[Stoves] Unexpected Rising Levels of Atmospheric Methane

[Nikhil Desai]

Julien:

Published results and public debate are meaningful in real life outside academia only to the extent of leading to effective public policy. 

I believe that mass adoption and sustained use is the primary metric of success. Any imposition of ancillary agenda will be counterproductive. 

I hope you are calling for only a literature review to be published, not a program of stand-alone research. (I do believe in intervention-based research, but only for interventions whose goal is mass behavioral change, not selling modeled aDALYs.)

I offer these propositions for debate, followed by a proposal:

1. From what we know so far, measurement of methane and NMVOCs during stove use is unreliable. 

2. Even at mass scale - allowing that more than half and growing share of world cooking and water heating is done with non-biomass fuels and/or outside households, with biomass cooking mostly in dispersed populations - the change in methane and NMVOC emission rates from biomass household cookstoves will fall below any de minimus consideration on health or climate grounds. 

3. It is only for carbon finance that a reliable prediction of such emissions is relevant. They are otherwise beyond the capacity of regulations and cannot be practically subjected to standards and ratings of GACC/ISO type. 

Absolutist pursuit of purity leads to distorted signals to product design and marketing. The alleys of additional research and publications are all going to be dead end. Design and marketing are key to behavioral change, not ratings. 

Let’s collect published methane emission rates per 5 kg of fuel under whatever fuels and whatever stoves in current mass use and and contrast that against a contextual cooking test for a new stove. If the delta is such as to produce a reduction of 10,000 tpy CO2e using a 5-year GWP from 200,000 stoves in sustained use, award the project $100/tCO2e at the end of five years. (Upon verification that the stoves were used and more were purchased once the demonstration effect took hold.)

Yes, this has some risks. But of no grave consequence. Enough time and money has been wasted on environmental effects of solid fuel cooking and raising awareness to the point of hysteria. Getting something done without promising the world should command our attention, not lofty daydreams and moralistic hype. 


Nikhil Desai

Skype: nikhildesai888

> On Mar 6, 2019, at 11:32 AM, Julien Winter <winter.julien at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi all;
> 
> There may be challenges to measuring methane and NOx, and multidimensional circumstances.   NOx has been well studied for industrial furnaces.  
> 
> However, in this day and age, we need to provide evidence that various stoves have minimal impact.  One may be able to do this with a literature review, or it may require new research.   
> 
> What ever the evidence is, it should be publishable in a peer-reviewed journal.  That establishes it for the public record and public debate.  
> 
> There is an old obstreperous saying in science: "Research that doesn't get published may as well have never been done."  Many of us, myself included, are guilty of that.
> 
> On a side note:  The main reason for using TLUDs is not mitigation of climate change.  It is because the households are financially better off, either because their gardens and horticulture and more productive, or because they use less fuel, or because they sell the char; plus they cook faster and reduce exposure to smoke.  Name another type of stove that intrinsically makes money for the family.   For the household, using a TLUD to mitigating climate change is an esoteric, intangible concept.  It is not what motivates TLUD adoption.  
> 
> To address climate change, the behavior of every person on the planet has to change.  All these small behaviors add up.   
> 
> Cheers,
> Julien.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Julien Winter
> Cobourg, ON, CANADA
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