[Stoves] FW: [stove] New policy paper - attached

Sun Dec 29 16:00:54 CST 2019

Paul:

Puhleese! Haven't you heard the tale about making a line shorter without
touching it (only by drawing another line longer)? There is really no point
preaching the holiness of biomass over LPG. Yes, LPG is a fossil fuel. But
it is also far more versatile, convenient, time-saving, and with reliable
supply chains. How much of it costs to whom around the world is contextual.
Too many factors to consider, not just that - as you'd have it - every CO2
molecule is a WMD. (Remember Kirk Smith - "If one were going to put carbon
in the atmosphere anyway, CO2 is the least harmful of all species from both
health and climate points of view.)

A. First this policy paper. What you attached somehow came through only as
an image. It is at
https://ccapc.org.in/policy-briefs/2019/ujjwala-enhancing-use-sustainably-prayas
and
I attach the pdf.

I don't think much of CEEW or CCAPC but I have a soft corner for Prayas,
where the authors of this piece are based. It is basically an appeal to
encourage total transition to LPG once "household connection" is
established. (In India, the subsidized LPG scheme is treated like an
electricity grid connection, though there is really no binding contract
between the distributor and the customer as is the case with piped gas or
electricity).

This is Kirk Smith's theology without any basis, and also the propaganda
from CCA and before that GACC - the Clean Cooking Commandos who order "THOU
SHALT NOT STACK!"

To me, that is up to the customer. I believe in consumer sovereignty,the
right to choose my food, my cook (or wife), and my fuel. Berkeley modeling
of pollution and disease is untenable but sustainable poppycock.

Still, I agree with their proposal 1 - that new customers should not be
required to buy cylinder refills at unsubsidized prices before they have
paid off their loans for initial "connection". I do not think much of their
proposal 2 - increased and graded subsidy according to income class. Just
won't work in practice. It is like "lifeline tariff" in electricity, and I
have learnt what a nightmare that is. Unlike electricity, an LPG cylinder
is transportable and hence tradeable. Their third proposal - about digital
transactions - is a technological gimmick; I have no view about it.

That said, the paper is thoughtful, deserving of further academic research.
If you believe, like I do, that "no stacking" is nonsense, then tinkering
of subsidy amounts is a political problem, not a policy problem per se. The
last I checked, Indian LPG pricing is still somewhat arbitrary; the
government decides both the subsidy amounts as well as the level of "market
price". (Everybody pays the same "fixed but unsubsidized" price, but
"qualifying households" get a deposit to their bank accounts as an explicit
"subsidy".)

But note some devilish details:

1. " 9 states are even reporting more connections than the estimated number
of households in the state (PPAC, 2019a)."

What does that say? There were "ghost households" before Modi government
came and introduced some new scheme that Kirk Smith called a "globally
pioneering initiative".

Yes, sir, this is India. Ghosts get gas. And Berkeley professors see ghosts
of the premature dead.

2.  "An average Indian household needs between 7.5 and 9 refills a year .
As shown in Figure 2, an average PMUY household consumed only 3.4 refills
in 2017-18. They use only about 3/5th the amount of LPG as average rural
households, who in turn consume less than the average urban household."

I don't know how academics come up with averages or presume to think that
an average is a normal or a mandate. India is diverse in both cities and
villages, and urbanization typically means access to refrigerator and
outsourced cooking. If a cook does not want to use more LPG than it chooses
to, let them clamor for more subsidies. State level campaigns have promised
induction cookstoves and pressure cookers, and can offer more LPG
subsidies. I see no evidence in this research that a mass uprising is
around the corner for :"more gas". (EPA is not India.)

3. " Additionally, non-clean alternatives such as agricultural residue and
firewood might be cheaper than subsidised LPG in many parts of the country.
"

Duh! Everybody knows that. That is an argument for capital subsidies for
"modern biomass cooking" and air quality plans, not for more LPG subsidies
so they can leak to the non-poor. This is how things were all along as
India industrialized and urbanized, just that now Kirk Smith is riding the
convenient horse of ambient air pollution and promising the "clean cooking
salvation" in the form of aDALYs that he or Ajay might get a cut on.

4. " the unsubsidised price of LPG is high on average with the likely
expenditure on LPG in a month comparable to about 70% of the average
monthly expenditure on food in rural India "

Sorry, this is inane. Purchased foods basket varies a lot, and tends to be
lower in rural areas. Why not subsidize foods, or, as Anil famously argued,
on prepared meals for the poor? At least a couple of Indian states - Tami
Nadu, Karnataka - have set up inexpensive meal distribution, over and above
those for school meals for children. There is no logic that LPG
expenditures be 50% or 30% of the food expenditures. The authors are
bending over backwards to justify the dream of "clean cooking" - complete
and irreversible transition to gas and electricity. This is a pernicious
lie of marketable aDALYs by Berkeley cooks.

Anyway, no point arguing about an academic piece. Their conclusion is
unsurprising - " It should be noted that these ideas may not be sufficient
to address the problem by themselves. As discussed, more research is
required to understand aspects such as supply-chain infrastructure,
distributor business models and facilitating behavioural change." In short,
research pleading for more research, the usual poverty of irrelevant think
tanks.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B. Now about your complaints against LPG and Indian government wisdom:

World LPG and gas reserves are ample to meet the cooking energy demands of
a billion households, and their eateries and food processing factories, for
a hundred years.

And no, it is NOT " This is enriching the oil companies at the expense of
the poor and mis-direction of government funds. " Please avoid the usual
canards of the cult of global environmentalists. India is a significant oil
and gas producer, on its own and via investments in other countries, and
mostly via public sector enterprises. LPG subsidies were traditionally
financed like kerosene subsidies - price fixing and bankrupting the oil
companies (not quite; public sector companies don't go bankrupt). Now there
is a mix of explicit government subsidies to some plus market-based
pricing, but the government earns a lot in taxes from oil and gas
production in the first place.

The Indian LPG distribution started perhaps in the 1950s or even earlier,
in Mumbai apartment buildings. Nobody in apartments is going to use biomass
stoves. Electricity, piped gas, LPG are the only options for cooking at
home,  supplemented by eating out, take outs, or canned/frozen/refrigerated
food products. It matters not a hoot what saviors of the planet say about
Indian public finances and the poor.

There is a story two days ago in FT about how renewables in India are not
getting paid -
https://www.ft.com/content/ef11eaea-15af-11ea-9ee4-11f260415385
<https://www.ft.com/content/ef11eaea-15af-11ea-9ee4-11f260415385?>. Coal
generators are also in trouble
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/India-electricity-demand-falls-for-4th-month-as-slowdown-deepens
.
Indian economy is in a critical stagnation right now, and the polity is in
a crisis
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/opinion/india-constitution-protests.html

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is of course pleased at India's decline
and destruction -
https://thebulletin.org/2019/12/good-news-for-climate-change-india-gets-out-of-coal-and-into-renewable-energy/
.

Fuel fetishism is infantile or senile. Cooks in India want LPG, gas, and
electricity more than they want charcoal-making biomass stoves. That much
is evident, though that does not answer the question of how much more or
how much less the central government should or could do to get more votes.
As Anil has so rightly claimed, the working poor of India do not have the
luxury of cooking three meals a day; the proper target of policy should
then be outside the households, where unsubsidized LPG could be defeated by
reliable, high-performance biomass cookstoves. THAT, I submit, promoters of
biomass have not been able to do, and Kirk Smith gets away with claiming
that no biomass cookstove is "sufficiently health protective".

It doesn't mater what Professor Smith says. He can revel in his priesthood
and sign off on PhD dissertations of dubious value.

N

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(US +1) 202 568 5831
*Skype: nikhildesai888*

On Sun, Dec 29, 2019 at 9:59 AM Anderson, Paul <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:

> Stovers,
>
>
>
> The attached file could be of interest to many of you.
>
>
>
> Please note this very recent document about LPG stoves in India.   It
> reveals the approach and plans of the LPG gas industry regarding LPG stoves
> for India.   The government unfortunately has accepted this approach and
> provides substantial funding.   But  being based on fossil fuel, it can
> only be a temporary solution (maybe for a decade or two).
>
>
>
> This is enriching the oil companies at the expense of the poor and
> mis-direction of government funds.   We want the  poor to have clean
> cooking.  And that is possible with existing Woodgas TLUD technology.
> Fossil fuels are a business-opportunity side-track.    But ultimately, the
> Woodgas stoves will replace most of them, especially for the poorest people
> who are closely tied to wood and dung and biomass fuels.
>
>
>
> Paul                ( I admit to my bias, which is based on
> accomplishments of Woodgas technology. )
>
>
>
> Doc / Dr TLUD / Paul S. Anderson, PhD --- Website:   www.drtlud.com
>
>      Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu       Skype:   paultlud
>
>      Phone:  Office: 309-452-7072    Mobile & WhatsApp: 309-531-4434
>
> Exec. Dir. of Juntos Energy Solutions NFP
>
>      Go to: www.JuntosNFP.org  to support woodgas (TLUD) projects
>
>      incl. purchase of Woodgas Emission Reduction (WER) carbon credits
>
>      and please tell you friends about these distinctive service efforts.
>
> Author of “*A Capitalist Carol*” (free digital copies at
> www.capitalism21.org)
>
>      with pages 88 – 94 about  solving the world crisis for clean
> cookstoves.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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