[Stoves] Fwd: The Economist: Wood-burning stoves, the picturesque polluters

[Nikhil Desai]

Andrew:

Re:  "also eliminate other sources in the local environment."

a) Some of it is natural; b) if you drop the equitoxicity assumption, these
% shares are irrelevant. Maybe it is more important to drop BC from diesel
than to shut down wood stoves for home heating.

Remember, in the Kirk Smith worldview, it is only the PM2.5 from solid
fuels that HAP premature deaths are attributed to.

That there is no observed quantity and duration of exposures to just HAP
PM2.5 is one issue with GBD "estimates". But more fundamentally, how can
one eliminate non-fuel PM2.5 - not just from tobacco smoke, a known
carcinogen, but also all the emissions from foods, livestock management,
"natural" dust - and even PM5 and PM10, which includes pollen and such -
and achieve a target reduction in "dosage"?

Now, HAPIT does pretend to adjust for PM2.5 Ambient Air Pollution (AAP) in
its computation of aDALYs. Without going into the jugglery of  math and
data there, or the issue of equitoxicity of PM2.5, causality of PM2.5,
etc., the simple question is, "Where will gas penetration in cooking not be
countered by increase in concentrations from sources other than solid fuels
for household cooking?"

Which is why the search for an emission-based "cleanliness" rating a la ISO
fails to pass a laugh test on first principles.

The only objective of a clean cookstove - like any other combustion device
with organic fuels - is a significant improve in air quality, toward some
contextually defined levels. The rest is bizarre song-and-dance of the cult
of environmental public health.

With air quality measured in terms of particular constituents, NOT this
idiocy called PM2.5.

Nikhil

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


On Fri, Aug 31, 2018 at 9:31 AM, Andrew Heggie <aj.heggie at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Aug 2018 at 22:41, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > This suggests a way forward - taxing wood stoves.  Wood-burners must "go
> back out of fashion", meaning if not stoves, the people in whose name.
> >
> > Nikhil
> >
> > https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/08/27/wood-
> burning-stoves-the-picturesque-polluters
>
>
> I'm hardly surprised there has been no interest on [stoves] about this
> as it is too UK centric, it also relates to a wealthy nation's
> lifestyle choices rather than an absolute need for wood burning. Most
> people using wood for cooking have no choice. BTW I operate a wood
> burner in winter and it wouldn't impact on my finances greatly if I
> used natural gas instead.
>
>
> There is a graphic in the article which I find interesting as it shows
> an overall halving of particulates in the period 1990 to present and
> I'm sure I lived through much worse before that.
>
> It shows a drastic  reduction in particulates from agriculture in the
> period 1990 to 95 which must reflect the ban on cereal straw burning
> post harvest.
>
> Again whilst the non specific "other" sources of particulates has
> declined similarly  I note it contributes about a third so if it were
> possible to reduce all particulates from domestic and industrial
> combustion and road transport to zero the background would still be
> 30% of the current total.
>
> This reflects a bit on what we discussed in the Malawi study you
> cannot expect biomass cooking being replaced by "clean" cookers to
> have any effect unless you also eliminate other sources in the local
> environment.
>
> Andrew
>
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