<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
Nikhil,<br>
<br>
I am working on solving the problem of cookstoves that use biomass,
specifically the acceptance and widespread use of TLUD stoves. Not
yet out of ideas. And still aiming very very high. No guarantees
of success, but still in the game.<br>
<br>
Paul<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 7/18/2018 9:49 PM, Nikhil Desai
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAK27e=kCYMzpiwsCfXrwjjc-C2uJq-TP3cmg1_N-+rtnv9RrFQ@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<div dir="ltr">Paul:<br>
<br>
The context should have suggested that I had in mind "
<span
style="font-size:12.8px;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">Lima,
Hague signatories". These are the people who signed on to the
adventure that is ISO which recognized "an urgent market need"
for the IWA and promised new test protocols and standards so
that the multi-billion dollar market materialized out of thin
air.</span><br>
<br>
If not ALL have given up, show me who <span
style="font-size:small;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">can
take up the challenge of, say, "100 million by 2025" for
usable, acceptable stoves with primary biomass around the
world.<br>
<br>
GACC Two? Suppose GACC is dead. What next? </span>
<br>
<br>
<span
style="font-size:small;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">I
will write a separate note in reply to the discussion between
you and Crispin about what went wrong, but I think that, apart
from some assist by ESMAP (including for the CSI project) and
some donor projects on residential heating stoves (coal, of
course), <u>it is the donor class that now stands at the risk
of having no towel around.</u> </span><br
style="font-size:small;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">
<br
style="font-size:small;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">
<span
style="font-size:small;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">GACC
was a towel for THEM (DfID, the prime case; also Dutch and
Scandinavian donors and even multi-laterals). GACC covered
them by spreading the message that something was being done
and will be done BIG SCALE (sorry for being Trumpian here in
writing in caps). <br>
<br>
People who had seen such dramas before snickered; Radha
Muthiah was incredible or non-credible. ETHOS had a different
pathos than getting and spending money. </span> <br>
<br>
And soon enough, GACC flipped. Not only did it become an LPG
propagandist - as did Kirk Smith, though LPG didn't need any
publicity except to persuade some governments to change
particularly regressive policies. (These things are usually done
in private, so I don't give GACC or Smith any credit for LPG
policy changes in India or elsewhere.) <br>
<br>
It became a tool of EPA, which had originally ran PCIA and
supported biomass stoves - and the WHO cabal to which it went
and got it to change the SDG metrics - % of households cooking
and heating with solid fuels had to come down. <br>
<br>
Yes, solid fuels are damned. Thanks to Kirk Smith. Whatever
happens to GACC, it is now committed to pushing LPG and
electricity. Just read how GACC and Energia manipulated health
and energy SDGs. <br>
<br
style="font-size:small;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">
<span
style="font-size:small;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">I
am not surprised Kirk Smith does not acknowledge TLUD stoves.
For him, all solid fuels are dirty by definition. He has no
data for or against. And he is not paid by EPA to examine TLUD
stoves or any other solid fuel stove anywhere in the world;
why should you expect more from him? </span>
<br>
<br>
At the "big picture" policy and publicity level, biomass stove
innovations are on nobody's radar screen. What did you see at
the Delhi Clean Cooking Forum? Did Rachel Kyte embrace your wood
gas idea or acknowledge that biomass stoves had a critical role
to play in cleaner cooking? (Kyte's experience in energy
technical issues or management is rather small.) <br>
<br>
------------<br>
Now about TLUD stoves and you. <br>
<br>
It is not that I have not read about TLUD stoves, just that it
does not seem to get the fuel to raise the steam at high enough
pressure. (For me, fuel is money is fuel.) <br>
<br>
From a policy perspective, I am biased toward consumer choice -
which means different size/types incorporating the same basic
idea. So that a "critical mass" of customers can be aggregated
and monitored. That takes a lot of effort, and a lot of national
government buy-in if external donors are involved. The CSI
project - which had the guts to claim "Contextual Design and
Promotion of Clean Stoves" - is a promising example. There are a
few other examples; I am waiting for Tom Miles to give me a list
of projects and associated documents so I can do a more recent
evaluation. (Mary Louise Gifford did something about ten years
ago, and so did GVEP, and some cooperation agencies for South
Asia and South Africa. GIZ must have a whole cabinet full of
reports and, more importantly, institutional memory for the
"soft" parameters - relationships, procurement, management.) <br>
<br>
If you don't have that "critical mass" to go big, you are left
to the mercy of CDM, Gold Standard, and Goldman Sachs aDALYs. I
started on that route decades ago, and still support C-Dev
projects for that market. But it needs a scale up and fast.
(From what I can tell, the pipeline of stoves projects in CDM
inventory is thin, and very little progress has been recorded so
far. It is a tedious and top-heavy, costly process.) <br>
<br>
By "Thrown in the towel," I meant in reference to Kirk Smith's
challenge to biomass stove community. It is not a matter of 4
million stoves, of any type. It is about gearing up at the pace
of LPG network in India - mind you, it took 20 years to reach
many cities, and 20 more years to most cities and towns, only
now reaching villages. <br>
<br>
To get to 100 million by 2025. (I would add in non-household
customers too; the food services industry is expanding
phenomenally, and changing the face of foods. The poor are lucky
if they have enough food; they are more likely to die of
premature death from mal/under-nutrition than inhaling WHO
fantasies of PM2.5). <br>
<br>
That kind of enterprise requires management skills and finance
that are typically obtained only in large energy companies,
however inefficient or capacity-weak they may be. <br>
<br>
Without that kind of "bankability", aid monies cannot move. GACC
is a prime example itself. If you watched the Accenture/GACC
webinar - and read my note to Ron - even Deutsche Bank couldn't
find enough bankable enterprises to spend the money for the
Clean Cooking Working Capital Fund. <br>
<br>
I don't remember what the money was. Around $7-10 million. If
that much money could not be moved without significant hit to
the "patient investor" - in that case the Netherland Enterprise
Agency - how can $100 million and a $1 billion be moved, when
and where? <br>
<br>
I am not under the delusion that GACC and IFC (International
Finance Corporation, a World Bank arm for private corporate
finance) had, that somehow "the market" would do it all once ISO
TC-285 issued its report. I have had my battles for supporting
biomass cooking in Africa and know that a lot of finance
opportunities exist in theory but getting it in practice is very
tough. <br>
<br>
Who can provide that "soft money", and the competence to funnel
it? (IFC and ex-IFC folks were in the GACC webinar on the failed
fund; I haven't yet tried to contact them, but seems to me they
are still believers in market-based solutions). <br>
<br>
------------<br>
Making char and using pyrolysis gas for cooking -- yes, I do
like the idea. There need to be more designs, more actors, more
money. And we need to get away from blind belief in the TC-285
chicanery. I think it is time for somebody to take GACC out of
UNF's hands, and reform or retire TC-285. <br>
<br>
Nikhil<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>