<div dir="ltr"><div dir="auto"><div>Xavier:</div><div><br></div><div>Aren't you asking a bit too much that GACC make an "official" declaration about the WBT? It did not have an official standing to require the use of WBT and related equipment or staff, and it does not have such in requiring non-use either. </div><div><br></div><div>USAID did and does have such influence and perhaps the history of USAID stove projects may shed light on the perceived promises of WBT over the last 40 years. <br><br>USAID could of course get away with WBT - any version, any equipment - when not protested by the host government or prevented by it. But even then I doubt use of WBT and related equipment had an official approval in the US, with a proper legal imprimatur from the entities that can approve stove testing methods and certify the equipment. To my mind, these are EPA and possibly NIST. </div><div><br>It is possible that PCIA - the predecessor of GACC and a joint initiative of USAID and EPA - enshrined some version of the VITA WBT in the IWA. (PCIA came into being around 2000 but USAID stoves projects go back to 1970s.)</div><div><br></div><div>There are probably good records in USAID project reports of where and when WBT protocol gave reliable results. When it failed, it may have been because the protocol had intrinsic conceptual and methodological errors or the equipment was at fault or the test staff erred. </div><div><br></div><div>Of course, one can always fault the cooks for field performance. By its own account, ARC follows "fuel-free", "cook-free" approach to stove testing. Whether or not cooks are operating the stove according to some manuals is anybody's guess. <br><br>My point rather is, who cares? Ignoring CO emission rate - on which there is no debate - and PM2.5 emission rate - whose utility is arguable, the one thing you, Crispin, and others seem to be concerned about is thermodynamic efficiency. <br><br>My view is, technical efficiencies are context-relevant metric; some users may care for it more than others and some none at all. Rather, the "save the trees", "reduce deforestation" mindset is what efficiency measurements cater to. This is despite ample evidence that no tree lasts forever, nor every tree as valuable to the owner as every other. Trees are felled for their products or for land clearance (for agriculture, buildings, roads, pipelines, whatever else) and new trees can be and are planted all the time. I have yet to see a single case where national forest inventory is stabilized or increased by use of more efficient wood cookstoves. (Charcoaling and heating markets are a different matter. I am not denying that historically forest loss may be in part associated with fuel use; I have seen forest denudation everywhere. Just that I see no reason to think the stovers community has made an iota of difference yet - nor would make any soon - in the rate of deforestation. Trees have multiple uses and so do land, water and labor.) <br><br>In short, <br><div style="font-size:12.8px"><br></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div><div style="font-size:12.8px">a) I see no reason to care if WBT is unreliable about efficiency and fuel savings. Has WBT use harmed anybody? I am still waiting for an answer. </div></div></div><div><div><div style="font-size:12.8px">b) There is, at least in the US, no legal basis for WBT or any other testing protocol for cookstoves. </div></div></div><div><div><div style="font-size:12.8px">c) Governments, investors, and users have no protection against abuse of WBT or any other testing protocol by whoever claims to certify any of the performance metrics. This authority belongs to national governments, not academics and independent self-proclaimed experts, no matter how good or relevant their intentions. </div></div></div></blockquote><div dir="auto"><div><br><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:12.8px">PCIA pulled a fast one on all stovers, anointing in the IWA an untested, unproven, irrelevant method for "stove performance" without asking what purpose was served by the metrics or the methods. You and others suggest that WBT is at fault for wrongly computing efficiencies, while I argue that choosing generally applicable ("international") metrics and methods is untenable in the first place, without defining what the objective is. I further argue that the WHO Target Emission Rates for PM2.5 have no scientifically valid, empirically verified or verifiable basis. <br><br>The drama goes on. CDM and Gold Standard are abusing the process the same way the stovers community has been for decades. What is it that desired, and by whom? And whose desires are to be served in the first place -- of the professors and activists or of users? Cookstove efficiency ratings satisfy competitive designers - "Mine is better!" I don't see any other justification for sticking with even the historical test records for cookstoves where the tests have ignored local fuel qualities and operating practices specific to those cookstoves. <br><br>Boil blood, not water. ISO TC 285, CDM and Gold Standard have to be answerable, because their acts have direct financial implications. GACC, by contrast, has no skin in the game. Spare them. <br><br>Nikhil<br><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:12.8px"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:12.8px"><br></p></div><div><br>On Mar 27, 2017, at 9:58 PM, Xavier Brandao <<a href="mailto:xvr.brandao@gmail.com" target="_blank">xvr.brandao@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
<div class="gmail-m_8596536619159779498gmail-m_-6173094103445323001moz-cite-prefix">Dear Ranyee,<br>
<br>
You didn't reply to my previous email of the 14/03.<br>
<br>
The proceedings of the last ETHOS conference still haven't been
published, and there is no information about the Round Robin
Testing on the internet.<br>
We would like to know the RRT more in detail.<br>
<br>
<font color="#000000">Hence my few questions:<br>
</font>
<ul>
<li>Is there a document, like a report, which presents and
describes the Round Robin Testing?</li>
<li>What is the goal of the RRT?</li>
<li>When did the RRT start, and when do you expect it to finish?</li>
<li>Which protocol(s) will be used during that RRT? Which data
is gonna be compared?</li>
<li>"The agreement that the testing centers made when making
plans for the RRT is that participating centers would not be
shared". Shouldn't the origin of the testing data be shared?
Can we still know which organization is coordinating/managing
the RRT?<br>
</li>
<li>When you say <i>"</i><i>protocols have already been changed
and updated from the WBT"</i>, which protocols are you
talking about?</li>
<li>Is the GACC now able to officially declare the WBT has
serious flaws, and therefore should not be recommended to
certify stoves or select them for programmatic purposes? This
was why I meant by "taking a decision about the WBT".</li>
</ul>
<br>
<span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)"><font color="#000000">Thanks again and best regards,<br>
<br>
Xavier<br>
</font></span> <br>
<br>
On 3/14/17 00:29, Xavier Brandao wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div class="gmail-m_8596536619159779498gmail-m_-6173094103445323001moz-cite-prefix">Dear Ranyee,<br>
<br>
Thanks for the quick answer.<br>
<br>
<i>"</i><i>In my earlier message, I described how the protocols
have already been changed and updated from the WBT. So your
question about making decisions about the WBT doesn’t really
reflect the current situation since things have already moved
beyond that."</i><i><br>
</i>It is news to me.<br>
Unless I missed something, here is what you said in your
previous reply:<br>
<i>"</i><i><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">We all recognize that there
is room to improve, and that is already the starting
motivation for ongoing work by many people. There are
protocol improvements that are in progress and in
discussion, which will be published as soon as they are
complete."</span></i><br>
<br>
I have nowhere seen mentioned, in the discussions, on the GACC
website, or online, that the GACC had "moved beyond the WBT". It
is very good to hear.<br>
<br>
Nevertheless, the WBT 4.2.3 is still on top of the GACC testing
protocol page:<br>
<font color="#000000"><a href="http://cleancookstoves.org/technology-and-fuels/testing/protocols.html" target="_blank">http://cleancookstoves.org/tec<wbr>hnology-and-fuels/testing/prot<wbr>ocols.html</a><br>
<br>
<i>"if you’d like more information on how to join that
collaboration and discussion, please let me know."</i><br>
Yes, gladly, I would like to have more information. Sally
Seitz, the secretary of the TC 285, told me I couldn't join
nor receive news from the meetings, since France was not on
the list of countries. She advised me to contact the AFNOR,
which I did, but didn't get an answer so far, and I expect the
process to be (if it is successful) long and bureaucratic.<br>
<br>
<i>"If you’d like to contribute testing data to the RRT,
please let me know, since more data will help us have a
better sense of the sources of variation."</i><br>
Sorry, I don't have any testing data to contribute to the RRT.<br>
<br>
I have a few questions:<br>
</font>
<ul>
<li>Is there a document, like a report, which presents and
describes the Round Robin Testing?</li>
<li>What is the goal of the RRT?</li>
<li>When did the RRT start, and when do you expect it to
finish?</li>
<li>Which protocol(s) will be used during that RRT? Which data
is gonna be compared?</li>
<li>"The agreement that the testing centers made when making
plans for the RRT is that participating centers would not be
shared". Shouldn't the origin of the testing data be shared?
Can we still know which organization is
coordinating/managing the RRT?<br>
</li>
<li>When you say <i>"</i><i>protocols have already been
changed and updated from the WBT"</i>, which protocols are
you talking about?</li>
<li>Is the GACC now able to officially declare the WBT has
serious flaws, and therefore should not be recommended to
certify stoves or select them for programmatic purposes?
This was why I meant by "taking a decision about the WBT".</li>
</ul>
<br>
<span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)"><font color="#000000">Thanks again and best regards,<br>
<br>
Xavier<br>
</font><br>
<br>
<br>
</span>On 3/13/17 15:11, Ranyee Chiang wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div class="gmail-m_8596536619159779498gmail-m_-6173094103445323001WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">Dear
Xavier, <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">In my
earlier message, I described how the protocols have
already been changed and updated from the WBT. So your
question about making decisions about the WBT doesn’t
really reflect the current situation since things have
already moved beyond that. The duration of the ISO
process which has updated procedures is hard to predict,
but the lab testing protocol has already passed one round
of voting and it will be up for another round of voting
within the next week or so. After we know the results of
that voting, we will know whether it is ready to publish
or if there needs to be additional modification. People
have been working on it continuously over the last few
years through the ISO Technical Committee 285 Working
Groups to resolve longstanding issues and if you’d like
more information on how to join that collaboration and
discussion, please let me know.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">I do know
that the ETHOS organizers plan to post the presentations
from the conference, but I’m not sure about their
timeline. The budget for the RRT was only to ship stoves
and fuels to testing centers, and the rest was based on
volunteer contributions from the participating testing
centers. The agreement that the testing centers made when
making plans for the RRT is that participating centers
would not be shared, so that people would feel comfortable
joining this learning opportunity. Our next steps with
the Round Robin Testing are to talk with participating
testing centers one-on-one, since this was an exercise
designed to help participating centers improve their
efforts. If you’d like to contribute testing data to the
RRT, please let me know, since more data will help us have
a better sense of the sources of variation.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">Best
regards,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">Ranyee</span></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p><br>
</p>
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