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Stovers, (with some special reference about Haiti near the end)<br>
<br>
I attended this morning the 90 minute webinar about LPG for
cookstoves. Well worth the time!! In a few days / weeks the full
webinar will be available via EPA/Winrock. <br>
<br>
Comments: (forgive me if my notes are faulty, but I think I am
saying things correctly.)<br>
1. ---- Not a nice word said about biomass/solid fuels. To be
expected. Not a complaint. They were advocating / "selling" LPG.<br>
<br>
2. The industry association (WLPGA) has 250 members and 1.4 million
employees. ---- I calculate that to be 5600 employees per
member. Wow. GACC has 1600 partners, many with 5 or fewer
employees (many who are the owners). LPG is BIG business and has
deep pockets. <br>
<br>
3. Section on Women in LPG was about hiring more females. VERY few
women in LPG activities (not counting the cooks). ---- This is PR
work that makes sense. Not a complaint. Just a comment.<br>
<br>
4. In the world, LPG has 3 billion consumers. (accept that as a
fact). (next might not be correctly noted: wanting to reach one
billion (poor) people by 2030. ------ To me that says 5 people per
household would be 200 million households. Admirable. But there
are 500 million households with needs for clean cookstoves. So
that looks like claiming 40% of the NEED to be taken care of by
LPG. Wonderful. That will be mainly the more affluent of the
needy people, not the BOP (Base of the Pyramid). So that leaves
60% to be handled by the other stove technologies. All of that is
fine with me IF (big IF) LPG was not sucking up so much of the
subsidy money and if LPG was not carbon positive. Being carbon
neutral is harder to do. And being carbon NEGATIVE is even harder,
but is done by the char-making TLUD stoves, that are NOT getting
subsidies and do not need imported fuels. <br>
<br>
5. Also made a comment that LPG is "Low GHG." Nothing more said
about that. -----<br>
<br>
6. Three countries named:<br>
A. Brazil is 95% connected for LPG. (That is "availability".)
------- No mention of cost/benefits or subsidy. Success story.<br>
<br>
B. India is getting started. Later comments mention 67%
penetration / access, ----- because households in or near urban
areas where LPG is sold somewhere . Access means COULD get an LPG
tank. Seeking massive LPG <u>coverage</u> in the next 3 years.
That could be distribution so that access is possible, and not about
actual usage.<br>
<br>
C. Indonesia. The numbers I copied down were: 57 million
household are already in the LPG user-camp, and that the subsidy
money to do that was US$ 14.6 BILLION. Nothing more was said.
------ So I submitted a comment/question that will have its answer
when the webinar (and answered questions) are available for
everyone. Check my math, but $14,600 Millions divided by 57
Millions is $256 SUBSIDY PER HOUSEHOLD. Ouch!!!! That does not
seem possible. <br>
<br>
This data needs verification. I do not want to start any "fake
news". And who got this money? Maybe there are "factors" in
calculating the subsidy, such as counting things that maybe could be
left off of the costs. <br>
<br>
But even at half ($128) that would be a massive subsidy per stove.
<br>
<br>
And this raises the question of what is in the works already for
India which is more than 4 times larger in population than
Indonesia. Some sort of cost/benefit analysis might be appropriate.<br>
<br>
7. The importance of the role of government in the provision of
stove policies (and regulations about LPG importation and
handling/distribution) was emphasized by the speakers. -----
Certainly a correct statement, and the big-business LPG companies
have much more contact and impact than do the little guys. <br>
<br>
8. There was a section on LPG in humanitarian aid, specifically
mentioning refugee camps. Presentation spoke poorly of "Traditional
fuels". One presentation spoke about the provision of LPG to
refugee camps that are occupied for many years and are likely to
remain in place for more years. The presenters suggestion for
consideration is that maybe the camps should have LPG piped in
instead of trucking in the LPG canisters. ------ <br>
<br>
9. A very interesting segment of the presentation was about
Haiti. Many very good statistics.<br>
A. Very low LPG infrastructure and usage at present.<br>
<br>
B. 4800 schools (institutional cooking, maybe including
orphanages?) in Haiti, of which 143 so far have LPG services.
Price of installation (equipment, etc) is US$900 for the basic and
up to $5000 for the larger more complete kitchen conversions.
Capacity for conversions to LPG was stated to be 1500 per year.
Mentioned fuel cost SAVINGS because the cost of charcoal in Haiti is
so high that LPG could be sold at higher prices and still be
competitive.<br>
<br>
C. Discussion of street vendors using LPG ------ (which makes
sense to me).<br>
<br>
D. For household (HH) stoves, the LPG target is 10,000 for low
income HH. Have done 1150 thus far. Cost is $100 for the economy
version and $160 for the premium version. ----- Haiti has about 2
million households, so there is no talk of covering 40% of those
households with LPG. <br>
<br>
E. How to fund these LPG products? Utilize the money of the
400,000 Haitians who live in the USA (and more in other countries)
who send remittences to Haiti to support their relatives, etc.
Called "Diaspora" Haitians. Mentioned making contact with the main
Haitian-in-USA TV station to spread the word. <br>
<br>
F. ------ No mention of the Canadian government 50 million dollar
commitment to improve stoves in Haiti, but I am sure that LPG
entities have their eyes on a hefty chunk of those funds. Still in
the planning stages until January 2017 <br>
<br>
***************************<br>
So much of this presentation was marketing. Fair enough. The
survey of the attendees showed that most (80+%??) were involved with
some business aspect of LPG (or were considering it). Only a few
(such as me) marked "Other" as the reason for attending. I wanted
to know about the LPG cookstove approach. The session was highly
informative. Thanks to the presenters and to EPA and Winrock for
making available important information. <br>
<br>
I wonder if this topic will be discussed on the Stoves Listserv. I
hope so.<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>
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