<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style></head><body><div style='font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000'>Cecil (with ccs):<br><br> 1. Thanks for bringing in an
anthropologist's view on stove development. I find all of them below
valuable. I will probably follow up with some more questions after
thinking a bit more first on the 65 pp report you have recommended in
your final sentence (and reading more of their literature. You said:<br><br><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">"It may also useful to review the Genes led Global Stove Program <<span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT469"><a href="http://www.geres.eu/en/geres-cambodia" target="_blank"><span style="color:#1155cc">http://www.geres.eu/en/geres-cambodia</span></a></span>>
which lays out a 5 year strategy to share the lessons learned by the Cambodian
Improved Cookstove Program with other national stove initiatives in SEAsia and
French speaking West Africa"<br><br> 2. </span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">This
report was new to me, and does seem well done. It wouldn't surprise me
that the GERES effort might have been behind the choice of Cambodia for
the March GACC meeting. The report is directly downloadable at:<br> http://www.geres.eu/images/stories/publis/publi-nls-en.pdf<br><br>
3. As I am very concerned about the huge waste that accompanies most
char production, I was disappointed in finding this (emphasis added) at
the top of p 27, near the end of the first section:<i><br>"Again in Cambodia, GERES is also working in<br>partnership with a forest community in Takeo on<br>charcoal manufacture. <u><b>Officially illegal</b></u>, this is an<br>intensive practice on the fringes of natural forests<br>and largely responsible for their degradation.:"</i><br></span><br>
I can support their ignoring the legality issue if the resulting char
were really produced with efficient use of the pyrolysis gases. My
guess is it was probably only a little better and couldn't compete with
the costs associated with illegal production. Do you or anyone know if
most Cambodian char is still mostly illegal? How do anthropologists
suggest handling this sort of issue?<br><br> 4. On p 50, we read (emphasis added): <br> <i>"Biomass is generally considered to be a renewable<br>fuel. When it is burnt any CO2 released is<br>assumed to be reabsorbed through re-growth of<br>biomass. If biomass is not re-grown, then the<br>emissions from biomass can be considered to be<br>a non-renewable fuel. Therefore, cooking stove<br>projects can <u><b>only generate emission reductions</b></u><br>where it can be shown that the <u><b>biomass used is</b></u><br><u><b>non-renewable</b></u>."<br><br> </i>This
final, quite lengthy section is valuable in explaining the importance
of carbon credits to advancing cleaner stoves in GERES (and my)
opinion. But they have to accept less than a reasonable amount for this
asinine rationale here. I would appreciate hearing if any changes in
this arena have been possible in the three years since this report came
out. Is this problem possibly solved with char-making stoves?<br><br>
5. Earlier there is a good bit of interesting survey data of all
types. The author apologizes for it being a hurried four-month survey.
I wonder if there has been another more recent version? <br><br> 6.
I am not very interested in most of the numerical material as I am so
down on charcoal-using stoves, even when the source is legal. But on
p38, we read some data that is surprisingly hard to obtain (2009
prices, when 1 dollar was worth on the order of 4250 riels)<br> <i>"The average charcoal price is 970 riel (US$0.23) per<br>kilo, while the average firewood price is 300 riel (US$0.07) per kilo.</i>"<br><br>
a. Suppose we have a char-making stove and we want to sell a kilo of
char (worth 23 cents) that we have made on our char-making stove. <br> <br>
b. Assuming 50% of the wood initially is carbon and we can get 25% of
the initial wood (50% of the initial carbon) out as char, then we need
to buy 4 kilos of wood (28 cents) to produce the 1 kilo of char worth 23
cents. Sounds like a loss of 5 cents. Bummer.<br> <br> c. But we
got a fair amount of cooking out of that 28 cent investment. We started
out with about 4 kg * 18 MJ/kg = 72 MJ, and ended up with 1 kg * 30 MJ
/kg in char - a difference of 42 MJ.<br><br> d. If we had done the
same amount of cooking with the same efficiency with char, we would have
needed to start with 42 MJ/(30 MJ/kg) = 1.4 kg of char, worth 1.4 * 23 =
32.2 cents. <br> <br> e. So the "loss" (expense) on the
char-using side is 32.2 cents while on the wood side was 5 cents - a
difference of 27.2 cents in favor of the wood user. This number is
very close to the initial wood expenses of 28 cents - so the wood user
essentially cooked for free. The char-user spent (lost) 42 cents for
the same cooking service<br><br> f. Since char-making stoves are
reported by EPA (and others) to be the highest efficiency reported (in
part because the power level is controllable), maybe the economic argument is even more in favor of the char-maker.<br><br>
g. But there is a fair amount in this report on time savings for the
report's improved stove (called an "nls"), we should add that in. I
bet the charcoal-maker saves time over the nls.<br><br> h. So what
might the payback be? Assume that the family size is such that 1 kg of
char is produced per day (the argument above was for a one time sale of
1 kg, not per day), and that this char-maker sold for $23 (4-5 times
more than the nls). The simple payback would be $23/($0.23/day) = 100 days. Probably much less when the value of time saved is include.<br><br>
i. My question to Cecil (or anyone else free to chime also of
course)l, as a stove-anthropologist is whether this might be worth a
rural or urban home-maker looking more closely at the char-making stove
option (say including the stove-life guarantee, etc) - in your survey
experience in countries like Cambodia? The issue is discount rate.<br><br> j. I am not as interested in this answer - but we should also compare to just an ordinary wood-burning stove equivalent. The amount of wood to supply just the same daily 42 MJ of cooking would be 42 MJ / (18 MJ/kg) = 2.33 kg, worth 2.33 kg*$.07/kg = 16.3 cents. Not as good as 23 cents per day, and maybe the user would stop here if the char-maker had a lot of other problems (such as being batch mode). But maybe the time savings and cleaner kitchen with a char-making stove will make the difference in favor of making char - despite having to spend time to deal with a char-buyer. <br><br> k. Oh yes- we can't forget the value of the appreciably larger carbon credits that could go with biochar and presumably would be supported by Geres. None of the above was based on credits. I need to read more..<br><br>Ron<br><br><br><br><hr id="zwchr"><b>From: </b>"Cecil Cook" <cec1863@gmail.com><br><b>To: </b>"Discussion of biomass cooking stoves" <stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org>, "Paul Anderson" <psanders@ilstu.edu><br><b>Cc: </b>"Iwan
BASKORO" <i.baskoro@geres.eu>, "Hugh McLaughlin"
<wastemin1@verizon.net>, "Bob Fairchild"
<solarbobky@yahoo.com><br><b>Sent: </b>Tuesday, January 22, 2013 2:49:51 AM<br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [Stoves] Example of missed opportunities was Re: is this new?<br><br><div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Dear
Pual, Kevin, Crispin, Marc, and kindred stovers,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I am a
much backslid applied anthropologists who took a 30 year side trip into
appropriate technology in South Africa at the instigation of Crispin. Now
a days Crispin is still misleading me by asking me to assist him and the World
Bank design, test, produce, and market ever more perfect low cost biomass
stoves in places like Ulaanbataar in Mongolia, Yogyakarta in Java, and
most recently Battambang in Cambodia. With fiendish friends like Crispin,
who needs enemies?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Kevin's
comic stories about the idiot savant who is very good at drawing circles around
bullet holes is unfortunately a hilarious metaphor for the multiple problems
and predicaments that stove scientists, inventors and enthusiasts typically
create for themselves when they (we?) try to innovate ever more perfect biomass
burning stoves for imagined and therefore voiceless stove customers. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I
recently discovered there is a significant market in Central Java for big
portable charcoal stoves so that neighbours can come together to prepare food
in a sequence of 7 memorials for deceased family members (the last feast or
party comes 1000 days after a loved one dies). As an act of
solidarity, families, neighbours and friends get together outside in courtyards
and alleyways to cook big pots of food that is eaten by the living in honour of
the recently deceased. I have not observed one of these memorial services
but many families in the city informed me they have a big charcoal or wood
burning stove that mainly gets used for these parties for the dead and for
weddings, or by small food vendors who prepare food for sale to passersby or
also by caterers and in the kitchens of restaurants ... otherwise these big
stoves are simply stored in a corner. Families estimated they use their
big stoves about one to two times a month. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">It would
theoretically be possible to figure out what percentage of the biomass fuels
entering the urban economy of Yogyakarta city in Central Java are devoted to
staying on good terms of with spirits of the deceased and the in-laws.
Who but an inquisitive anthropologist would bother to isolate large
portable biomass stoves used for these important social ceremonies to
memorialize the dead and celebrate weddings as a potential market segment of
the stove buying public that needs be studied, understood, and perhaps is
important enough to merit the design of a biomass stove that meets their
socio-economic needs.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In the
case of cooking for the dead and the in-laws, we are talking here about
millions of biomass stoves that are mostly, but not exclusively, used for big
social ceremonies in Indonesia where there are perhaps a 100 million biomass
stoves in used with a replacement rate of perhaps 100 million stoves a year at
a cost of $1 to $2 each which is the going market value of a traditional
artisan made stove). The traditional stove economy of Indonesia is vast
and highly differentiated between a number of different - somewhat specialized
- market segments with different needs, interests and amounts of money to
spend.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The
informal approach that Crispin and I have used for many years is for us to
spend a day or two together with a typical low income family and go through a
cooking day together. While Crispin is focused on stoves, the pots used,
the sequencing of tasks and cooking cycles, I take time to walk around the
village or neighbourhood meeting the fuel sellers and stove vendors in the
nearby markets to get an idea about the stove and fuel supply chains, the mark
ups added to the retail value by the time a stove or 1 kg bag or charcoal or a
small bundle of wood is purchased by a low income household. One thing we
have discovered in Malawi, DRC, Mozambique, Zambia, and now Mongolia,
Indonesia, and Cambodia that the bottom 1/3 to 1/2 of these households survive
on tiny daily cash flows of less than a couple of dollars. The difference
in cost between a $1 to $2 stove and a $4 stove is huge. Think about your
response to a doubling of the cost of any big ticket durable consumer item that
you have come to depend on in your daily life like a car, or refrigerator or a
gas stove!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">What
normally happens when Crispin and I come face to face with the social and
economic reality of an urban or village household is that Crispin's inventive
mind is stimulated when it confronts the 'otherness' of a particular culture of
stove-fuel use which includes the traditional ways that people, both men and
women, operate their stoves and combine different types of biomass fuels to get
the performances they want from their stoves. They know a lot about economizing
scarce fuels when they are running out of money and/or fuel. He can’t help
himself. Crispin has an uncontrollable urge to innovate improvement in stove products
as he encounters them in their cultural contexts. This same process
continues when Crispin sits down with a traditional stove maker and comes to
terms with his knowhow and his or her technical, resource and financial
constraints. It is human, engaged, and face to face!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">This is
beginning of a real, culturally contextualized AT design process: Crispin as
stove scientist is challenged by me and indigenous stove users and stove makers
to reconfigure himself into a practical engineer who accepts responsibility for
converting his universal knowledge about combustion, heat transfer, and biomass
energy into forms that will be understood and used by a semi-literate and
pre-scientific artisan stove maker. The blessing of AT is the
democratization of the power and the benefits of an increasingly planetary
system of science and technology that comes about when we succeed in translating
this S&T into de-mystified forms that can be understood and creatively applied
by artisan stove makers, who know how to produce a very cheap $1 to $2 stove
(which the stove scientist does not know how to pull off!). But, the indigenous stove producer does not
know much about PM, the role of primary and secondary air flows and finding the
right balance, how to get the right amount of Excess Air flowing through a
stove, and how to maximize heat transfer between the fire and the pot.
Crispin needs to learn from the indigenous stove makers how he earns a
living making his traditional stove for 1 to 2 dollars and in that way dominates
the stove market and how the household stove users operates a traditional stove
to get the performance wanted out of it. It is Crispin’s and mostly my job as a
stove anthropologist to learn enough so that we can read and begin operating
within the cultural (ethno-science), behavioural and organizational system of
traditional stoves and therefore figure out where the best places are to begin
introducing changes into the traditional operator-stove-stove maker/vendor-fuel
producer economy. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I agree
totally with you that idiot stove scientists are drawing circles around their
shots into the dark unknown of the traditional operator-stove-fuel economy.
If we continue to privilege the stove scientist and the imagined brave
new stoves he hopes will liberate humanity from pollution (PM), asthma,
and the daily grind of gathering firewood, and persist in using his
western style 'ethno-science' to test the performance of ‘improved’ stoves to
identify the best performers by his stove science centered criteria we will
simply continue to fail in our mission to bring the multiple benefits of
science to the villagers and urban survivalists struggling at the Bottom of the
Pryamid This approach is hopelessly techno-centric and technocratic in
perspective and ultimately doomed to failure because justifies the imposition
by the World Bank and USAID and well meaning national government of improved
stoves costing $10 to $30 each on villagers and urban residents who survive on
less than $1 per person per day.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">We can do
better, much better than this, and I believe that Crispin and I have done and
continue to do better by helping stove scientists enter the mind and heart of
indigenous stove users and producers and discovering how to
practically empower stove producers with a fundamental grasp of the applied
science of high performance stoves. When
that happens, indigenous stove producers and vendors gain the practical
knowledge they need to produce a much improved $3 or $4 stove. A stove that costs two times more than the
industry standard is still within the reach of most stove buyers the world over. A Chinese manufactured StoveTec rocket stove
that sells for about $30 here in South Africa is ridiculously out of reach to
local users of biomass stove, including the three stoned fire. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The last
point I will share before I totter and totally fall off my soap box is that we
must develop our stove performance testing protocols around the culturally and
economically appropriate performance criteria that presently guide the behaviours
and economic choices of stove buyers in particular market segments. It is also necessity to penetrate the
cultural, social and economic worlds of the stove makers and stove vendors to
full understand why the existing
stove-fuel economy is dominated by $1 to $2 stoves and how these value chains
operate. The traditional operator-stove-fuel system must be allowed to sit in
judgement of the mad hatter stove designer who are beginning to control of
hundreds of millions of development funds for the improvement of traditional
stoves... not the reverse. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">When it
is possible for stove scientists - who passionately debate on the bio-energy
discussion list - to innovate Improved Stoves with superior emissions and
system efficiency performances that only cost $3 to $4 biomass and that
continue to meet all of the critical socio-cultural performance requirements of
the existing traditional stove then I will be doing back flips with Father
William to celebrate their accomplishments.
As an engineer shy anthropologist who has waited patiently off stage for
the stove scientists and hardware experts to recognize the short coming of the technology
centered approach, I am eager to participate with them to create an inclusive multi-disciplinary
and multi-stakeholder approach to the in situ design and development of improved
stoves.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I am
eager to take my hat off and salute stove scientists and engineers for
rededicating themselves to the transcendental objectives of humanity
serving appropriate science and technology: what did Fuller call it? Ah yes, I
remember, it is his more-for-less principle which enables a mature technology
to become ever more spirit like. Bucky called it the 'ephemeralization'
of science whereby a mature technology requires less and less energy and
material to perform a given function like computing, communicating, or cooking. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">May I
recommend that stovers take a good look at what Geres/Cambodia has accomplished
to date over 16 years with a stove improvement strategy that concentrates on
gradually improving the designs, materials, and production methods of the
producers and distributional methods of the vendors of traditional stoves, and
not on the primary stove buyer, the stove technology itself,
and certainly not the stove scientists. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222;background:white">Here is the url <</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><a href="http://www.geres.eu/en/studies/122-publi-etude-nls" target="_blank"><span style="color:#1155cc">http://www.geres.eu/en/studies/122-publi-etude-nls</span></a><span style="color:#222222;background:white">> for an important review of the
process that Geres went through in its capacity as a facilitator of baseline
research and institution builder that transformed the traditional Lao bucket
charcoal burning stove into the 'new Lao' improved cookstove which is today
produced and distributed by 35 small stove making enterprises who between them
produce and sell more than 25 000 NL stoves every month. There are many
useful lessons in this</span><span style="color:#222222"> <i>in situ</i><span style="background:white"> stove development strategy which the Geres team
systematically followed in Cambodia. They decided to maximize the use of
the the:</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">1.<span style="font-size:7pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">
</span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">traditional stove technologies, </span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;background-color:white;background-repeat:initial initial"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">2.<span style="font-size:7pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">
</span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">stove operating skills and knowledge base of particular groups of stove
users,</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;background-color:white;background-repeat:initial initial"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">3.<span style="font-size:7pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">
</span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">indigenous know how and business of producers of the traditional Lao
stove, and</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:54pt;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-color:white;background-repeat:initial initial"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">4.<span style="font-size:7pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">
</span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">existing network of wholesalers and retailers of stoves.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left:54pt;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-color:white;background-repeat:initial initial"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-color:white;background-repeat:initial initial"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">They have also minimized any disruption to this pre-existing traditional
system of producing, distributing and selling the Lao bucket charcoal stove by
incrementally improving the design, materials, production, training, and
distribution of the various 'traditional' role players in the
stove+operator+producer+vendor+fuel supply chain economy. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-color:white;background-repeat:initial initial"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-color:white;background-repeat:initial initial"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">I think we stove scientists, social science facilitators, funding
agents, and development policy makers, stove producers, etc. need to carefully
assess the relevance of the Geres Improved Cookstove Program for how to
incrementally develop improved 'traditional' stoves that are able to compete
with $1 to $2 stoves that dominate the stove markets of most
developing countries. </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-color:white;background-repeat:initial initial"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-color:white;background-repeat:initial initial"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#222222">It may also useful to review the Genes led Global Stove Program <<a href="http://www.geres.eu/en/geres-cambodia" target="_blank"><span style="color:#1155cc">http://www.geres.eu/en/geres-cambodia</span></a>>
which lays out a 5 year strategy to share the lessons learned by the Cambodian
Improved Cookstove Program with other national stove initiatives in SEAsia and
French speaking West Africa. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In service,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Cecil Cook</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">TechnoShare</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">South Africa</span></p></div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 2:41 AM, Kevin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kchisholm@ca.inter.net" target="_blank">kchisholm@ca.inter.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div><font face="Arial">Dear Paul</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">Once upon a time, a Traveller was driving along through a
rural District. He noticed that most stop signs, Billboards, Barn Doors, etc
were shot full of bullet holes, but that the bullet holes were in the exact
center of every circle! He was amazed at the shooting accuracy, and stopped at
the local Barber Shop to find out the identity of the Marksman. When he inquired
of the Barber, the Barber replied:</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">"That's the Village Idiot. He shoots first and draws the
circle after."</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">This silly little story contains an important lesson:
</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="4">"When wishing to develop a new product, first find
what The Market wants, and then build The Product around it."</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">The Patent Literature abounds with brilliant solutions to
problems that the World does not want solved. They "help the Little Old Lady to
cross the street, when she does not want to cross the street." Many of the
Inventors of such products end up broke and disillusioned. </font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">As it relates to stoves, what does Fatima in Egypt,
Michelle in Haiti, Joe Pattagoniak's Wife in an Inuktatuck Igloo or
Mohammed's Wife in a Grass Hut in Timbuktu want in a stove? Obviously, different
stoves are required for different applications. </font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">So, we can configure clever stoves that turn our creative
cranks and are fun to make, and we can develop our own testing procedures that
show how clever our clever stoves are, and with such carefully structured tests,
we can prove that "My clever stove is more clever than your clever stove." How
does that tie in with what Fatima et al, AKA "The Market", wants? </font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">If the test is based on the time to boil a covered pot,
but the Customer uses an uncovered pot... fail. If the Customer uses a covered
pot, but the test uses an open pot... fail. If the Customer wants heat loss to
the living space, and the test penalizes stove shell loss... fail. </font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">Some forms of "Improved Stove" represent the kind of
progress one gets when one moves the outhouse closer to the back door in the
Winter, and further away in the summer. We can build a stove venting into the
living space that has "an 80% reduction in CO, Tars, BC, and ash emissions" and
call it an "Improved stove." Such stoves will kill people living in Homes built
to First World standards. Certainly, there are Markets for which such stoves are
appropriate, but when tests are structured to require ALL stoves to meet the
requirements of a small section of the total stove market, then progress in the
remainder of the</font><font face="Arial"> Market is seriously
retarded.</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">A stove producing char is fabulous when the Customer wants
char, but when the Customer does not want char, it is a fail. A stove that boils
water quickly is great if one wants to sterilize water, but it is a fail if the
Customer wants to bake bread, or to simmer a stew for 2 hours without having to
attend the stove every 10-15 minutes. What is the purpose of a "Stove"?
What does the Customer want it to do? Perhaps the Customer wants an "Improved 3
stone fire that burns 5/7 as much wood, so that she doesn't have to find wood on
the weekend? The main requirements of a stove are:</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">1: It cooks food and/or heats the living
space</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">2: It is fuel efficient.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">3: Products of combustion do not harm the Occupants of the
living space.</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">Why aren't stoves rated on the basis of:</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">1: ... grams of fuel to cook the food or foods for which
the stove was designed?</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">2: ... stove heat loss to the living space?</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">3: ... whether or not the level of products of combustion
within the living space were acceptable or not.</font> </div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">Certainly, other "stove factors" are important, such as
initial cost, life, expected life, etc, but dealing with the above
factors in a way that was meaningful to the Customer would certainly be
helpful. </font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">There is a Classic Story about the Drunk crawling along in
the gutter one night, under a streetlight. </font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">The Cop asks "What are you doing"? </font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Drunk says: "I lost my cell phone and am looking for
it." </font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Cop asks: "Where did you lose it?"</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Drunk says: "On the other side of the
street."</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Cop asks: "Why are you looking here?"</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Drunk says: "Because there is more light
here."</font> </div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">I see interesting parallels in stove testing... the tests
seem to be set up to give results that are easy to attain in "The Lab", but
which are not necessarily reflective of conditions that are important to
the Customer in "The Field".</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">In theory, it is very easy to get Grant Money...
all the Applicant has to do is show the Donor that he is the best
person to do what the Donor wants done. If a Donor favours a particular
Technology, then that particular technology gets favoured. If the Donor favours
a business at a particular state of development, then that is the "business
state" that will be favoured. Donors don't so much support a given technology,
or a state of business development, but rather, they support a "total situation
that is most likely to get done what the donor wants done." Clearly, if the
Donor wants "Job ABC" done, and the Applicant is superb at "Job XYZ", then the
Applicant will not get funded. </font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">Best wishes,</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">Kevin</font></div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#000000 2px solid;PADDING-LEFT:5px;PADDING-RIGHT:0px;MARGIN-LEFT:5px;MARGIN-RIGHT:0px"><div><div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial;BACKGROUND:#e4e4e4"><b>From:</b>
<a title="psanders@ilstu.edu" href="mailto:psanders@ilstu.edu" target="_blank">Paul Anderson</a>
</div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial"><b>To:</b> <a title="stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org" href="mailto:stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org" target="_blank">Discussion of biomass cooking
stoves</a> </div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial"><b>Cc:</b> <a title="wastemin1@verizon.net" href="mailto:wastemin1@verizon.net" target="_blank">Hugh McLaughlin</a> ; <a title="solarbobky@yahoo.com" href="mailto:solarbobky@yahoo.com" target="_blank">Bob
Fairchild</a> </div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial"><b>Sent:</b> Monday, January 21, 2013 9:51
AM</div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial"><b>Subject:</b> [Stoves] Example of missed
opportunities was Re: is this new?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Crispin and all,<br><br>Good comments by Alex and
Marc and Crispin are below about air flows in TLUDs.<br><br>All should note
that Paal Wendelbo's Peko Pe TLUD has had some side-holes in the fuel chamber
wall for 2 decades. Not as much "early secondary air" as Crispin's
Vesto. And Paul Wever has them in his "stove pipe stove".
<br><br>My experiments with them were not conclusive about any advantage, so I
have opted to not use them, partly to have less work in fabrication (no extra
holes to make) and partly because the entering air enters as PRIMARY AIR when
the fuel bed is above the level of each hole, which translates into less
control. I will probably re-visit this topic when time and funds
permit.<br><br>MAIN POINT: This is a great example of missed
opportunities because there has never been seriously funded research on the
multitude of controllable variables in TLUD stoves!!! We can see
the possible variations. But we cannot prove them one way or the other
simply by funding them out of the pocketbooks of Paal, Paul, Crispin and
others. YEARS AGO we should have resolved the issues of the Vesto stove
being operated as a TLUD, or as a different type of stove. The
Peko Pe features should be better understood. As should the issues
of Nurhuda's stove, and Belonio's, and Anderson's and others. Even
people who have resisted TLUD technology for years are becoming involved and
still there is nearly zero coordination. And any financial support seems
to be by-passing the people with experience with micro-gasifiers, and instead
is seeking isolated academic modelling that (I suspect) will take years to
have academic results. So be it, but let's also give some funds to the
practitioners. <br><br><u>With all due respect</u> for the need for proper
"technology neutral" distribution of funding, I am getting very tired of
"technology neutral" that gives equal (or more) weight to giving money (big
money) to "business-ready" operations that can start cranking out stoves to be
counted toward the 100 million by 2020. Instead, the leading technology
for lowest emissions from solid-fuel cookstoves is TLUD (and other
micro-gasification), and it is not yet getting BASIC support that is
needed. <br><br>This is how it looks from my vantage point. I hope
that the above is a "reasoned statement", not a "rant." And I am forever
an optimist and have hopes that the situation will improve.<br><br>I
look forward to seeing many of you at ETHOS in Seattle and/or at the GACC
Forum in Cambodia.<br><br>Paul<br><br>*************<br>Alex English wrote:<br>
<blockquote>Crispin,<br>Its been a while since I saw the Vesto.
It looks from the pictures like there are secondary air holes all the way up
the central tube. Is that current?<br>Seems like the top rows would just be
adding tramp air (unemployed air).<br><br>Alex<br></blockquote><br><pre>Paul S. Anderson, PhD aka "Dr TLUD"
Email: <a href="mailto:psanders@ilstu.edu" target="_blank">psanders@ilstu.edu</a> Skype: paultlud Phone: <a href="tel:%2B1-309-452-7072" target="_blank">+1-309-452-7072</a>
Website: <a href="http://www.drtlud.com" target="_blank">www.drtlud.com</a></pre>On
1/20/2013 9:06 PM, Marc Pare wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote>That cutaway is beautiful! Great example of "let the product
speak for itself"
<div><br></div>
<div>Since seeing counterflow in action, I understand exactly what you're
describing with the air flows. </div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I didn't understand your emphasis on keeping the flame near the bed
with a "descending burner" until this paragraph:
<div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote style="BORDER-BOTTOM:medium none;BORDER-LEFT:medium none;PADDING-BOTTOM:0px;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 40px;PADDING-LEFT:0px;PADDING-RIGHT:0px;BORDER-TOP:medium none;BORDER-RIGHT:medium none;PADDING-TOP:0px">
<div><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125);font-size:14px;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">The
secondary air is send across the surface to keep a deck of flame going at
the height of the holes. This obviates the need for adding a circular disk
at the top to ’keep the flame going’. Adding a ‘concentrator’ as Paul
calls it takes more material and moves the fire too far away from the heat
of the pyrolysis bed leading to unwanted flame-outs from time to
time. </span></div></blockquote>
<div><br clear="all">
<div>I've seen these instabilities quite often in small-scale pyrolyzers.
Great to see a practical measure to prevent their tendency to "smoke
bomb".</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>What's on the "to-do" list for this class of design, Crispin? Are you
looking to push it into other applications? Apply the principles to improve
existing design? (like you mentioned with advancing the Anglo
SupraNova)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Marc Paré<br>B.S. Mechanical Engineering<br>Georgia Institute of
Technology | Université de Technologie de Compiègne<br><br>my cv, etc. | <a href="http://notwandering.com" target="_blank">http://notwandering.com</a></div><br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 9:42 AM, Crispin
Pemberton-Pigott <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:crispinpigott@gmail.com" target="_blank">crispinpigott@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<div lang="EN-CA">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';COLOR:#1f497d;FONT-SIZE:11pt">Dear
Marc and Ron and All interested in air flows</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';COLOR:#1f497d;FONT-SIZE:11pt"></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';COLOR:#1f497d;FONT-SIZE:11pt">This
is a response to questions about air and Marc’s tube.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';COLOR:#1f497d;FONT-SIZE:11pt"></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';COLOR:#1f497d;FONT-SIZE:11pt">Here
is an old photo of secondary air entering the combustion chamber of a
Vesto pushing the flame to the centre. This accomplishes the
following:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';COLOR:#1f497d;FONT-SIZE:11pt"></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';COLOR:#1f497d;FONT-SIZE:11pt">Keeps
the fire away from the wall, reducing the temperature it has to survive (a
lot)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';COLOR:#1f497d;FONT-SIZE:11pt">Keeps
the flame going</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';COLOR:#1f497d;FONT-SIZE:11pt">Not
allowing it to spread to one side away from the smoke on the other side
that might otherwise ‘get away’.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';COLOR:#1f497d;FONT-SIZE:11pt">Provides
turbulent mixing of flame, hot secondary air and smoke</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';COLOR:#1f497d;FONT-SIZE:11pt">Allows
for preheating to a significant degree (250-500
C)</span><br></p></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div></blockquote>See
Crispin's message at the Stoves Listserv archives.<br>
</div></div><p>
</p><hr><div>
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