<div dir="ltr">Dear Ron: (changed the subject line)<br><br>Yes, "quelled" was to be "fuelled"; maybe I was unconsciously thinking of making char by quelling a fire. :-) <br><br>Off-topic, I agree in principle with your last statement "<b>I contend that larger (commercial) users of biomass stoves should be the ones most likely to want char-making (cleaner, safer, more efficient, and income-generating) stoves.</b>" This is a market to target, as also commercial char-making with food, feed, and fertilizer as a side-activity. Go for it. <br><br>A. You may be correct that users depending on biomass are pre-dominantly growers, but not on the strength of the evidence you cite (see between *** below). "Growing" one's biomass - trees or animal manure - is an issue of ownership, something that the stover movement has very little idea of on a national or global level. Why, biomass cookstove is not just fuel and stove ownership but the primary sources and logistical paraphernalia (carts, etc.). <br><div><div><br></div><div>B. If users grew their own biomass, I wouldn't be hearing about deforestation or "free collection". I rely on first-hand observations and cross-check data, going back to mid-1980s work of Gerry Leach and Marcie Gowen on "Household Energy Databook" for The World Bank. Gerry and his daughter Melissa quite convincingly shattered the myth of "fuelwood crisis". What Crispin referred to in Rwanda and what has been found in differentiated national surveys over and over again is that when people have land rights, they manage to grow their fuel sustainably. They also know that while the collection may be "free" due to access rights, nurturing and protecting tree stock takes quite a bit of work. That leaves the blame for forest loss on i) clearance for higher value use (which is perfectly logical) and ii) managed or illegal "collection", of which we hear a lot over and over again. Arguably, if people are <b>collecting </b>wood from lands they do not own, they cannot be said to be "growers". <br><br>C. My point about charcoal making was simply that persons who depend on charcoal-fuelled stoves (for own use) are not growers. Let's use IEA figure of 36 million tons of charcoal in Sub-Saharan Africa. Looks like quite a bit of it is exported even to Europe, but that doesn't matter at the global level. Assuming an average "household equivalent" (300 kg per year), this is some 100 million "households". Add rest of the world (see dated figures from FAO <a href="http://www.charcoalproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/1_Ghilardi_Steierer_Global_stats.pdf">here</a>) and net out non-cooking use (pig iron in Brazil, for instance), and my guesstimate is that some 150-200 million households use charcoal for cooking. (Higher end of the number for situation where charcoal is only partly used and where charcoal from non-wood biomass is available.) <br><br>So, assuming that people collecting from lands they do not own (for own use or firewood sale) number about 100 million and charcoal users, users of purchased biomass (wood, branches and twigs, dung-cakes) 200 million, we are more than half way to the aggregate number of some 550 million biomass users for household cooking.<br><br></div>Yes, these are guesses, but based on a lifetime spent in household energy statistics. While buyers of fuelwood and charcoal switch to LPG and electricity or purchased foods, more and more people are leaving land-based livelihoods. Population growth, urbanization, agrarian crises, feminization of poverty have all tended to increase the share of the landless in most economies that I have ever worked on or visited. There is no reason to think that of the supposed 500 million heads of households who depend on biomass fuelled stoves, any more than a half are growers for own use. (I am excluding coal stove users.) <blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><br></blockquote>4. Data on non-household cooking are not directly available. It is both on-site meals as well as pre- and partial cooking, canning, fish drying, etc. One may look up commercial reports and news stories on "food services" market in India and such, and some industrial energy statistics reports do publish by SIC or ISIC codes for "food and beverages". <div><br></div><div>More below. <br></div><div><br></div><div>Nikhil <div class="gmail_extra"><div><div class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 5:34 PM, Ronal W. Larson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rongretlarson@comcast.net" target="_blank">rongretlarson@comcast.net</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 style="word-wrap:break-word"><div>Nikhil:</div><div><br></div><div><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>See below.</div><div><br></div><br><div><blockquote type="cite"><span><div>On Sep 22, 2017, at 10:07 AM, Nikhil Desai <<a href="mailto:pienergy2008@gmail.com" target="_blank">pienergy2008@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-interchange-newline"></span><div><div dir="ltr">Ron: <br><br>What makes you believe that users of biomass-quelled stoves are predominantly growers (of biomass)? </div></div></blockquote><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><b>RWL: Replace “quelled” with “fueled”. I’m sure I based my comment mostly on twenty plus years on this list. </b></div></div></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><br></div><div><b><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span> But looking around a bit, I found that confirmed sort of in general and specifically in Ghana in this recent paper: </b></div><div><a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7036" target="_blank">http://iopscience.iop.org/arti<wbr>cle/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7036</a>.</div></div></blockquote><div><br>*** This is a small survey in two districts and talks about "availability" which can mean anything. Says nothing about growing own wood or making own charcoal. ***<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><b>My Google search found this one for Paraguay - which (only skimmed) seems to agree: <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/sefspcmi/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Johnny-Bruce-Case-Study-Final2.pdf" target="_blank">http://depts.washington.edu/s<wbr>efspcmi/wordpress/wp-content/u<wbr>ploads/2014/07/Johnny-Bruce-Ca<wbr>se-Study-Final2.pdf</a></b></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>*** This again is a small survey and says nothing about growing own wood vs. collecting from freely accessible lands - e.g., "One household collected once per year and spent eight hours and another spent an hour collecting every day. Many purchased firewood due to lack of time, oxen and an oxcart, and/or available woodland. .. Generally, I noticed that those that used firewood had free access to a source."</div><br><div>Incidentally, this is a very informative report. I can easily extract 10 items of relevance to biomass cookstove design and use. Thank you for the reference. ***<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><b><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Also this from FAO -(not as much on urban-rural) - was new to me, has some DALY data: <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0789e/a0789e09.htm" target="_blank">http://www.fao.org/docrep/009<wbr>/a0789e/a0789e09.htm</a></b></div></div></blockquote><div><br>*** Ditto. Says nothing about ownership of the wood resource. I am glad to point out, though, that Kirk Smith said in this FAO piece: "<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia,"Times New Roman",Times,serif">Wood and other biomass fuels can be burned cleanly with the right technology and thus can have a long-term role in sustainable development where they are renewably harvested. Thus programmes for the modernization of woodfuel use for household and cottage industries in the poorest areas of developing countries should be part of the development agenda. "</span></div><br><div>I can't tell what the biomass stovers community has done in this regard. ***</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><b><br></b></div><div><b><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Not sure if you disagree, but if so - why?</b></div></div></blockquote><div><br>**** See above. *** </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><span><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr">Saw the figures for urban charcoal markets in Sub-Saharan Africa lately? </div></div></blockquote></span><div><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><b>[RWL: Not sure of your point - but yes char-use if predominant in urban areas. And in many of those cases, the production is illegal. Char-use in any setting is my main reason for being on this list. I still believe wood use is appreciably larger than char use globally.</b></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br>*** Illegal or not, charcoal users rarely grow their biomass. You are correct; woody fuels direct use is appreciably larger than char use, even including non-cooking use as in Brazil and elsewhere. *** </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div><b><br></b></div><div><b><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>This had some interesting comparison data: </b><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK385522/table/p45_T1.1/?report=objectonly" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/<wbr>books/NBK385522/table/p45_T1.1<wbr>/?report=objectonly</a></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br>*** Yes, but I find 5 GJ useful energy per household per year a bit high for cooking. There is considerable variation of course. Do you have different numbers? *** <br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div><b><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>I also believe that most charcoal is made by folk who are also “growers” (meaning they are not living in urban areas)</b></div><div><b><br></b></div></div></div></blockquote><div>*** What has living location to do with ownership of biomass? So long as the user is not growing the biomass for charcoal, does not address Andrew's question. <br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div><b></b></div><div><b><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>You believe what on this topic?</b></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br>*** No beliefs, just suspicions and hunches via triangulating lots of disperse data. I think about half of the users who depend on solid biomass for household cooking do not grow their own fuel. I have queried people wherever I go, and I know many cases like mentioned in the Paraguay study. Landowners may use the biomass they grow (unless they live elsewhere and/or use LPG or electricity) but if the legend of "free biomass" by collection from other people's or public lands has any value, it must be that biomass cookstove users are NOT predominantly growers. I will change my mind when I get evidence to the contrary.*** <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><span><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr">Or looked at non-household cooking (in my view roughly 50% of cooking energy consumption worldwide)? </div></div></blockquote><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></span><b>[RWL: apparently I am to believe (re Andrew’s question below) that “non-household cooking” which uses biomass as its fuel ARE NOT also growers? (My saying yes to Andrew’s question would say the opposite</b>, <b>I agree). First I strongly doubt your 50% worldwide, but especially so for those using biomass.</b></div></blockquote><div><br>*** You may believe so if you wish. There is a difference between % of users and % of cooking energy market share in terms of PJ useful. I Anyway, the "50% worldwide" is about something else, not biomass alone and not cooking alone -I once computed (back of the envelope) that roughly 50% of the total energy use in food delivery (from primary production to meals, including beverages) worldwide occurs outside of households. It is TOTAL energy, not just thermal, for all food products, and all countries. My basis? Some food and beverage industry SIC codes data on energy consumption in Europe and US some years back (has only increased), and adding all the logistics refrigeration. Refrigeration has improved efficiencies remarkably. *** </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><b><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>I have given up looking for data on this. This site didn’t help: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking#Home-cooking_and_commercial_cooking" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki<wbr>/Cooking#Home-cooking_and_comm<wbr>ercial_cooking</a></b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div><b><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>My guess is that world wide, less than 25% (half of your 50%) of meals are non-household, and where the fuel in the non-household is biomass, the number would drop below 10%. Now adding the conditional about the supply of fuel also being growers to my 10% guesstimate - I pass. My guess is that most such entrepreneurs do some growing but a majority of their biomass fuel is purchased from suppliers of wood and charcoal who are non-urban (therefore also likely also growers of biomass). This has gotten too deep into qualifications and definitions. But I still stand by my “yes” in answering Andrew’s query. (rephrased) “<i>Are the persons who depend on biomass-quelled stoves also growers?"</i></b></div><div><b><br></b></div></div></blockquote><div>**** Please, sir. I did not say 50% of the MEALS are non-household. I looked at some USDA statistics for the US and also "food industry" and "food services industry" (Sysco, and the like) over many years to make a guess. I only meant energy use in the food delivery chain (i.e., not in fishing and farming or animal husbandry per se). Nor did I have anything to say on biomass. I would pick biomass use in commercial, institutional cooking as more than 10% of the total energy use in food delivery, but you are counting meals. Sir, we don't have a definition of a meal, and very little in household energy literature says anything about meals at home or outside. But then again, in my view, the whole business of "cookstoves" is in the grip of physicists who have not bothered what cooking is and what meals are. *** <br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><b></b></div><div><b><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>I look forward to your differing and supporting citations. But also what difference it makes in improving stoves - and (in my case) charcoal-making stoves? For this last category, I contend that larger (commercial) users of biomass stoves should be the ones most likely to want char-making (cleaner, safer, more efficient, and income-generating) stoves.</b></div><div><br></div></div></blockquote><div>*** I absolutely agree, but with a twist -- char-making should be a commercial activity, with cooking use on-site as a side business. ***<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div></div><div>Ron</div><span><div><br></div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr">Nikhil<br><div class="gmail_extra">
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 10:54 PM, Ronal W. Larson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rongretlarson@comcast.net" target="_blank">rongretlarson@comcast.net</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 style="word-wrap:break-word"><div>Andrew and list:</div><div><span><blockquote type="cite"><div><div><blockquote type="cite"> </blockquote><br>There appears to be a win win situation here and I gather there is<br>still a vast part of equatorial Africa where annual burning takes<br>place. However it brings me to another reason I like the idea, though<br>not the practicalities, of a householder-subsistance farmer being paid<br>a subsidy funded by the developed world. The trouble is I have a<br>parochial view and not a good worldview of what types of persons<br>depend on biomass fuelled stoves. Are they also predominantly growers?<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></span><div><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000m_8387032066972498430Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><b>[RWL9: Yes to Andrew’s last question. I disagree with Andrew calling himself “parochial” - when he supports (as do I) the ethics of <i>“a subsidy funded by the developed world”.</i></b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div><b><span class="gmail-m_6287218167578312984m_3145647197295594000m_8387032066972498430Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span> </b></div><b>[RWL10: Agree totally. And I think this is what will eventually kill the geoengineering technology that is often placed ahead of biochar - BECCS. In BECCS, as with “clean coal”, the CO2 from combustion (never pyrolysis) is placed, as liquid, deep underground. Major expenses needed to protect the world’s soil are not needed for biochar. Soil quality is closely linked to carbon content - and biochar does this with no penalty - while apparently being the cleanest and most efficient of all possible solid-fuel stoves.</b></div><div><br></div><div><b>`Andrew - thanks for your above rebuttal to Crispin.</b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div><b>Ron<br></b><span><blockquote type="cite"><div><div> </div></div></blockquote></span></div></div>
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