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Dear All (because this is far more than just about what Cecil and
others have written thus far (see below)),<br>
<br>
[[ Note: This message and selected others are posted (within a day)
in the EPosts section of my website: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.drtlud.com">www.drtlud.com</a> ]]<br>
<br>
1. Cecil made a great characterization that clearly sets the two
perspectives: Contexters and Certifiers.<br>
<br>
2. Thanks for the wonderful historical note about how the
now-discredited Lorena stove was a shared starting point for both
sides.<br>
<br>
3. Please save you money (and the million dollars can go to better
purposes) because:<br>
A. The two sides will never agree on the ground rules to determine
victory. <br>
B. Even if 15 or 150 leaders on EACH side would agree, there can be
no forcing of acceptance of the results upon everyone.<br>
C. What is decided in the Xhosa region will not transfer to other
regions.<br>
D. The real result is predictable: there are SOME merits to BOTH
sides.<br>
<br>
4. But the mere idea of a shoot-out is stimulating. Some readers
of this Stoves Listserv are probably hoping for numerous casualties
on both sides. Maybe at least the shooting (or is it shouting?)
will diminish. Or it could revert to WW I trench warfare with a
stalemate? <br>
<br>
5. Do I care which side wins or loses? Of course I do. There is
much at stake. But the result must be partial victory for both
sides. <br>
<br>
6. What is in question is how much either side is willing to
compromise to assist the other side. I suspect very little WILLING
compromise, but reality will eventually set in and changes could
result. Budgets will be altered, with both winners and losers. The
Pro-Certifiers (tests and standards advocates) who currently get
disproportionately more money, will feel a pinch (IMO). This will
occur if Certifier methods EITHER A) are given less emphsis, OR B)
are finalized and accepted. <br>
<br>
7. But is the Contexters who are disadvantaged with every month of
delays.<br>
<br>
8. Personal story: I was at Aprovecho Stove Camp 2004 when Tami
Bond, Damon Ogle and Dale Andreatta were working on the first
testing equipment, and at Stove Camp 2005 when the PEMS first became
functional. Testing allows us to compare stoves and the impact of
changes to a stove. In that first year of use (2005), the
clean-cooking stove competition was won (clearly won over Rocket and
other stoves) by my TLUD micro-gasifier stove design, which I
promptly named "Champion". Without the stove testing capabilities,
there would have been no recogniton and no justification for the
decade of continuing TLUD efforts. In some ways, TLUD stoves owe
everything to stove tesing. But too many years were spent chasing
emission numbers, when in reality the important work is to have the
stoves into use (which is thankfully happening now with current
great success in West Bengal, India). (continue....)<br>
<br>
9. But stove testing took a turn toward establishing standards.
And standards became a "health issue" dictated from outside of the
stove community. And LPG (and electricity) set the ultimate
standards so high that efforts for TLUD stoves have suffered. The
"perfect" (fossil-fuel industry-supported LPG) has indeed become the
enemy of the "very good" (TLUD stoves) and of the "somewhat good"
(Rocket stoves). But the world still needs to replace over 500
million bad stoves for which there is documented evidence that the
solid dry biomass fuels are the only ones realistically available
and affordable and sustainable. <br>
<br>
10. So, I am a Contexter who defends stove testing but not stove
standards.<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<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 9/3/2017 8:03 AM, alex english
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CA+6hwOoeDXxS7fSqqLLb17Zsi4Meyy4mrVQMiRXrqVh8rypeDg@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<div dir="ltr">Dear Cecil,
<div>You have force drafted your oxygenarian wizdom and wittles
into this combustible stove community with a call for a
million dollar olympic competition. Please elaborate on your
last paragraph. What did the SA appropriate stove community
come up with for the Xhosa region?<br>
Any online documents? Where is the bar set to begin? How high
must Sir Stills, Lord Pemberton-Pigott and the rest-less jump.</div>
<div>I have a few bucks for the crowdfun campaign.</div>
<div>Alex</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Sep 3, 2017 at 7:34 AM, Cecil
Cook <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:cec1863@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">cec1863@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<p>Dear Ron (AKA Sir Galihad or Sir Lancelot?) and stovers
of the world,</p>
<p>Is it not time for us to unite, because we have nothing
to loose but our many cited "absurdities". From the
periphery - where I am right now with terrible internet
connectivity problems - in woebegone Transkei this battle
of stove testers and stove standards wonks - seems
downright tragic. </p>
<p>With a tip of my hat to Arnold Tyonbee, the food fight
taking place on the stove discussion list over how best to
test stove performance is a microcosm of why American
"civilization" is in deep trouble. Let me try to explain
my personal take how we have gotten into this pathetic
battle royal. And yes the fault lies on all sides. Our
predicament in the household stove community is that we
appear to be trapped in the same destructive dynamics of
insiders and outsiders which has already wrecked the ANC </p>
<p>It all starts back in 1984 when Crispin and I and a Mrs
Cina (C is it sucking dental click sound in the Xhosa
language spoken in the Transkei region of South Africa)
dutifully followed the instructions in a book by Ianto
Evans from the pre Dean Stills APROVECHO INSTITUTE about
the Lorena Stove. I think this may have been CPP's first
foray into stove making. He may correct me on this point
....he often does that! </p>
<p>For the record we mixed sand and clay and learned how to
cast and carve many different shapes and sizes of Lorena
stoves, fire boxes, pot holes, tunnels between pot holes,
chimneys, and all to no avail because it took such a long
time to heat up the mass of sand/clay. Time to boil was
often half an hour or even longer. The fire boxes were too
small and necessitated extra work splitting tree limbs
into kindling.</p>
<p>The Lorena stove was a non starter in the Bantustan of
Transkei. As the director of the Transkei AT Unit I was
interested in the L stove because many babies get badly
burned from falling into open cooking and heating fires
located in the center of typical round mud brick houses
with thatched grass rooves. The smoke filters out thru a
space between the top of the wall and the pole roof
trusses. Since people sit on low stools their heads are
below the level where smoke is thick. Corn is tied in
bunches and hung to dry over the roof timber trusses or on
the walls. The smoke discourages flying insects in the
summer months and limits the build up of roaches and
terminates in the thatching grass. </p>
<p>Most cooking is done with large three legged cast iron
pots with heavy lids of many sizes from 10 to 100 litres
or bigger. Pots are often raised with bricks so big limbs
or split logs up to 150mm can be fed into the fire under
the 3 legged pots. </p>
<p>Most cooking is done by boiling in these pots...even
steamed bread is made in pots by boiling using a second
pot. Cooking is also done outside in the hot months. A
windbreak of clay bricks is constructed outside away from
the house with 4 cooking bays created by two intersectiong
walls high enough to shelter big pots (mid thigh). Coals
from a fire are often placed on top of the lids and
around the back of the pot to create a simple oven or
accelerate boiling. </p>
<p>Women can spend several hours two to three times a week
gathering 35 to 45kg head loads of dead limbs for their
households....more in winter. In savannah areas with very
few trees or wood lots women collect dried cow pies in
feed bags in place of firewood.</p>
<p>I have taken time to sketch the
stove/fuel/pot/cuisine/kitchen elements that together
consttute the cultural and e environmental context of
cooking, heating, and the other vital functions performed
by fire, perhaps humankind most important technology.
Please remember that<br>
fire qua technology is itself is a culturally produced and
managed process. Stove use is a complex cultural process
integrating many inputs and producing multiple outputs. It
needs to be remembered that fire belongs to all of us.
There are as many versions of fire and origin of fire
myths as there are societies and professions. </p>
<p>Now to my point: there has been a call for a drawdow of
two fisted stove making expertise. It is put up or shut up
time...High Noon and stove armgeddon is upon us stoveres.
I am personally challenging the GACC globalists,<br>
the APROVECHO gang, the Berkeley Air boys, the EPA-WHO-GSF
bunch, and the Ron Larson brigade to a STOVE RACE in the
Transkei region of the Eastern Cape province of the
Republic of South Africa. </p>
<p>The other batallion will be the DISSENTING OTHERS, namely
Crispin, Nikhil, Xavier, me, and anybody else who
perceives the enormous gaps separating the hyper-modelers
and <br>
quantifiers AKA the SCIENCE CERTIFIERS from the other team
known as the RADICAL CONTEXTERS.</p>
<p>The essence of the proposed shoot out at the OK Corral to
take place with the assistance of the<br>
Eastern Cape AT Unit in Mthatha would be to give each team
$500 000 to research, design, develop, produce &
deploy the best performing and also the best accepted
biomass stove. The two teams will specify the performance
paramenters and testing equipment to be used and where
questions emerge then both testing protocols will be used
to test the lab and field performance of competing stoves.
</p>
<p>However, a mutually agreed upon represtentative cross
section of diverse stove users from the test area will
constitute a de facto STOVE JURY that will vote for what
they perceive to be the best stove for a well
characterized target community of stove users. They will
arrive at their judgment by applying their own folk
values. They serve as a stove selection jury. <br>
It makes sense to give the stove testing jurors an
opportunity to purchase a subsidized test stove produced
by the SCIENCE CERTIFIERS or a stove produced by the the
RADICAL CONTEXTERS. The willingness of the stove buying
public to purchase a well CERTIFIED versus a well
CONTEXTUALIZED stove becomes the ultimate STOVE SHOW
DOWN. The value of building this final stage into a stove
science and stove user assessment process combines these
two distinct dimensions of stove performance.</p>
<p>We get this ultimate judgment of stove performance from
the willingness of stove buyers to spend their own money
together with the public subsidies on their PREFERRED
STOVE. I am suggesting the inclusion of stove subsidies of
no more than 50% to be paid on behalf of +/- 50 targeted
households. The adding of a stove purchase option helps to
measure the strength of the value proposition represented
by the competing stoves developed and locally fabricated
by the CERTIFIED and CONTEXTUALIZED stove development.</p>
<p>This test of household stoves developed by the CERTIFIED
vs the CONTEXTUALIZED process of appropriate stove
innovation will surely expose any short comings in either
approach. </p>
<p>This proposed challenge to the dominant stove science and
development paradigm will ground all the intellectual HP
now wasted on scientific politics. Where will we find the
$1 000 000 to host a stove shoot out in Eastern Cape
region of South Africa where 35 years ago the Approvecho
Institute's "hippie" Lorena stove failed to displace the
pre-existing fire technologies. The China fabricated
StoveTec rocket stove failed utterly to establish itself
in any South Africa market areas over the last 10 years
because it failed the value proposition test. </p>
<p>So as a 80 year old hippie (I am actually an On the Road
Beatnic) l am calling out the apparently incompetent
citation happy American hippie stovers where ever you are
to have a face down in a Xhosa Kraal. Are there any hippie
stove scientist who are ready to prove that your certified
stove science can actually innovate and fabricate one or
more stoves which South African consumers judge to be
appropriate for rural, peri-rural, and township markets??</p>
<p>Sir Stills can your gang of stove certifiers innovate
household stoves for the Xhosa region of SA that offers
stove users & buyers in Xhosa-landia a robust "Value
Proposition" strong enough to gradually gain and hold a
significant market share in the Eastern Cape household
stove market without external subsidies? </p>
<p>My claim is that the Southern Africa appropriate stove
community has already out performed the global stove
community which is preoccupied or perhaps even fixated on
the certification of household stove performance and
depends on aid politics and colonial hegemonies to
subsidize outrageously overpriced "inappropriate" global
stove technologies made half way round the planet..</p>
<p>in search & service,<br>
Cecil E Cook<br>
Techno Share Associates &<br>
Eastern Cape Appropriate Technology<br>
Mthatha, RSA <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Aug 30, 2017 10:34 PM, "Ronal W.
Larson" <<a href="mailto:rongretlarson@comcast.net"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">rongretlarson@comcast.net</a>>
wrote:<br type="attribution">
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