<div dir="ltr">Paul: <br><br>Thank you. I am surprised that within a few days of declaring his <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53856e1ee4b00c6f1fc1f602/t/590b78d49de4bb6e66c97095/1493924052510/ESD+editorial+on+biomas.pdf" target="_blank">challenge to the biomass stove community</a>, where he said there will be 25 million Indian households not covered by the LPG subsidy scheme even by 2025, Prof. Smith seems to take away the market for "supplemental" biomass stoves for the poor Indians who have just started using LPG but haven't yet made a complete transition. <br><br>I quote from his challenge, "<span style="color:rgb(46,46,46);font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;font-size:16px">Now </span><span class="m_-7322523771368534226gmail-m_2340582180696183075gmail-m_3688357950913267804gmail-m_-7742256053931530306gmail-il" style="color:rgb(46,46,46);font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;font-size:16px"><span class="m_-7322523771368534226gmail-m_2340582180696183075gmail-il">the</span></span><span style="color:rgb(46,46,46);font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;font-size:16px"> bottom line in terms of advanced </span><span class="m_-7322523771368534226gmail-m_2340582180696183075gmail-m_3688357950913267804gmail-m_-7742256053931530306gmail-il" style="color:rgb(46,46,46);font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;font-size:16px"><span class="m_-7322523771368534226gmail-m_2340582180696183075gmail-il">biomass</span></span><span style="color:rgb(46,46,46);font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;font-size:16px"> stoves. LPG (plus some natural gas and electricity) cooking for 90% of </span><span class="m_-7322523771368534226gmail-m_2340582180696183075gmail-m_3688357950913267804gmail-m_-7742256053931530306gmail-il" style="color:rgb(46,46,46);font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;font-size:16px"><span class="m_-7322523771368534226gmail-m_2340582180696183075gmail-il">the</span></span><span style="color:rgb(46,46,46);font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;font-size:16px"> population, even if achieved, still leaves some 150 million using poorly functioning traditional chulhas next decade."<br></span><br>Now he puts priority on ready refills because "Finally, health and other <wbr>benefits only fully occur <wbr>with near 100% usage and thus <wbr>near elimination of the
biomass chulha for cooking." <br><br>He alone knows - or reserves the right to proclaim - what is meant by "full" accrual of "health and other benefits". <br><br>+++<br><br>Arguendo, what he is suggesting is, "Forget those 150 million for now; make sure the extra few billion dollars today go to guaranteeing reliable refills for those who have signed up for the LPG connection, whether or not they want the refills." <br><br>To me, this is a haughty anti-poor agenda with only one possible rationale -- with even some households making complete, irreversible transition to LPG, computing aDALYs as "health benefits of LPG" get some respectability as they are measured "fully" (or fool-ly). Enough business potential for a hundred PhDs and post-docs for the next 30 years of whatever long it takes to achieve the Tier 4 nirvana. It's not as if the Berkeley crowd can put a number on aDALYs in India from 50+ years of LPG use. <br><br>From the viewpoint of energy and budgeting policies, Prof. Smith's argument to guarantee reliable refills - even seek to mandate them - is academic fantasizing at best and pernicious mania at worst. <br><br>What Prof Smith is advocating is a neat class division between those who must completely get out of what he calls "chulha trap" as soon as possible, on the one hand, and the remainder marginalized, "left behind" population. <br><br>It so turns out both these groups are about 250 million, assuming average household size of 5 (it's slightly smaller and getting smaller). <br><br><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px">i) the 50 million post-2014 household connections in India (22 million so far, 28 million by 2019) that Prof Smith wants to make sure do not use biomass chulhas unless he certifies them as "truly health protective", and,<br>ii) 50 million households that will be left behind in 2019. (With some growth in connections but also in population, 2025 "have nots" will come down to 150 million as he has projected. Currently, piped natural gas and previous household LPG connections come to around 120 million. Commercial cooking is gas, LPG, electricity as well as biomass and coal.) <br></blockquote><div><br>A class division. California elitism, I might add. Prof. Smith and Ajay Pillarisetti want to make sure "no worry about running out <wbr>Sat
night just before a big party"<wbr>. Yeah, right. At the margin, we are talking about households with monthly cash expenditures of $100 or less. Their big Saturday night parties won't stop for lack of LPG. <br><br>+++++++</div><div><br>Then there are some 500 million others - whose subsidized LPG connections were approved for the post-2014 scheme of DBTL (Direct Benefits Transfer for LPG in bank accounts) plus households that have LPG connections without subsidy, after "ghost" connections had been eliminated. (I am assuming that about 100-200 million people or equivalent use only piped natural gas and electricity for cooking and heating.) <br><br>Nobody knows how many of these 500 million to date have used LPG exclusively or along with "stacking". My hypothesis is that the middle class urban folks who got LPG back in the 1960s and 1970s "advanced" in all manners -- education, income, diets -- and reduced their burden of disease far much more than that can be attributed to getting out of the "chulha trap". But heck, anything can be attributed to anything so long as you get enough nods in the audience. Attribution is not causality. <div><br>While we wait for the cost of refills and purported "social benefits", let me share some thoughts to ponder. <br><br>1. Stacking is consumer choice, not public health professors' prerogative. Until all sources of PM2.5 - natural and anthropogenic - are banned so as to keep exposures within WHO "guidelines" (worthless until adopted in national laws and effectively enforced), there is no use even debating Kirk Smith's theology of complete and permanent transition to LPG and electricity by all poor people in India. Because if one household must make such transition, each one must otherwise any leakage will lead to premature deaths a la GBD algorithms - emission to death. Dream on -- not just "overnight" but a few decades. <br><br>2. Behavioral change for improving health outcomes from cooking is not just a problem of fuel/stove access and affordability but also of food access and affordability. A "clean cookstove" is not a pill and an LPG refill is not a condom. <div><br></div><div>3. The quantity of subsidized LPG to household connections or the subsidy per refill - or both - have to be kept in check. An argument can be made that the productivity increase from quicker, cleaner cooking (and outsourcing cooking) will increase tax revenues to subsidize LPG in perpetuity (or "steady state equilibrium"), but that requires a million dollar research grant. <br><br>Nikhil<br><div style="font-size:12.8px"><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jul 3, 2017 at 9:49 PM, Paul Anderson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:psanders@ilstu.edu" target="_blank">psanders@ilstu.edu</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 bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
Stovers, <br>
<br>
FYI. Attached is an update about the LPG program in India,
entitled:
<blockquote type="cite">Comments on the National LPG Programme of
India<br>
Kirk R. Smith and Ajay Pillarisetti</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><i><span style="font-size:12pt">[They]
discuss two of the three major issues slowing usage of LPG by
the poor in India and how the new national programme attempts
to deal with them: upfront costs and reliability of
refills. In a later post, we will discuss the third major
barrier, the cost of refills for poor families.</span></i></blockquote>
<br>
The references to stove stacking and people using solid biomass fuel
stoves (e.g., wood) do not include any TLUD micro-gasifiers, which
are still all concentrated in West Bengal. SOMEDAY (not yet) there
will be sufficient LPG and TLUD stoves in the same area for
comparisons to be made.<span class="m_-7322523771368534226gmail-m_2340582180696183075gmail-m_1315196575576659705m_-1351615364641759912HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<br>
<pre class="m_-7322523771368534226gmail-m_2340582180696183075gmail-m_1315196575576659705m_-1351615364641759912m_-3213034741136794115moz-signature" cols="72">--
Doc / Dr TLUD / Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
Email: <a class="m_-7322523771368534226gmail-m_2340582180696183075gmail-m_1315196575576659705m_-1351615364641759912m_-3213034741136794115moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:psanders@ilstu.edu" target="_blank">psanders@ilstu.edu</a>
Skype: paultlud Phone: <a href="tel:(309)%20452-7072" value="+13094527072" target="_blank">+1-309-452-7072</a>
Website: <a class="m_-7322523771368534226gmail-m_2340582180696183075gmail-m_1315196575576659705m_-1351615364641759912m_-3213034741136794115moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.drtlud.com" target="_blank">www.drtlud.com</a></pre>
</font></span></div>
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