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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-CA link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Dear Teddy<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>></span>This is indeed a very interesting issue you have brought up. Here are some of my personal anecdotes in regards to this in Kenya.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>You have run head-on into probably the most important need in the stove sector: the need for a comprehensive toolbox of test methods, or the principles for constructing them, within an agree framework of metrics and definitions not only of performance but of ‘everything’.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>You have a string of products that are not well suited to a GACC-WBT or a UCB-WBT and you are understandably frustrated by this.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Something to note (and this is good timing because there is a conference focussing on Kenya in a couple of weeks) is that the tests I have seen recently that were performed in Kenya at a university were done using the UCB-WBT 3.0 from 10 years ago which I admit shocked me. There is no meaningful way to correlate the calculated outputs of that test method with either the GACC’s 4.1 or 4.2 series (which themselves are meaningfully different). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>So the question immediately arises: what test are you getting when you ask for one? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Re charcoal ovens: Ovens have to be tested on cooking efficacy, fuel consumption and emissions. There are several ways to do this and that will have to be negotiated with regulator (presuming there is a desire to have a national regulation covering them).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Charcoal ovens and in fact large cookers can be very efficient, thermally, and might be efficient on emissions if they are properly ignited. I occasionally invite people to calculate the whole system efficiency of the energy available in a tree and the amount of cooking done with a wood-fired device and the conversion of that tree into charcoal and used in a charcoal burning device. Because charcoal can burn quite completely in a very low excess air environment, the heat transfer efficiency to an oven can be above 90%. This is most easily determined using a combustion analyser though it can be calculated using individual CO, CO2 and O2 cells and a thermocouple, applying the Siegert formula.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Together with the CO/CO<sub>2</sub> ratio and a fuel consumption rate per hour, you would have a very good assessment of performance in continuous operation. As you can imagine, using a ‘task-based approach’ to a bakery is inappropriate. That is where a testing toolbox is really helpful. You would have in the toolbox validated procedures for measuring the CO/CO2 ration, for example, and apply it. You would also find a validated method of measuring fuel consumption with definitions and metrics. Applying that would give you a way to evaluate the product over a typical day.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Typical in every case means according to local practices and conditions. A test intended to rate relative performance if only meaningful in a context. Thus the test should be relative to the general conditions prevailing either in Kenya or the region where the product is used. If it is a bread bakery that operates 10 hours a day that is pretty common and would delineate the burn cycle (including refueling).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Im thinking we just roast chickens and bake bread, but I imagine that would just be more delicious then scientific. <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>There is nothing that prevents you doing proper measurements and using appropriate metrics. Using the relevant set of ‘sub-tests’ from the stove testing toolbox, you would construct (or they would) a protocol that consisted of validated elements. If the test is created using valid tools then the result, calculated using validated methods and metrics, creates a scientifically valid report.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Work on such a toolbox has been going on for some time. A presentation was made on the progress at the GACCC conference in Phnom Penh in March last year.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Then there also is the issue of how in the world do we begin to afford test the other products (that are already being copied by jua kali) like the <span style='color:#1F497D'>…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Tests cost money. What we all need is a test that is relevant to the product and which reports what the performance will be in use in the target community, which might be al the baker all the urban food vendors and so on. One stove test does not fit all products any more than one food satisfies all palates.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>This is considering that the charge appx. 60,000ksh (700USD) per test and they take months and will probably need to be individually designed etc. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Once a test of a product type has been constructed, it is a matter of applying it. The $700 figure is realistic. A rough guide is that a testing facility has to charge about 1% of the value of the equipment used per day. Equipment has to be calibrated. A certification level lab will spend about 1 full day per week only on system calibration. Measuring relative performance is much, much cheaper and requires much less expensive equipment. The testing toolbox could contain procedures for both.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>We try our best with our own in house testing (largely based on things iv learned from my dad and the bioenergysite info) and we work hard with our customers who after all, more or less are the ones who fund, design, test and market our new products.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>If you want to test on an individual scale you need a scale, a combustion analyser, some thermocouples (two at least) and some training. Training is occasionally available at the SeTAR Centre in Johannesburg on how to do this. We have trained people in 7 universities (at least) but the most northerly was from Dar es Salaam.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>And one last small thing is the testing of the KCJ... how is that inevitably the particular KCJ tested always somehow seems to be the one that looks like it was made by a drunk fundi using old rusty sheet metal and then run over by a herd of cows and was lit using wet charcoal? <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Again the question arises as to which version of which test, and what was the intended use of the result?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Was the stove dried (fired) before testing? Did the test protocol include the ignition emissions in the overall result? I heard that some tests are omitting the ignition period, using only the emissions from when the pot is placed on the stove. Obviously this gives an inaccurate answer to the question, “What is the cook’s exposure to emissions?” As you will be aware, not all IKJ’s are created equal. And it is so easy to improve an IKJ! The shape of the ceramic chamber is awful and the holes are too big and ….. another time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>If anyone on this listserve would like to test a real original Kenya Ceramic Jiko, made to the exact original specs, please contact us to get one on loan, completely for free if you pay shipping. (and testing.) <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Well, which test, and to what would you compare the ‘result’? An IKJ is reasonable, but the ignition method is going to improve/worsen the emissions far more than small variations in shape and size. Try lighting it with an ignition cone and drop the smoke total 50%. Then all you have to do is quibble about durability.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Regards<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Crispin<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></body></html>