<html><head></head><body class="" lang="en-US" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: initial;"> <div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dear fellow pyromaniacs,</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It looks like scales are falling from the eyes of stove testers and learning is beginning to take place on the stove list. </div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Let our consulting continue from a new posture of learning until we get to what CPP called for long ago: a suite of stove testing metrics which are selected from a tool box to discover the most culturally appropriate metrics and methods for testing stove performance in situ.</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Come to think of it....why not ask ethnographers to talk to representative samples of targeted stove users in a region, city or country for long enough to identify the "natural" groups of stove users....and then ask representatives of these different groups to identify their stove performance preferences which together describe their collective idea of an ideal household cooking stove or an ideal work/ food processing/party stove or an agricultural or rural stove or an ideal multi-use stove.</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The fuel use characteristics will be one the main dimensions of assessment. How much fuel to perform known tasks??</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">With these abstract ideal characterizations in hand and mind, what can the stove designers and fabricators come up with?? We then assess the performance of candidate stoves against those functions which stove users/buyers/</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">makers/<span style="font-size: initial; line-height: initial; text-align: initial;">sellers/funders agree are ideal! The user's preferences will not be exact but it will predict stove purchase and use behavior!</span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">All the efficiency and emission concerns which carry the bureaucratic interests of WB, USAID, WHO, EPA, and GACC - targeting macro climate, human health, and environmental impacts (saving tree cover) - are added into the evaluation matrix as nice to have beneficial impacts .....but I can assure you the end users of cook stoves will put emissions and efficiency toward the bottom of their list of highly desired dimensions of stove performance. </div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It will be the economics of purchased fuels in urban areas and the hard work of gathering fuel wood in rural communities for biomass stoves that will strengthen demand for improved biomass stoves that substantially reduce fuel wood or charcoal use.......but there are many other far more important stove performance variables <span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;">that have more impact upon costomer demand and use rates than the emissions and efficiency performance of competing stoves. </span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;"><br></span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;">I am pretty certain I can design a survey methodology that will predict demand for competing stoves with out concerning myself with efficiency and emission performance. And that my socio-cultural and user satisfaction tests of stove performance will predict customer response to competing improved stoves better than testing protocols which give efficiency and emission performance more weight than culture centered parameters of stove performance. Emission and efficiency performance do not "trump" user friendly operational variables and culturally mandated "negotiable" stove performance variables?</span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; line-height: initial; text-align: initial;"><br></span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;">In search,</span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;"><br></span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;">Cecil "the anthropologist" Cook</span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;"><br></span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;"><br></span></div> <div style="font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.</div> <table width="100%" style="background-color:white;border-spacing:0px;"> <tbody><tr><td colspan="2" style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <div style="border-style: solid none none; border-top-color: rgb(181, 196, 223); border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 3pt 0in 0in; font-family: Tahoma, 'BB Alpha Sans', 'Slate Pro'; font-size: 10pt;"> <div><b>From: </b>Frank Shields</div><div><b>Sent: </b>Monday, February 13, 2017 1:45 PM</div><div><b>To: </b>Discussion of biomass cooking stoves</div><div><b>Reply To: </b>Discussion of biomass cooking stoves</div><div><b>Cc: </b>Francesco Lombardi; Fabio Riva</div><div><b>Subject: </b>Re: [Stoves] Advocacy action: ask the GACC to stop promoting the WBT</div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="border-style: solid none none; border-top-color: rgb(186, 188, 209); border-top-width: 1pt; font-size: initial; text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><br><div id="_originalContent" style=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"><div>Dear Fabio and Stovers </div><div><br class=""></div><div>I have criticized the WBT in the past but after looking at the new directions that is being taken the WBT looks better and better. It does need some changes. </div><div><br class=""></div><div>The problems with the WBT:</div><div><br class=""></div><div>1) The fuel needs be characterized by its chemical and physical properties - NOT as identification as to Name of the type of wood. </div><div><br class=""></div><div>2) We need to remove any calculations regarding to moisture and attempt to normalize the energy value back to dry weight basis. Before that can be done there need be proof that it is a linear fit - very unlikely with this type of system. We can only report ‘with a moisture of 10% this happens” or "with a moisture of 20% this happens”. </div><div><br></div><div>2b) There are many energy waste like sides of the combustion chamber, gaps too wide, pot bottom placed to high or low etc. These are considered the same as moisture - something to be optimized and understood. </div><div><br class=""></div><div>3) It needs be understood that the WBT is only an outline for tests that need be done. That is the Task here is boiling water. Using this outline we need to establish different Tasks. Could be; Char making, cooking beans, grill cooking, heating a house, creating light - all types of Tasks. For all we need the same layout.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>Regards</div><div><br class=""></div><div>Frank</div><div><span style="line-height: initial;"><br></span></div><div><span style="line-height: initial;">"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: initial; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Garamond, serif; color: rgb(31, 56, 100);">Dear Xavier,</span><br><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" class=""><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class=""><o:p class="">T</o:p></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class="">hank you very much for having cited our paper in
the discussion. Please, consider this recommendation for the
next citations: we do not actually critic the WBT per se, but
the way through which the practitioners and the literature
perform the WBT and report the results. Indeed, we are perfectly
aware that the WBT has many drawbacks and unresolved issues, but
we are still trying to support this in a scientific way. <o:p class=""></o:p></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class="">With our article “Fuzzy interval propagation of
uncertainties in experimental analysis for improved and
traditional three–stone fire cookstoves" we demonstrated a
different problem: so far, the literature reports mainly data
coming from an average of few replicates that can lead to
misinterpreted evaluations of ICSs’ performance if the
uncertainties are not considered. The final goal of the article
is therefore making people aware of the possible errors and
misinterpretations when they do not perform accurate statistical
data processing.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class="">Therefore, the sentence that you have highlighted
in the forwarded email should not be interpreted as “the WBT
itself has epistemic uncertainties that may lead to incorrect
ICS’s performance evaluation”, because it is not actually the
result of the work. Rather, the main outcome and result is this:
<o:p class=""></o:p></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class="">“IF you do not consider the WBTs uncertainties
(viz. the uncertainties related to lab replicates performed with
the WBT) when you report and analyse data </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Wingdings;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class="">à</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class=""> THEN you might misinterpret the real ICSs’
performance”. So, we are not criticizing the “WBT uncertainties”
per se, because it is normal to have uncertainties when you
perform a lab measures (they are too many in the WBT, true, and
they must be urgently limited! but it is not the point of the
article).<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class="">This conclusion can be applied to all the protocols
that have intrinsic uncertainties. The reason why we have
considered only the WBT-based tests is because it is the most
adopted protocol in the literature and there are many data
available.<o:p class=""></o:p></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class="">I hope it could be clearer now.
<u class="">I would be grateful if you could forward this message also to
Ron and the bioenergy list</u>.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class="">Thanks again for the passion and the effort you put
for the testing community.
<o:p class=""></o:p></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" class="">Best
regards,<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" class="">Fabio"<br class="">
</span><br class="">
It is really great to have some insight from them. As I was replying
to Fabio, I don't know if it is at all possible to "fix" the WBT.
And doing this fixing, if it is at all possible, will take a lot of
time. Researchers and testers are very busy with other things, and
funders/the GACC/project implementers want to act now.<br class="">
<br class="">
Let's be a bit realistic for one second. If nothing is done, testers
will keep using the WBT, and project implementers being project
implementers, they WILL poorly interpret the results. We all know
how it works in international development projects. Some projects
are planned very well and run very smoothly, but let's admit that
more often than not, nothing really goes according to the plan.<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F3864;mso-fareast-language:EN-US" class=""></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Testers
and project leaders will hastily test the stoves with a limited
number of iterations because they are already late on the project
planning, or they have limited human resources or funds, not the
right equipment, or the testing consultant is in the country for a
short amount of time. They will think it is good enough. They will
take hasty decisions, and start projects based on very thin
evidence. This is unfortunately how it happens all the time. It's
like saying the the project implementers: here is a car but the
brakes are not working well, don't drive too fast with it.
Misinterpretations and misuse of the results will be done, because
the WBT is so easy to misuse. A very solid protocol is what we
need. We need a great tool, a fool-proof tool, a tool we can rely
on.<o:p class=""></o:p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Another
point is that more than a few people have been trying to fix the
WBT for long time, maybe 10 years or more. Maybe since it was
invented, in 1987? Can it be fixed at all? Even "improved", even
with a large number of test iterations, can the WBT give any
satisfactory results leading to good decisions?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">But more
importantly, even with statistical data processing, 3 big issues
remain with the WBT. Can they be solved at all? Fabio Riva and
Francesco Lombardi admit these 3 issues still remain.<br class="">
</p>
They are not criticizing the WBT per se, in their paper. But I, and
many others, are. Based on their findings, we are criticizing the
WBT, because the WBT allows for easy misinterpretation, the WBT
allows large mistakes to be made. Because in international
development projects, and especially in stove projects, it is so
easy to make bad decisions. <br class=""><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Often,
researchers and scientists don't take position, because it is,
they think, not their job. Then others in the stove sector have
the responsibility to take a position, and make a choice. I
believe their researches allow us to take that position, and to
ask for the promotion of the WBT to be stopped.<o:p class=""></o:p></p>
The wisest step, in my opinion, remains to stop using this protocol,
until it is fixed or we definitely move to a better one.<br class="">
<br class="">
I remind you that you can support the initiative here: <a href="mailto:xvr.brandao@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">xvr.brandao@gmail.com</a><br class="">
And see other protocols, the HTP and CSI, here: <a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5rmmRmIsdlnQlRQX3A1cXVOQ3M?usp=sharing" target="_blank" class=""> https://drive.google.com/<wbr class="">drive/folders/<wbr class="">0B5rmmRmIsdlnQlRQX3A1cXVOQ3M?<wbr class="">usp=sharing</a><br class="">
<br class="">
Looking forward to your comments.<br class="">
<br class="">
Best,<br class="">
<br class="">
Xavier<br class="">
</div>
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<div class="">Thanks</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Frank</div><div class="">Frank Shields</div><div class="">Gabilan Laboratory</div><div class="">Keith Day Company, Inc.</div><div class="">1091 Madison Lane</div><div class="">Salinas, CA 93907</div><div class="">(831) 246-0417 cell</div><div class="">(831) 771-0126 office</div><div class=""><a href="mailto:fShields@keithdaycompany.com" class="">fShields@keithdaycompany.com</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><a href="mailto:franke@cruzio.com" class="">franke@cruzio.com</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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