<div dir="ltr">As far as India is concerned, our government is planning to give electricity to all households in the next 5 years. Induction stoves are being used even in villages, where electricity has become available. The programme of giving LPG to poor householders has also already been started. Availability of electricity and LPG, and the rapid pace of urbanization would soon spell the end of biomass based cooking. Because of easy availability of agricultural waste and waste urban biomass, the biomass based fuel would not go out of fashion but these items will no longer be burned directly in a stove. They would be converted into value added fuels, which may be used by industries rather than by householders. <div>Yours</div><div>A.D.Karve</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">***<br>Dr. A.D. Karve<br><br>Chairman, Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd (<a href="http://www.samuchit.com" target="_blank">www.samuchit.com</a>)<br><br>Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)<br></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 12:28 AM, Dr.-Ing. Dieter Seifert <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:doseifert@googlemail.com" target="_blank">doseifert@googlemail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US">Dear Xavier
Brandao,<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US">Thank you
for your informative posting. I agree with your proposals<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US">and I would
like to draw your attention to documents about open source
cooking technologies
(OSAT) which you find on the website of SCI (</span><a href="http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Dieter_Seifert" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US"></span></a><a href="http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Dieter_Seifert" target="_blank">http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Dieter_Seifert</a><span lang="EN-US">)<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US">a) some remarks
on stove-technologies:<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><a href="http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/solarcooking/images/8/8f/Remarks_on_Stove_Technologies_-_Seifert_February_2016.pdf/revision/latest?cb=20160519171524" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US"></span></a><a href="http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/solarcooking/images/8/8f/Remarks_on_Stove_Technologies_-_Seifert_February_2016.pdf/revision/latest?cb=20160519171524" target="_blank">http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/solarcooking/images/8/8f/Remarks_on_Stove_Technologies_-_Seifert_February_2016.pdf/revision/latest?cb=20160519171524</a><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US">b) about
Ben firewood stoves: <u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><a href="http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Ben_2_and_Ben_3_Firewood_Stoves" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US"></span></a><a href="http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Ben_2_and_Ben_3_Firewood_Stoves" target="_blank">http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Ben_2_and_Ben_3_Firewood_Stoves</a><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US">The whole
documentation is dedicated to poor households. Only standard
material is
needed. The documentation (including Annexes A … E) contains
also the devices
for production in simple workshops, so that the cost of a
stove will be below
10 USD. <u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US">c) about
cooking with retained heat (a totally underestimated
technology)<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><a href="http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Heat-retention_cooker" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US"></span></a><a href="http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Heat-retention_cooker" target="_blank">http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Heat-retention_cooker</a><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US">I hope this
open source technologies may be so helpful, as you described
it.<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+1"><span lang="EN-US">Kind
regards <u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<font size="+1">
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="+1">Dieter
Seifert</font><u></u><u></u></span></p><span class="">
<br>
<br>
Am 14.06.2016 um 08:16 schrieb Xavier Brandao:<br>
</span></div>
<blockquote type="cite"><span class="">Hello Stovers!
<br>
<br>
I haven't posted for a long time, but reading the Stovelist is
still a real pleasure to me: lively debates, breakthrough stove
science, many people working on many initiatives, with a lot of
energy, that's great to see, that's emulating!
<br>
Sorry for the long email, but there are here a few ideas I wanted
to develop.
<br>
<br>
It's been some time since I wanted to share this article from the
Guardian, it was sent to me by Minh, a previous colleague of mine,
who also worked on the GERES project in Cambodia. I don't think it
has been shared on this list, but I think it talks about just the
most fundamental of our problems:
<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/cookstoves-design-poor-communities-refugees-unhcr-ikea" target="_blank">http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/cookstoves-design-poor-communities-refugees-unhcr-ikea</a>
<br>
<br></span>
"*With all the knowledge and technology we have at our disposal,
why is it proving so difficult to design and create simple and
efficient cookstoves for the three billion people who use them in
the developing world?*"
<br><span class="">
is the question asked by T. Alexander Aleinikoff, the United
Nations deputy high commissioner for refugees.
<br>
<br>
The question I would have is more the following: "why don't we
know why it is proving so difficult?"
<br>
I mean, after decades of stove development and dissemination,
there's at least one thing we should know, it's where our
difficulties come from!
<br>
<br>
But here's a tentative answer to Mr Aleinikoff question: the
principles behind biomass combustion make it extremely difficult
to do stoves that are both cheap and practical, and very clean.
But, like anything, I believe this is not impossible, and this is
a problem we are working on tackling.
<br>
And for now, when a stove developer decides to make a stove,
he/she chooses almost systematically the latter aspect: clean
combustion. You know the rest of the story: the stove is expensive
and impractical to use, barely good enough to boil water for tea,
and users don't buy it or use it.
<br>
I'm being caricatural but this is what happens too often.
<br>
<br>
<br></span>
/*Stove science is lagging behind, not stove marketing*/
<br><span class="">
<br>
I have done a great deal of reading since I've started working on
stoves, years ago. Reports are piling in our digital library at
Prakti. We will keep reading and piling them, for sure. At the
same time I have been trying to extract the very nectar of these
reports, and try to get an understanding of what really matters.
<br>
<br>
In my opinion the stove sector knows what works in terms of
dissemination, distribution and marketing. Most of the reports are
about marketing and business models. Marketing to the BOP is very
well documented. It seems to me that every new edition of Boiling
Point from HEDON talks about this or that project: involve women
vendors, demonstrate the stoves, pay attention to early adopters
and opinion leaders, use mobile phone technologies, listen to the
feedback, find financing solutions, etc. I think we know all that.
And some projects are working great. You do good marketing, you
make a lot of efforts, you reap the rewards.
<br>
But all agree it starts with one thing, it starts with a great
product.
<br>
<br>
This is where the stove sector is lagging behind. No offense meant
to all the great researchers working on stoves.
<br>
Stove marketing is currently waiting for stove science. Stove
science is lagging behind, because as I mentioned stove science is
so complex. Many challenges come with clean combustion. Marketers
wait for scientists to sort a few things out: scientifically
correct, and scientifically relevant protocols first. Then A LOT
of testing will be necessary, a lot of data, to understand
combustion, to understand variables, to understand stoves. Then,
good design, good engineering, great products. Once the great
products are there, salers and marketers and project implementers
are reading to pick them up, and to sell them to the BOP.
<br>
A side note: I'd love to see HEDON and similar publications focus
more on the hard science, and how to help it, to accelerate it.
These are questions worth writing about.
<br>
<br>
So what I call a great stove is not a Tier-4 stove that works
perfectly in controlled testing settings. I am gonna be again very
caricatural: Tier-4 is accessory, it is bonus.
<br>
A great product is simply product a customer loves, buys and uses.
A great stove is a stove that is used.
<br>
<br>
Some of you certainly experienced that: you give one day your new
prototype to a woman user. Skeptical at first, she agrees to leave
her traditional stove for a week, and start using your new stove.
You come back one week later. She is using it every day, for lunch
and dinner. She loves it. She put her ceramic stove on the side,
actually, it is nowhere to be seen. Your new stove has become the
kitchen stove.
<br>
It's only for experiencing this kind of feeling that I work so
hard. This is when this happen to you that you know you have a
great stove. Adoption.
<br>
<br>
<br></span>
/*Cookstoves: super practical vs super clean */
<br><span class="">
<br>
I picture the stove sector as a large mountain, with 2 camps on
its two feet. The 2 camps are separated by the mountain in the
middle.
<br>
• In one camp the infamous smoky traditional stoves, and very
next to them, the vast majority of users, using them every day
<br>
• In the other camp, stove developers and manufacturers,
reaching Tier-4 in their expensive labs, with complex technologies
and expensive stoves. And their very limited dissemination
numbers.
<br>
<br>
The 2 camps don't communicate much with each other. What happens
is that often a new recruit joins the stove developer camp. He/she
chooses the techno-push approach. The new comer comes up with a
slick design, cool materials, excellent lab results. But many
restrictions are imposed to the product use, it should take this
fuel, not this fuel, be lit this way, be tended this way, etc. And
as Crispin was mentioning in one of his last posts, so many
important things are left during the development process.
<br>
Great disappointment is the reward of so much of work when the
users don't accept the new product.
<br>
<br>
Priya Karve rightly emphasizes the importance of delivering a
cooking service, not a cooking stove. At Prakti we work on the
"cookstove system" (stove + fuel + cooking vessel + operator +
burn cycle). Traditional stoves give an excellent cooking service!
They are great cooking tools! They are just awfully dangerous for
health.
<br>
<br>
<br></span>
/*Next actions: a few ideas*/
<br><span class="">
<br>
I believe both camps can meet together, on top of this mountain.
There'll be extremely clean and usable stoves, hopefully soon.
There is some good progress happening already.
<br>
<br>
But to be sure to succeed, I would start my climb at the basecamp
where all users already are.
<br>
<br>
What I think stove developers should do:
<br>
<br>
• Change your perspective: consider that traditional stoves are
great. That they are fantastic. Because people have been using
them for thousand of years. They must have something special,
right? Start by not judging them.
<br>
• Spend a lot of time with the users. See them cooking. Cook
yourself, cook on the traditional stove. See how easy it is with
the traditional stove.
<br>
• Then build your own stove based on the traditional stove. Big
stove, easy to use, sturdy, large opening, easy to tend, large
combustion chamber, lot of power, fast to cook.
Give it to users.
Have them use it, have them like it.
<br>
• Your stove is being used everyday, it is being adopted.
Congratulations! Additionally, you might have seen by now, and
your future customers remarked it too, that the new stove, even if
it's far from being Tier 4, is actually much less smoky than the
traditional stove..
<br>
• You've reached your usability baseline, that's your
prerequisite, the bar has been set. Don't cross it now. Always
keep the stove as usable.
<br>
• Set a bar also for price. Keep the stove cheap. Its
production must be affordable. This is a prerequisite too.
<br>
• From there: work on improving performance: emissions and wood
savings. It will be difficult. But you can improve it, by a lot.
<br>
• If you are working on a breakthrough technology, see how you
can introduce it to your usable cheap stove, without lowering the
bar you set.
<br>
• Work on the breakthrough technology in isolation, if
necessary. If the technology is not ready to be engineered into a
good stove, so be it.
<br>
<br>
At Prakti, this is what we are currently doing, working both on
incremental progress, and breakthrough technologies. Both are
difficult, but both hold promises.
I was saying previously that
stove marketing was waiting for stove science. In fact, it's not.
It cannot wait. Stove are being sold, marketed, for better of for
worse. Funders, programme managers, private companies, want to see
stoves in the field, they want to see numbers.
<br>
<br>
Now, in my picture, I didn't mention that great projects, not only
in humanitarian context, are on the other side of the mountain,
they have chosen to improve traditional cookstoves, with simple
design changes. GERES, GIZ, SNV among others have worked on such
projects. Materials must be found locally, price must be cheap.
Local artisans must be the manufacturers of the stove. They have
had great success, large numbers disseminated.
<br>
<br>
This is a proven approach, but what I advocate is to go even
further, and businesses and manufacturers are part of that.
<br>
It is not to improve a traditional stove, but to develop a new
stove, that has the same qualities as this traditional stove. This
is a small nuance. And work on making this stove clean.
<br>
The approach is to use much more science, much more engineering.
To think in business terms. Make a product which can be
mass-manufactured, which can be scalable. Our customers love the
portability of our stoves, this is for example something we want
to keep.
<br>
<br>
It is said there is not one-size-fits all. That's debatable. Have
you seen how similar mud stoves in Africa, in Asia look like?
Close to the ground, big front opening. Why is the Jiko such a
hit, all over Africa? Isn't the 3 stone fire the world's most
successful one-size-fits all model?
<br>
<br>
We need funding to go to R&D. This is something I advocated at
the Clean Cooking Forum in Delhi last October 2015, and is still
very actual to me. At Prakti we've been very lucky to have funding
from the GACC and other funders for our R&D work. It helped a
lot. This needs to continue, and on a much larger scale.
<br>
Radha Muthiah rightly says in the article that, these are the
article words, "the market is fragmented, with a lot of small and
medium-sized entrepreneurs who may not have the appropriate design
and manufacturing skills". I fully agree with that. A possible way
to address this issue is to fund work that can benefit to the
whole sector, especially R&D work. Besides testing and
protocols, works on materials, work on design, work on combustion.
Crispin said in the volume 69, issue 8, that the long term future
of stove materials is glass and ceramic, and more investment
should go in the research on those. There are several areas that
research can explore.
<br>
<br>
Companies sell shampoo to the BOP, they sell soft drinks. Here in
India, cheap smartphones are everywhere. A lot of R&D money
has been spent so these products could be made, and now successful
technologies and successful marketing go hand-in-hand.
<br>
There is no reason that we cannot achieve that soon as well with
cookstoves.
<br>
<br>
Xavier Brandao
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<fieldset></fieldset>
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