<div dir="ltr"><div>Dear Paul,</div>One can tap several ministries for funds. Off hand, I can think of the following ones: The ministry of New and Renewable sources of Energy, The Ministry of Rural Development, The Ministry of Science and Technology, The Ministry of Woman and Child Welfare. When it comes to using biomass as a source of energy, the Government agencies show very little interest, because the biomass, especially agricultural waste and cattle dung, belongs to farmers. If some mad scientist developed the technology of using privately owned biomass as a decentralised source of energy for private use, the government would lose its stranglehold on the economy which it exercises through energy sources like mineral oil, mineral coal, natural gas, hydro-electricity, nuclear energy, wind energy etc., which are the monopoly of the Government. India generates annually 800 million tons of agricultural waste, which has almost 3 times as much energy of the petroleum used annually in India. <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 Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 7:58 PM, Paul Anderson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:psanders@ilstu.edu" target="_blank">psanders@ilstu.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
A.D.,<br>
<br>
Exactly so!!!! What could be some plans of action to accomplish
this?? Who are the advocates of such assistance?<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<pre cols="72">Doc / Dr TLUD / Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
Email: <a href="mailto:psanders@ilstu.edu" target="_blank">psanders@ilstu.edu</a>
Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website: <a href="http://www.drtlud.com" target="_blank">www.drtlud.com</a></pre><div><div class="h5">
<div>On 8/1/2016 2:28 AM, Anand Karve wrote:<br>
</div>
</div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="h5">
<div dir="ltr">Indian villagers generally use fuel generated in
their own farms (e.g.stalks of cotton and pigeonpea, dung
cakes). Government of India subsidizes modern energy sources
such as LPG and electricity, which are used in the cities. As
the fuel used by villagers is not subsidized, the government
should at least subsidize improved stoves. At least in India,
the administrative infrastructure exists for supervising such a
programme.
<div>Yours</div>
<div>A.D.Karve</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all">
<div>
<div 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 Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 11:53 PM,
Traveller <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:miata98@gmail.com" target="_blank">miata98@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_extra">Nikhil Desai again, on
"performance metrics" and subsidies, in response to
Crispin Pemberton-Pigott.<br>
<br>
------------ </div>
I partly agree with Crispin, “There is always the
possibility that an assumption is blocking the way. In
this case, that a high performance stove (however defined)
has to cost a lot more..” <br>
<br>
The primary error is in holding that fuel consumption and
emission rates are performance metrics. Says who? The
bean-counters of petajoules, trees and sequestered carbon,
DALYs (all of which are cooked numbers)? Unfortunately, we
have created energy poverty pundits with galling ignorance
and misinformation. T<span style="font-size:12.8px">reating
stoves and lungs as mere oxidation machines is mockery
of the poor. </span>Subsidizing government stove experts
to control biomass stove designs and subsidies hasn't done
a thing for India, as this article last year shows so
vividly<span style="font-size:12.8px"> </span><a href="http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/smoke-India-perfect-cookstove" style="font-size:12.8px" target="_blank"><span>Up</span> <span>in</span> <span>Smoke</span></a><span style="font-size:12.8px"> (Caravan, April 2015). </span><br>
<br>
What matters is creating an aspirational product, for
today’s children and youth, not grandmas. “High cost” if a
barrier, can be dealt with by subsidies. The metric of
success, in my mind, is whether a user buys a second
product or a replacement product with lower or no
subsidies. <br>
<br>
---<br>
There are three main reasons subsidies have not received
much attention for solid fuel stoves (compared to LPG and
electricity): i) Not enough confidence in the benefits (as
perceived by the poor, including convenience); ii)
Difficult or irrational technical standards that are
unenforceable (I can debate this some other time); iii)
Perception of un-competitive behaviour and potential for
corruption or stagnation; iv) unclear demand potential and
success metrics; and v) potentially high administrative
costs. The last can get a nightmare with the type of
Monitoring and Evaluation some donors have been forcing on
stove programs; poor governments don’t have the luxury of
fancy, non-reproducible experiments on the poor just for
keeping foreign PhDs employed. (Example - the infamous MIT
gang of Hanna-Duflo-Greenstone.)<br>
<br>
This doesn't apply for all means of subsidies, but the
Indian government's stove programs have suffered from one
or more of these factors over the decades. Giving
consumer the choice may get around some of these problems,
provided i) and ii) are solved (as they are for LPG;
pico-PV is getting there.) For LPG, PNG and grid
electricity - heavily used for some 1/3 to 1/2 of cooking
energy demand in India, and other sources of emissions
ignored by the GBD gang - problems iv) and v) are also
solved, enough that few people bother about iii). A
successful subsidy program creates its vested interests;
for biomass stoves, looks like the only vested interest
for government subsidies are MNRE and its contractors. <br>
<br>
Some other stoves are probably easier to subsidize – solar
cookers (no worries about fuel quality and use patterns),
biogas small and large, even gelfuel and stoves. My crude
impression is, governments are happy to leave bilateral
donors and private charities the field of “improved
biomass stoves”. None has yet been found worthy of a
long-term subsidy program; however, I feel other means of
support ought to be extended to biomass stove designers,
testers, manufacturers. Governments are also major buyers
of fuel and stoves, but I rarely hear much on selling
stoves to them. (One exception I know of – Albert Butare
in Rwanda; I don’t know what came of the initiative.)<br>
<br>
I suspect mid-size coal stoves are easier to certify and
support – when fuel quality is fairly consistent, and
utilization rates are high (cooking and heating). Their
users tend to be not so poor as those who rely on twig
collection and three-stone fires. Research on coals and
their combustion is extensive; coal can be burnt “clean
enough” for boiler use. <br>
<br>
Miracle biomass stoves that can take any fuel, so appeal
to household cooks to do a complete permanent switchover
for any use .. Wake me up in 15 years. (Some years ago, I
drafted a proposal that opened the door for India's
Advanced Biomass Stoves program that went up in smoke.)<br>
<br>
Crispin again, "Cecil's question is which stove will find
the greatest acceptance in the least time? Make and
maintain it yourself forever, or wait for a subsidy? That
is a rational choice. If someone gives you as stove and
you sell it then make your own, you have benefitted from
the stove programme. I know where there are thousands of
examples of that. Maybe tens of thousands. It depends on
the offer."<br>
<br>
If you mean tens of thousands of stoves, not worth the
bother. If tens of thousands of projects with millions of
stoves, worth building a record. Do GACC or giz or anybody
have such records? I hadn't seen any as of five years ago.
What do you think has been spent on woodstoves programs in
poor countries to date by foreign governments,
multilateral agencies, and charities - some $400 million
in 40 years? How much of that on subsidies and how much on
research, M&E, and learning lessons without really?
<div><br>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
Nikhil</div>
<div class="gmail_extra">
<div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;font-size:12.8px">---------</span></div>
<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;font-size:12.8px">(India
+91) 909 995 2080<font face="Arial" size="2"> </font></span>----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
Message: 2<br>
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2016 15:52:12 -0400<br>
From: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <<a href="mailto:crispinpigott@outlook.com" target="_blank">crispinpigott@outlook.com</a>><br>
To: "'Discussion of biomass cooking
stoves'"<br>
<<a href="mailto:stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org" target="_blank">stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org</a>><br>
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Fwd: business
sickness<br>
Message-ID:
<a href="mailto:COL401-EAS369ED0D936E79C2E6CF59BEB1270@phx.gbl" target="_blank"><COL401-EAS369ED0D936E79C2E6CF59BEB1270@phx.gbl></a><br>
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="utf-8"<br>
<br>
Dear Bob L<br>
<br>
<br>
I think there is a choice or two that
was not covered in your list of the
options (or rather, Radha?s options if
that was the source).<br>
<br>
"a billions women can't afford the stove
they need. We have three choices.<br>
we can leave them out<br>
we can sell them a stove they can afford
that they will abandon<br>
we can subsidize their purchase.<br>
<br>
we choose to subsidise their purchase."<br>
<br>
One of the things Cecil Cook keeps
saying is that the designers have to
realise that there is an upper limit to
what people are willing to spend on a
stove. That is true, and the amount can
be ascertained, but there is more
complication to it.<br>
<br>
A stove that only does a certain range
of things (addressing Nikhil?s question
about ?performance?) has a certain
perceived value. Another device that
does pretty much the same thing will be
assigned pretty much the same perceived
value.<br>
<br>
Three options: change the perceived
value (advertising), or bring more to
the table (like adding electricity), or
increase the performance without
increasing the cost.
<br>
<br>
There is always the possibility that an
assumption is blocking the way. In this
case, that a high performance stove
(however defined) has to cost a lot
more. This is common cause in the donor
community, with some but not a heck of a
lot of justification. Using the same
materials and creating a new
configuration can deliver more benefit
without increasing the amount of
material of the cost. Some designs
would benefit from being mass produced,
some from mass parts production and
local assembly. Some designs require a
high local skill level and it is
difficult to transfer such skills.<br>
<br>
My main point is that delivering far
better stoves for the same cost is what
engineers and in fact universities are
good at doing. More function for less
cost. I mention universities because
while they are not major sources of
invention, they are very good at
optimising the application of new ideas.
Engineers are supposed to optimise the
use of materials and cost to deliver a
given performance target with a required
margin of safety as a matter of course.<br>
<br>
Practical Action made a major effort in
Darfur to improve the performance of the
local mud stoves that were in common
use. They achieved a consistent 50% fuel
saving across the board without an
increase in cost. Such an achievement is
usually accompanied by a reduction in
emissions of smoke and CO because they
have to be burned to get that magnitude
of performance increase. Not always, but
almost all the time. So we can
demonstrate that the goal of improvement
can be achieved without having to spend
more.<br>
<br>
We can also spend more and get an
improvement, no problem. Cecil?s
question is which stove will find the
greatest acceptance in the least time?
Make and maintain it yourself forever,
or wait for a subsidy? That is a
rational choice. If someone gives you as
stove and you sell it then make your
own, you have benefitted from the stove
programme. I know where there are
thousands of examples of that. Maybe
tens of thousands. It depends on the
offer.<br>
<br>
Bob, it sounds like you have a winner of
an approach, and it is quite likely the
government won?t kick in anything. Don?t
give up, but unless there is some net
beneficial offer it will lag behind in
the decision tree. Is it not possible
for the communities to kick something
in? I live in Mennonite country and they
frequently do things like that. Local
self-upliftment. If it is really
valuable and appreciated, to what extent
can a community organise things for its
own benefit? I have seen amazing things
happen.<br>
<br>
Kukaa vizuri<br>
<br>
Crispin<br>
<br>
bob lange <a href="tel:508%20735%209176" value="+15087359176" target="_blank">508
735 9176</a><br>
the Maasai Stoves and Solar Project.<br>
the ICSEE<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset></fieldset>
<br>
</div></div><pre>_______________________________________________
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