<div dir="ltr"><div dir="auto"><div>Dear Dr Karve:</div><div><br></div><div>I don't think technical energy efficiency of fuel conversion (output/input calories) - or combustion (useful/primary calories) - is of any concern unless all other economic and technological variables are more or less constant (say, in coal washing or power plant steam generator, once in place). And even then, only if the fuel costs are constant or rising. </div><div><br>Why bother with conversion efficiency if there is enough feedstock to meet the required biogas demand? <br><br>If "saved" dung more valuable as feedstock for dungcakes to be sold. I can understand. <br><br>But "saved" calories are not marketable or bankable (except to some "voluntary carbon" devotees?)<br><br></div><div>Let me take an extreme position - the obsession over fuel technical efficiencies has been the biggest obstacle to developing a marketable cooking technology. <br><br>"Fuel consumption" is a useless, irrelevant metric in general terms; its importance is context-specific and even customer-specific (relative to other criteria the customer may use, the relative weights of which are unknowable and changing.) <br><br>What's wrong with us? Why has this EPA/WHO/ISO misadventure enshrined "fuel consumption" as an indicator of technical efficiency and blown up its importance way out of proportion (while ignoring time taken to cook, convenience, cooks' preferences, emissions from foods, or - this was so utterly laughable in yesterday's Webinar - fuel quality such as moisture content)?</div><div><br>It is also so incongruous with the other scientistic ideology of "renewability of biomass." Why bother with fuel combustion efficiencies if the fuel is "free" - waste biomass, collected and prepared by people whom we consider waste biomass as well (assigning zero value to their time)? <br><br>----<br>Obsessions have consequences. </div><div><br>Under the pretext and pretense of science, the energy political ideology of "efficient biomass" has now led us to the whole "fundamental foolishness" of EPA/ISO lab testing and standard-setting with WBT.<br></div><div><br></div><div>This intellectual wastage - technical inefficiencies of expert brains - and smoke - GBD from PM2.5 - will support and be supported by papers in "scientific journals". <br><br>Based on the assumption that poor people are stupid. Publishing cooked up science feels so moral, especially when serving the presumed heathen, ignorant, undegreed. <br><br>First world science fancies for Third World problems could lead to Second rate policy making, (Example: Nuclear power in small and/or incompetent countries.)<br><br>Don't get me wrong; efficiencies and emissions matter to cooking, just as much as salt, sugar, milk (or equivalents). But as a cook, I think about a meal at a time, and my preferences in taste and time.<br><br>Yes, cooks can be led to stating that they prefer more efficient stoves; asking leading questions and avoiding the mention of alternative cooking options. <br><br>We have such smart surveyors and such expert survey users. See <font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3366602/" target="_blank">A Profile of Biomass Stove Use in Sri Lanka</a>, (2012 </font>doi:10.3390/ijerph9041097. A shining display of ignorance to market "further analytical studies and new innovative initiatives". Neros want new fiddles.)<font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font><br>Setting "performance standards" in terms of emission rates and fuel combustion efficiencies will amount to Insane Stove Ordinance (ISO). <br><br>Give me exposure profiles per home. Without a standardized meal, standardized room, standardized lung, standardized life. Even EPA would admit that the NSPS rule for coal-fired plants did not clean up the outdoor air on its own and by itself. <br><br>Why is everybody silent on this deception by science, without defining the market, the service standard, and the public policy objective? Why not leave biomass stove testing to GE and Reliance, Philips and BP?<br><br>----------------<br><br>Now back to Kirk Smith and superiority of biogas. Conversion efficiency in calories is irrelevant; what matters is methane implications. <br><br>Not all calories are the same. (To borrow from nutrition theory.)</div><div><br></div><div>What Kirk Smith (AREE 2000) said about biogas was only that counting all emissions, biogas cooking had the lowest GWP of GHGs per unit cooking energy delivery. I may quibble with the assumptions, model parameters, economics (incl. opportunity costs) but I accept his conclusions without reservation. <br><br>I don't like carbon counting any more than calorie counting, but I also do agree with Kirk Smith that if one is going to put carbon in the atmosphere anyway, CO2 is the least harmful species from health or climate points of view. <br><br>That burst the bubble of "carbon-neutral renewable biomass", but studied ignorance is a religious necessity of the carbon charlatans. <br><br></div><div>I may be a Jesuit in this Church of Dung, Straw, Husk, and Twigs.<br><br><br><br>Nikhil</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>On Sep 3, 2016, at 8:59 AM, Anand Karve <<a href="mailto:adkarve@gmail.com" target="_blank">adkarve@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr">Dear Nikhil,<div>producing biogas from dung is a very wasteful process. 1 kg (dry weight) of dung, which would yield 4000 kcal energy if burned, yields only about 200 kcal energy, if converted into biogas. In the city where I live, cowdung cakes are used in certain religious rites. They are sold at a lucrative price of about 9 USCents per piece. That would be a very attractive business for a Dutch dairy farmer, but drying the dung would be problematic in a country like holland. </div><div>Yours</div><div>A.D.Karve</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div>***<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 Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 10:27 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:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Anil:<br><br>Are you suggesting the USEPA folks should set emission targets for manure management? <br><br>I think they already do in the US. Now all we need is for GACC to claim biogas as such superior clean cooking technology - Kirk Smith argued that in 2000 and I fully agree, just that there is too much open defecation by man and animal - that ISO must have lab testing at various scales. <br><br>Heck, I will even write the testing protocol and specify a standardized bull, a standardized meal, standardized poop, ... They have the rest - standardized water, standardized meals, standardized cooks. Just unstandardized dose-response claptrap. <br><br>Cow poop is ok, it is the Anthropocene bull manure that only a select few can digest, anaerobically of course. <br><br>"a small clay pisspot is a cutting-edge technology"? <br><br>Yeah, for the New Age nuevau riche of the New york times. <br><br>I once worked on a GHG offset project to both change cattle diet and to reduce methane emissions. If I remember correctly, open cow manure in hot areas dries up quickly and does not emit that much methane. <br><br>But those who want to cook up numbers and careers, research papers and propaganda, will stop at no BS. <br><br>Seriously, the main point here is that biomass is not a climate-friendly technology at all. Taken all the emissions from the production to consumption of foods - including those due to cutting forests, open burning of grass and leaves, forest fires - and valued in 20-year GWP terms, the contribution to atmospheric concentrations is much greater than that, say, from power generation. <br><br>Go read Nadine Unger. <br><br>Or Nick Stern, who I believe has gone veg. (I also hope he gave up sugar.) <br><br>Then again, there was some paper a few years ago claiming beef is a superior food because its carbon footprint can be quite low. <br><br>I prefer to be a horse. But I am fond of BS; academia and media give me such earthy fragrances all the time. <br><br>Nikhil<br><br><br>Message: 6<br>Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:41:04 +0530<br>From: nari phaltan <<a href="mailto:nariphaltan@gmail.com" target="_blank">nariphaltan@gmail.com</a>><br>To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves<br> <<a href="mailto:stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org" target="_blank">stoves@lists.bioenergylists.o<wbr>rg</a>><br>Subject: [Stoves] Hi tech cow dung technology<br>Message-ID:<br> <<a href="mailto:CAGeG2tDBzt_RDONrSmo%2Bu-WTpcS9DsFSXUiDOa28cj1npWO5Jw@mail.gmail.com" target="_blank">CAGeG2tDBzt_RDONrSmo+u-WTpcS9<wbr>DsFSXUiDOa28cj1npWO5Jw@mail.gm<wbr>ail.com</a>><br>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8<br><br>Hello stovers,<br><br>You might enjoy reading this article in NY Times.<br><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/t-magazine/cow-poop-design-museum-castelbosco-farm.html?emc=eta1&_r=0" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08<wbr>/29/t-magazine/cow-poop-design<wbr>-museum-castelbosco-farm.html?<wbr>emc=eta1&_r=0</a><br><br>Cheers.<br><br>Anil K rajvanshi<br><br>--<br>Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI)<br>Tambmal, Phaltan-Lonand Road<br>P.O.Box 44<br>Phaltan-415523, Maharashtra, India<br>Ph:91-2166-220945/222842<br><a href="mailto:e-mail%3Anariphaltan@gmail.com" target="_blank">e-mail:nariphaltan@gmail.com</a><br> <a href="mailto:nariphaltan@nariphaltan.org" target="_blank">nariphaltan@nariphaltan.org</a><br><br><a href="http://www.nariphaltan.org/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.nariphaltan.org</a><br><br><br><br>------------------------------<br><br><br> <br><br> </div>
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