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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear Nikhil, dear Sujoy,<br>
<br>
Research and development is each time, a matter of choices.
Eventually, one has to make a choice, choose a priority. It is
difficult not to be subjective.<br>
<br>
Possibly, given the variety of situations, the variety of fuels as
you say Nikhil, a variety of research initiatives should be
undertaken. It would be desirable that these initiatives are not
too scattered, are somehow coordinated, so efforts are not
duplicated, and they can communicate and share information with
each other.<br>
Well, there are such research initiatives, I am thinking
especially about the TLUD community which share so readily their
learnings on this list.<br>
<br>
Then, there is also an other approach, which I think has its
merits. It is to define commonalities between the technologies and
the projects, and research something that could have implications
in many areas, and benefit a large number of stakeholders. It
takes more time, but there might be large benefits to reap. That's
why I think fundamental research is so interesting. When some
truths about radio waves were understood, a wide range of
applications could be engineered, in very different domains.<br>
<br>
For example, here the research could be focused only on lignin and
cellulose, and their combustion in an open environment (like the 3
stone fire). Or, if too wide, lignin and cellulose in the
proportions that can be found in 3 very common varieties of wood
found in tropical areas, and commonly used as firewood.<br>
Let's say the researchers would find a few interesting new facts
about combustion. Not necessarily groundbreaking discovery, but a
few small facts. These facts could generate ideas on a few
different ways to conduct this combustion. That could lead to new
design ideas, to be applied to cookstoves.<br>
<br>
Here I am just exploring some possibilities. Fundamental research
findings can generate in turn a lot of applied research and
various engineering projects, and in the end, make more acceptable
stoves for the users.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
<br>
Xavier<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 8/21/16 12:51 PM, Sujoy Chaudhury wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CA+ejjr6zXDMELZP4PhHuBDs2WHZ+gqfUDCyGpSMTC=8o=7dXrA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Dear Nikhil and others in the list.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Although late in the discussion and most must have stopped
following this chain, I would still like to put my "two paisa"
worth of thinking down. The issue for me is why have improved
cookstoves not been accepted by the average poor and is
current stove research focussing on this issue </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>What does the rural and urban poor cook want? The rural and
urban poor wants primarily a reliable and cheap source of fuel
to cook the family's meal and to cook it with the least amount
of drudgery. Every woman that sits down to cook has
aspirations of being able to cook with the least amount of
fuss- enough fuel, enough heat and the proposed meals cooked
in the least amount of time and without messing up the cooking
space and these are obviously the criteria that designers use
to design cookstoves. This could have been a simple problem to
crack, however in the real world most poor cooks have to
deal with a number of problems before they can finally produce
their desired meals. The primary issue is the type of fuel and
the quality of the fuel. In a project with urban poor women in
Kolkata ( improving the health of mothers and children through
reduced exposure to Indoor air pollution caused by inefficient
cookstoves and aggravated by bad shelter architecture) , it
was found that the cooks had to depend on a number of fuel
types. Kerosene purchase had to be made in cash and was thus
limited. A large part of the fuel used for cooking had to be
scavenged ( mostly biomass, packing materials, construction
wastes, discarded furniture etc.). While there was a pattern
in the type of fuel being scavenged, the problem was with the
quantity. Meals had to be planned on the type and quantity of
the fuel collected. These cooks needed a stove that could use
multiple fuels and be as clean as possible- a stove that rid
them of the drudgery of cooking. Obviously none of the
cookstoves then matched upto the need of cooks in the slums. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I thought then and still think now that the problem with
cookstoves were that inspite of decades of promotion,
designers have missed the design functions around which
cookstoves could be made desirable first and sufficiently
efficient. The designers are focused on efficieny wheres they
should have focussed on desirability, making the cookstove an
object of aspiration and able to impact on the drudgery of
cooking and then worked on increasing efficiency. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>What use is a stove that has the best possible performance
ratings but nobody wants to buy it . </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Regards</div>
<div>sujoy </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 11:35 AM,
Traveller <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
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">Nikhil Desai again. Apologies in advance for
ruffling feathers. I think of feathers as sacred biomass;
emissions from their roasting propitiate the Gods.
<div>---------<br>
(Thank you, Xavier, for introducing Manifesto
Convivialiste. For English-speakers, look <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.gcr21.org/publications/global-dialogues/2198-0403-gd-3/"
target="_blank">here</a> and <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.lesconvivialistes.org/abridged-version-of-the-convivialist-manifesto"
target="_blank">here</a>. I am allergic to
neo-Malthusians and "de-growth" advocates, but I do
admire ecologists and planners.) <br>
----------<br>
Xavier: <br>
<br>
You put forth questions it took me some time to think -
can I combine my skepticism with optimism? <br>
<br>
I come up empty - you know, old dogs can't learn new
tricks - but let me try to reformulate or advance new
questions: <br>
<br style="font-size:12.8px">
<span style="font-size:12.8px">You: "1. What are really
the efforts done on fundamental research on biomass </span><span
style="font-size:12.8px">combustion for cookstoves?
Who is seriously working full-time on </span><span
style="font-size:12.8px">combustion? </span><br
style="font-size:12.8px">
<span style="font-size:12.8px"> 2. With what manpower?</span><br
style="font-size:12.8px">
<span style="font-size:12.8px"> 3. Is this research
organized?</span><br style="font-size:12.8px">
<span style="font-size:12.8px"> 4. Is it heavily
financed as it should be?</span><br
style="font-size:12.8px">
<span style="font-size:12.8px"> 5. Do we really think
this research effort is up to the challenges we </span><span
style="font-size:12.8px">are facing?"<br>
</span><br>
Let me ask: </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>1. Whose cookstoves and whose biomass? Why are we
hung up on biomass generally, despite the recognition
that except at very high temperatures and in very
controlled, steady-state situation, biomass of any type
burns differently in different environments, different
types of biomass burn differently, and the cooks have
different requirements and habits? Poor customers with
no time or money to mess with small, variable amounts of
cooking are better off giving up cooking, and have
indeed done so. Add to that all the variations in the
sources of biomass and in their alternative uses.
"Biomass cookstoves for the poor" is a racket of big
promises and repeated failures; in the last 60 years, we
have just blown smoke rings. <br>
<br>
I suggest dropping forever the pretense of "renewable
biomass", "deforestation," and "premature mortality" or
"deforestation". Rich country universities will keep
churning out convenient truths for themselves that have
no relevance to a poor household cook. <br>
<br>
Instead, we could define small research projects
specific to selected types of biomass and/or in selected
geographies for selected customer types, the poor or
rich, household or commercial, and see the cook's
constraints and desires from HER point of view. (This is
not easy; sociological surveys haven't produced anything
worthwhile yet on what cooks - women or men - want. I
would rather put some psychologists to work on. "What do
women want?" Rather, how do the family hierarchy and
control, economics and nutrition, play into cooking
choices?) </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It will get more difficult as the range of biomass
"marketshed" gets narrower - some people have no land or
trees of their own - and as we look at poorer
households. The rich are far more alike in their tastes
and behavior. The poor are every bit different from each
other, until you come up with an aspirational product. <br>
<br>
But I have not yet seen a single effort to characterize
biomass markets and supply chains, uses, customers.
Forest economists do some of that for timber and biogas
technologists make different types of digesters, so on;
the stovers are rocket scientists who only know how to
launch balloons.<br>
<br>
2. Who should finance this research - whether as
diversified as I suggest (after all, much research goes
on for agriculture, forestry, livestock, food
processing, and has gone on for a couple of centuries in
Europe and North America) - and why haven't they done
so? Some ten years ago, the Gang of Four on energy and
development (Jose Goldemberg, Thomas Johansson, Amulya
Reddy, Robert Williams) had proposed <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.princeton.edu/pei/energy/publications/texts/Goldemberg-Clean-Cooking-Initiative-ESD-2004.pdf"
target="_blank">A global clean cooking fuel initiative</a> for
"to bring about a worldwide shift to clean fluid fuels
for cooking and heating in 10-15 years’ time". I thought
the proposal was ridiculous - a "clean cooking fuel
bureau" in the UN under their guidance?? - but they
seemed to have the right direction - in the near term,
"fitting stoves that burn solid fuels with flues" and
then "fluid fuels". <br>
<br>
But 12 years later, what do we have? Generic solid
biomass stoves again? "Clean cookstoves" performance
testing for, heavens, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://cleancookstoves.org/technology-and-fuels/testing/protocols.html"
target="_blank">boiling water</a> in, hell, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://cleancookstoves.org/binary-data/DOCUMENT/file/000/000/399-1.pdf"
target="_blank">labs</a>?? <br>
<br>
Cooking is more than combustion. Kitchen is more than
cooking. A home is more than kitchen. A marriage or
family are more than a home. Early 20th Century
designers of gas and electrical home appliances knew
this every bit; just go see women's magazines in UK or
US of the 1930s on, and even Indian "family" magazines
and newspapers from 1950s on. Seems to me some of us
biomass stovers are stuck in our childhood fantasies of
atomic energy - atomic toasters, atomic kettles. Just
that now we call them biomass stoves and keep playing
the fiddle to donors' tunes. <br>
<br>
Some aerospace engineers have other ideas - see <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/46910/akshaya_srivastava_201305_aerospace_engineering.pdf"
target="_blank">DESIGN OF A THERMOELECTRIC
EDU-KITCHENSYSTEM</a> or <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241628341_Conceptual_design_of_a_thermoelectric_Edu-Kitchen_system"
target="_blank">Conceptua<wbr>l design of a
thermoelectric Edu-Kitchen system</a>. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The beauty of this approach - howsoever unrealistic
and unmarketable - is that it attacks the problem of
cooking and lighting, and home energy use generally. As
distributed generation and storage might. There may also
be biomass generation. <br>
<br>
What it doesn't do is dwell in manure and dead wood. <br>
<br>
Missionaries of dung, straw, flake and waste, unite! You
have nothing to lose but your own delusions. <br>
<br>
On missionaries' positions, next time. <br>
<br>
Nikhil</div>
<div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div>
<div data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr"><span
style="font-family:georgia,serif;font-size:12.8px"><br>
---------</span></div>
<div dir="ltr"><span
style="font-family:georgia,serif;font-size:12.8px">(India
+91) 909 995 2080 </span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px
0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"> Message: 6<br>
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 22:25:14 +0530<br>
From: Xavier Brandao <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:xvr.brandao@gmail.com"
target="_blank">xvr.brandao@gmail.com</a>><br>
To: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org"
target="_blank">stoves@lists.bioenergylists.or<wbr>g</a><br>
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Two current articles on
stoves and stove<br>
projects<br>
Message-ID: <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:81331990-33c1-af82-6476-7ee3926d901f@gmail.com"
target="_blank">81331990-33c1-af82-6476-7ee39<wbr>26d901f@gmail.com</a>><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8";
Format="flowed"<br>
<br>
Hello all,<br>
<br>
The Caravan article Crispin shared is a perfect
illustration of the distrust for the improved
biomass stove technology.<br>
<br>
The World Bank CSI is a pragmatic approach I
believe, it is an example of how a far-from-ideal
situation can be assessed fairly (the
cookstove sector needs work on standards and
protocol, it needs building on best practices),
and how it can be the basis for a call for action.
The WB asks not to lament, but to work on
improving what can be improved.<br>
<br>
I am also more of the optimistic kind, and the
optimism, we need to share it: why do we think
biomass cookstoves are still worth working on? Why
are we still doing what we do despite the previous
setbacks?<br>
<br>
I feel we should make ourselves ready to answer
important, and valid, questions such as the ones
from The Guardian or the Caravan articles. This is
advocacy.<br>
<br>
I am not sure we are completely prepared to do so.<br>
<br>
At Prakti we have interacted with a lot of other
stakeholders, other social businesses,
distributors and NGOs, investors. And sometimes
also journalists. And sometimes we hear: "oh,
another cookstove company" "oh, cookstoves have
been around for a long time, but haven't really
taken off". We sometimes face scepticism, worse,
defeatism. With almost the idea the cookstoves are
not necessary. If we believe they are, we need to
hear and consider their arguments, then to have
thought about our arguments as well.<br>
<br>
First, I feel we might need to think ourselves
more as a community or sector, with common goals
and interests. Healthily competing or
rather working together on a common issue.<br>
<br>
Nikhil said:<br>
<br>
"There is no "stove community" but a slum of labs
and computers, each hut producing its own meal and
emissions."<br>
<br>
Research efforts are indeed scattered and lack
coordination. But I believe there is a stove
community, and quite an active one. Participants
and readers of this list have a lot in common.
Communities are nothing but the sum of all
individualities after all. We are scattered, but
it doesn't mean we cannot work better together. I
see a lot of exchange and collaboration here. And
everyone is trying hard.<br>
<br>
And as a community, I feel we have to explain what
we do, advocate why our cause is important and why
our action is still relevant. And if it is still
relevant. I believe it is. So before being able to
answer, we must make our own in-depth
self-assessment.<br>
<br>
This is what the GACC is doing by representing us
and lobbying for us, there is also the CLEAN
network in India, and some other
organizations. But additionally, we might want to
agree on certain things. And this stovelist is
still the most lively space for exchange.<br>
<br>
There is an initiative of French intellectuals
called "Manifeste convivialiste". They are
advocating that, in order to make the world
a better place, rather than focusing on what they
disagree on, they should ocus on what they agree
on.<br>
<br>
That could be something like:<br>
<br>
"We as a sector are facing challenges: biomass
combustion is extremely complex, our target
markets are challenging. Our efforts are
scattered. But our mission remains extremely
important, and the improved biomass cookstoves
remain a relevant solution to the global problem
of unclean cooking."<br>
<br>
For example, that is a start. From there, what is
the first of these challenges, and how to tackle
it?<br>
<br>
Let say the first and main challenge is the
complexity of biomass combustion (problem) ->
we need more R&D to understand and find ways
to improve it while making stoves cheaper
(solution).<br>
<br>
A few persons mentioned in the article seem to
agree:<br>
<br>
* ?My sense,? Saran said, ?was that the problem
needed top-level technology.?<br>
* ?We started out with the dream of a global
innovation competition,?<br>
Rajendra Prasad, a professor at the Centre for
Rural Development and<br>
Technology at IIT Delhi, one of the official
stove-testing labs,<br>
said. ?And now we?re back to mud stoves.?<br>
* Scientists who spoke to me on cookstove design
frequently compared <br>
their challenges to rocket science. The
technical problem is<br>
surprisingly difficult. Combustion of solid
fuels such as wood,<br>
dung, coal and agricultural waste is far more
complex than that of<br>
gases or liquids such as LPG or diesel.
Lighting a wood stove can<br>
set off many more chemical reactions than
burning gas, and the<br>
emissions process can?t be modelled
easily?understanding depends on<br>
trial and error. Scientists also know less
about solid-fuel<br>
combustion than they do about rocket
propulsion. Stoves are not a<br>
glamorous technology, and have attracted
relatively little research.<br>
A scientist at the Indian Institute of
Technology in Delhi told me<br>
that students are so embarrassed to be working
on a stove project<br>
that they ask to call it by another name.<br>
<br>
So, there is a need for a lot of work, and there
is a need for top engineering and scientific
talents. How to attract top talents?<br>
<br>
* with R&D budget and attractive wages<br>
* with good communication about our sector<br>
* by simply ... going and talking to them.
Telling them about our<br>
work. And trying very hard to build
partnerships.<br>
<br>
But first we need to assess that we need them, and
that R&D is the problem. And I have the
feeling we believe a bit too much that we
are gonna sort all these issues by working in our
garages on our spare time and by organizing stove
camps. Don't get me wrong, stove camps are
great and lead to a lot of information being
exchanged. But this is far from being enough, we
need to be much more ambitious. We need renewed
efforts and smart ways to attract, develop, and
retain talents. At Prakti we have put an increased
emphasis on that, for example we have an
ongoing partnership with Engineers Without Borders
U.K.<br>
<br>
Because today, frankly:<br>
<br>
1. What are really the efforts done on
fundamental research on biomass<br>
combustion for cookstoves? Who is seriously
working full-time on<br>
combustion?<br>
2. With what manpower?<br>
3. Is this research organized?<br>
4. Is it heavily financed as it should be?<br>
5. Do we really think this research effort is up
to the challenges we<br>
are facing?<br>
<br>
If we answer "No" to the question 2 to 5, then we
have a start, and we<br>
know where next to put our efforts.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
<br>
Xavier<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
******************************<wbr>*******<br>
</blockquote>
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