred years.
>
> Kerosene was also used in India to adulterate petrol (gasoline) in auto
> rickshaws and for backup generators.
>
> Anil Rajvanshi made a remarkable product called Lanstove. I was skeptical
> until I went to see it in his lab. An inexpensive solution for the poor in
> India, where kerosene quotas and subsidies are now eliminated. (I can't
> fault Prof. Smith for this anti-poor drive of his favorite politician of
> India, though he - Smith - did write in support of removing kerosene
> subsidies. A complicated story; Kirit Parikh and his sidekicks were
> responsible, as was widespread corruption.)
>
> Lam et al. (2012) also say, "photovoltaic household and community-level
> lighting programs, including those combined with village electrification,
> are underway in a number of countries (DGDA 2010
> <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R31>; Palit et al.
> 2011 <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R76>).
> However, these are primarily driven by the desire to improve access to
> lighting, rather than from concerns about toxicity of emissions, for which
> evidence is presently sparse. National and international efforts to promote
> advanced combustion biomass cookstoves with low emissions are also
> underway, including the National Biomass Cookstove Initiative of India (Venkataraman
> et al. 2011 <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R115>)
> and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (Smith 2010
> <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R98>). "
>
> Evidence of toxicity of emissions is sparse. Mark those words, for they
> apply to all fuels and combustion technologies and practices. EPA's
> assumption of equitoxicity, combined with Smith/WHO fiction of Relative
> Risk computations and Population Adjustment Factors, have built up a palace
> in the clouds, with serious greenhouse consequences.
>
> All said and done, Lam et al. (2012), i.e., Kirk Smith included, just
> wanted more money, the standard route for academics:
>
> "In conclusion, considering the widespread use in the developing world of
> kerosene as a household fuel, the scarcity of adequate epidemiologic and
> exposure investigations, the *potential for harm* *suggested by some of
> the few* relevant studies that do exist, and the implications for
> national energy policies, researchers are urged to consider collection of
> data on household kerosene use, for cooking, heating, or lighting, in their
> household surveys and studies of health in developing countries. As noted,
> much can be achieved by simple extension of questionnaires. Given the
> potential risks of kerosene, policymakers may consider alternatives to
> kerosene subsidies, such as shifting support to cleaner technologies for
> lighting and cooking. "
>
>
> Amen. I wrote to this effect in a paper, with Ramesh Bhatia, for APDC
> Kuala Lumpur in 1990 - "Drive out kerosene from cooking in urban areas,
> substituting by LPG, and drive out kerosene for lighting in rural areas,
> substituting by electricity. The kerosene released is enough for rural
> cooking."
>
> It was sensible then and remains so today. I didn't need any
> "environmental health" or HAPiT quackery, nor do biomass or coal stove
> designers need it now. Forget WHO and Berkeley parasites parading as
> principled pundits. Don't complain "it doesn't seem to occur" to them what
> they are conveniently blind to.
>
> Nikhil
> -----------------------------
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 10:04 PM Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
> crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Friends
>>
>> I was looking for standards on the fuels and found this from the NIH
>> talking about the inherent emissions fuels release.
>>
>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/
>>
>> How can we bring common sense to these large organisations? They even
>> talk about how kerosene produces a certain PM mass per m3.
>>
>> "Numerous studies demonstrated that heater design (radiant or convective)
>> is influential on emissions of pollutants (Apte et al. 1989<
>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R5>; Cheng et al.
>> 2001<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R28>;
>> Leaderer 1982<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R56>;
>> Lionel et al. 1986<
>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R60>; Traynor et
>> al. 1983<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R105>;
>> 1987<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R106>; 1990<
>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R107>; Yamanaka et
>> al. 1979<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R121>;
>> Yamanaka 1984<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R120>;
>> Zhou et al. 2000<
>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R127>). EFco were,
>> on average, four- to fivefold higher for radiant heaters than for
>> convective heaters; conversely, EFNOx from convective heaters were two- to
>> fourfold higher than from radiant heaters (Table 1<
>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/table/T1/>),
>> indicative of the hotter combustion temperatures of convective heaters. SO2
>> was not influenced greatly by device type, as emissions are primarily
>> dependent on fuel sulfur content."
>>
>> "Primarily"?  Otherwise, what - transmutation of elements?
>>
>> Even though the authors were aware that inherent emissions a related to
>> the fuel analysis, they still go on about the emissions from burning it as
>> if it too, is inherent. They report that emissions of PM vary eight-fold
>> depending on the fuel grade. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the
>> combustors are suited to some grades more than others. It is akin to
>> comparing the emissions from different gasoline engines from different
>> manufacturers burning diesel instead of gasoline.
>>
>> While there is plenty of interesting information in the documentation and
>> reference articles, it doesn't seem to occur to the authors that promoting
>> the development of cleaner burning appliances is the solution, not banning
>> the fuels preferred by the poor.
>>
>> Regards
>> Crispin
>>
>>
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