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Dear Stovers,<br>
<br>
Unfortunately, far too much of what Crispin and Nikhil have written
recently is true. <br>
<br>
Crispin wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">It
has proven very difficult to get support for product
development. One of the reasons is that innovators have shouted
‘improved’ <i>so many times</i>, that it is widely assumed that
the improved stoves needed to address (all) development goals
already exist. This is a common perception among those working
outside this sector.
</span></blockquote>
And that is especially true for recent and less well known stove
types, such as the TLUDs. The older of the "improved" stoves get
the attention and the funding. Look at the support for rocket
stoves and charcoal burners. And how important they are for the
"stove count" trying to reach 100 million households. Why? At
least partly because those stove types are backed by the older
companies, and they have vested interests in sticking with
small-change revisions of those older stove types.<br>
<br>
Only in the last few years have TLUD stoves been included in a few
of the comparative studies of stoves. And there has been no
significant funder-support for TLUD stoves since the BEIA Project in
Uganda (pre-GACC and ended in mid-2012). Interesting that very low
emissions from TLUDs were not sufficient to get those stoves into
the mainstream projects. <br>
<br>
However, considering the "used and useful" criteria (that I like)
mentoned by Nikhil, we do have another very successful project
worthy of discussion. I have attached the recently released report
of the TLUD project in the Deganga area of the Ganges Delta in
India. (also available at drt.ud.com ). 11,000 households in a
compact area, etc. etc. that you can read about. What is relevant
to the current discussion is that NO funding support for that
project came from any of the major providers of funds. Instead it
was a private not-for-profit carcon credit organization (atmosfair)
the made the initial high-risk effort. It financed the first 1000
stoves and set up record-keeping for carbon credits. This is major
money for some but really is "peanuts" funding for the major players
who could have supported this project. And NOW that the project
has a very successful track record for 3 years, it would be nice it
the "big money" entities could sponsor an expansion and replication
of this success. <br>
<br>
But not a glimmer of interest shown thus far. Nor do the major
players have many avenues for assisting such efforts. This is now
mainly outside of the pilot and early implementation phases. My
opinion is that "crowd-funding" can have more impact on getting good
stoves to needy people than all the millions of dollars spent by
many of the big players who control the purse strings. <br>
<br>
Of course, there big entities hold out the "business model" as their
favored way to support projects. Major issues include ROI (return
on investment) and interest rates and "exit strategies". And keen
stove developers need to find the business management teams to
undertake such efforts. There is very little "heart" in such
efforts to bring people out of poverty. Certainly SUSTANABILITY is
highly important. But look at the attached file of the Deganga
project. Long term projections look very very good. But prospects
for growth to reach other communities and even more people in
Deganga are dependent on finding $15 per additional household.
Otherwise, if additional households can only be added using funds
generated from the ongoing project, that is essentially saying the
the impoverished people must generate "profit" before others can be
assisted.<br>
<br>
Time for some changes, or we are stuck with very little progress and
with dangers of overall failure again of a major effort for better
stoves for peoples and societies and environments. <br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Doc / Dr TLUD / Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:psanders@ilstu.edu">psanders@ilstu.edu</a>
Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.drtlud.com">www.drtlud.com</a></pre>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/15/2016 9:28 PM, Crispin
Pemberton-Pigott wrote:<br>
</div>
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<div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Dear
Nikhil<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;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;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">></span><span
style="color:black">I wonder if there were any usability
tests. In US regulatory practice, there is a term I like
- declaring an investment "used and useful" before
allowing the investor to earn a regulated return on it.
There are so many "improved biomass stoves"; I wonder if
anybody has tried to estimate which designs are "used
and useful". </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">This
is a very good question. There is usually a pretty
significant gap between what stove project staff
consider ‘improved’ and what users consider ‘improved’.
This was highlighted during the Ulaanbaatar Clear Air
Project UBCAP. The goal of the users (fuel efficiency)
was not aligned with the primary goal of UBCAP which was
(and still is) a reduction in the emission of PM<sub>2.5</sub>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">We
discussed it frankly in 2008-2009. In order to succeed
the stoves promoted had to address both constituencies.
It is clear from observations and interviews that
everyone in the city is concerned with ambient air
quality, but there is a much lesser response when an
individual’s own behaviour is involved. Generally people
were not willing to be PM-martyrs with regard to their
own emissions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">So
the selection of supported stoves was done on the basis
of a combination of two improvements and one ‘do no
harm’ rule. PM had to be down 80%, then 90% over the
baseline, the fuel efficiency had to be improved to the
point that it met common regional standards, which are
70% in most cases, and finally, the CO produced per
delivered MJ should not be higher. In practise, the CO
was reduced because taking care of the combustion
quality generally improves CO as well so it became a
non-issue.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">It
is a reasonable example of attracting adoption over a
performance metric that was low on the concern list of
the individual home owner, but high on the list of the
funder.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="color:black"><br>
</span>><span style="color:black">Xavier Brandao had
sent a very powerful post on 4th August 2016, asking for
a focused R&D effort.
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">And
he hit that point well. It has proven very difficult to
get support for product development. One of the reasons
is that innovators have shouted ‘improved’ <i>so many
times</i>, that it is widely assumed that the improved
stoves needed to address (all) development goals already
exist. This is a common perception among those working
outside this sector.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Stove
/ air quality / fuel saving projects are frequently
based on the following plan:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-bottom:12.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0
level1 lfo1">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">1.<span style="font:7.0pt
"Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Raise
funds with various promises of deliverables such as
access to modern energy, fuel saving (tree saving), air
quality improvement (based on some of the wonkiest
science in the sector), reduction of drudgery and once
again, against the grain of evidence, a reduction in
‘sexual violence against women’. All these things save
the last are common elements of stove projects.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-bottom:12.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0
level1 lfo1">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">2.<span style="font:7.0pt
"Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Survey
the market for improved stoves, which clearly they
consider to already exist.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-bottom:12.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0
level1 lfo1">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">3.<span style="font:7.0pt
"Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Test
them and pick ‘the best one(s)’.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-bottom:12.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0
level1 lfo1">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">4.<span style="font:7.0pt
"Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Promote
the best one(s) by reducing the costs associated with
promoting and adopting them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">So,
where in the list do you see the development of
appropriate products? Very few organisations have done
that – far fewer than those fitting the above
over-generalisation. Practical Action should be praised
for their work in Darfur during which they worked
assiduously to make a usable stove from local materials
that consistently saved 50% of the fuel in that cooking
context. You can read about the Stove Wars of Darfur in
the works of Samer Abdelnour who documented what
happened during a time when people were given as many as
10 different stoves all said to be ‘improved’.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Next
I can point to a stove that was developed from the
ubiquitous Keren Stove in Indonesia. It is called the
Keren Super. Its main feature is that it doesn’t appear
to have any features at all – it looks almost exactly
like the traditional Keren. The big reason people like
it so much is that it saves a lot of fuel, particularly
when it is cooking for a long time. It burns the same
fuels, has the same controllability and has the same
long term cost and comes from the same traditional
artisans. It can, like the traditional version, be made
in different qualities, sizes, casings and so on, to
suit market price segments.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">The
development of the product was done within the
CSI-Indonesia Pilot Project, though not specifically as
a named activity. In a sense it was tolerated because it
happened and had promise. It may turn out to be the most
popular product promoted. If so, it really is worth
studying why.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Next
is the stove programme of CARITAS Switzerland which is
in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, mostly the former. This
has a specific mandate to develop better products and
has had for several years – at least four. Through that
effort new ideas have been introduced that seem to be
acceptable to the families they hoped to assist. Once
there are some proofs of acceptance, they can be
supported over the whole region. Yesterday I saw some
great photos (which I will try to share) from the
project Fresh Air in Kyrgyzstan. They show the
conditions in which people are living, and the fuels
available. For a designer it is very disciplining to be
required to meet the needs of the families using only
the materials and fuels available. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">The
solutions they have now are by no means loved – even if
they are effective enough. There are all sorts of
problems with traditional stoves and we should be keenly
aware of their shortcomings if we want to have new
‘better’ products adopted easily. I observe that
improved performance is immediately appreciated. Major
issues are:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Time and attention needed to run the
stove (frequently having to go to the stove and do
something)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Fuel preparation (all fuels need to
be prepared by someone, even LPG)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Leaks of smoke from the stove
body/top<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Smoke leaks from the heating wall or
brick chimney<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Poor cooking performance<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Condensation issues (extracting too
much heat from the gas stream – through this is not an
adequate explanation of the problem)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">A ‘flash in the pan’ heating cycle:
big heat followed by a lingering fire<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">A need to burn two or three fuels
together to get the cheapest ones to burn well (cotton
stalks, dung, sawdust, coal dust, crop wastes)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">If
the problems are addressed ‘in the bargain’ then the
performance attributes that are appreciated by the
donor/project can be ‘smuggled’ into the plan, as Cecil
would say.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">So
what then is the problem? Basically, the belief that the
solutions already exist. That is the big impediment. So
many people claim to have solved the problems, before
they have even been delineated, there has been generated
an aura of finality about the product development cycle.
Others have declared that the problem is not solvable
with ‘solid fuels’ and everyone has to move to
electricity and gas. I like electricity and gas and use
both myself, but we have to be realistic – not in the
sense that we will tolerate solid fuels for a while, the
GACC approach, but that we should use the Mongolian
approach: admit that the fuel will remain the same for
the foreseeable future and learn to get drastically
better performance from it, perhaps even better than
electricity and gas, all things considered.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">This
has raised a strange bifurcation in the stove community
– those who declare that solid fuels cannot be burned
cleanly (or at low enough cost) or at all, and those who
are carrying on to do so in spite of numerous historical
failures. Guess who is winning the battle against poor
performance?
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">The
infamous claim in the document known as the Stove
Comparison Chart (in the introduction) that ultra-clean
Mongolian stoves ‘only appear to be clean’ has generated
a joke about Ulaanbaatar PM<sub>2.5</sub> where the air
quality was improved by 65% in 4 years (because of the
stove exchange programme) in spite of no change in the
fuel and an increasing population. The joke is that the
air ‘only appears to be clean’ because they continue to
burn lignite. It can only ‘<i>really</i> be clean’ if
they change fuels to something far more expensive like
semi-coke briquettes or LPG.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">As
you can imagine, Mongolians are happy with their air
that ‘appears to be clean’, a consequence of their
stoves that ‘only appear to be clean’.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">There
are stoves all over the place being promoted that ‘only
appear to cook’. In reply the cooks are voting with
their wallets and/or their feet.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Regards<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Crispin<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">PS
Did you know it is possible to make an ‘improved mitad’?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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