<div dir="ltr">A slightly edited version.<br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_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><font face="georgia, serif">------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>Crispin:</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></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><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">This is the psychosis of cite-o-logy. Notional "environmental health" researchers are lawless adventurers throwing numbers like hoodlums throw rocks.<br><br>Let me speculate on the context of this paper Lam et al. (2012). I don't know what Gauthier had to do in this paper, but the main author (Lam) and two other co-authors (Smith and Bates) have made it their business to concoct deaths from household fuels they hold to be "dirty" by definition ("solid fuels"). This was the EPA push upon WHO. For this purpose, Smith also needed to kill kerosene, which can be a more effective fuel substitution for solid fuels (for the first 20 years of my life, for lighting and cooking, as for some 50 years of my mother's and grandmothers' lives, along with stacking).<br><br>By 2010-11, he had bought into LPG companies and the cult of WHO/IHME Global Burden of disease. This was also the time when he and his accomplices were rushed into quick, superficial "reviews of evidence" for WHO, as part of the machinations for GBD and the WHO publication Household Fuel Combustion Guidelines - Solid Fuels (HFCG, 2014).<br><br>HFCG was an illegitimate excursion into energy policy by the jokers at WHO. Imagine the NIH issuing fuel combustion guidelines in US, or even worldwide. <br><br>This is why I call these "public health" pundits lawless adventurers. They have no business lecturing energy policy makers or technologists. You and I may choose to attack them, but they are (deliberately?) ignorant of both facts and science.
Leave "health" researchers to promote their careers in pal-pampered publications in "environmental health", just like biomass stove researchers have done on boiling waters. <br><br>This Lam (2012) paper came to me in September 2012, during a time when Kirk Smith was excited by some trivial epidemiological study that he thought would be the death nail for household kerosene cooking. <br><div><br>It does acknowledge "<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:"Times New Roman",stixgeneral,serif;font-size:15.9991px">As highlighted in the exposure assessment section, this is complicated by the fact that the nature and concentrations of pollutants emitted may be strongly influenced by the source of combustion (e.g., stoves, lamps, heaters).</span> " </div><div><br>And stoves, lamps, heaters vary in technologies and combustion practices. As does kerosene quality. Kerosene can be a wondrous fuel, and has been such for over a hundred years.<br><br>Kerosene was also used in India to adulterate petrol (gasoline) in auto rickshaws and for backup generators.<br><br>Anil Rajvanshi made a remarkable product called Lanstove. I was skeptical until I went to see it in his lab. An inexpensive solution for the poor in India, where kerosene quotas and subsidies are now eliminated. (I can't fault Prof. Smith for this anti-poor drive of his favorite politician of India, though he - Smith - did write in support of removing kerosene subsidies. A complicated story; Kirit Parikh and his sidekicks were responsible, as was widespread corruption.)<br><br>Lam et al. (2012) also say, "ph<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:"Times New Roman",stixgeneral,serif;font-size:15.9991px">otovoltaic household and community-level lighting programs, including those combined with village electrification, are underway in a number of countries (</span><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R31" class="m_-4098691071209752442m_-9130209995596446881gmail-bibr m_-4098691071209752442m_-9130209995596446881gmail-popnode" style="color:rgb(100,42,143);font-family:"Times New Roman",stixgeneral,serif;font-size:15.9991px" target="_blank">DGDA 2010</a><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:"Times New Roman",stixgeneral,serif;font-size:15.9991px">; </span><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R76" class="m_-4098691071209752442m_-9130209995596446881gmail-bibr m_-4098691071209752442m_-9130209995596446881gmail-popnode" style="color:rgb(100,42,143);font-family:"Times New Roman",stixgeneral,serif;font-size:15.9991px" target="_blank">Palit et al. 2011</a><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:"Times New Roman",stixgeneral,serif;font-size:15.9991px">). However, these are primarily driven by the desire to improve access to lighting, rather than from concerns about toxicity of emissions, for which evidence is presently sparse. National and international efforts to promote advanced combustion biomass cookstoves with low emissions are also underway, including the National Biomass Cookstove Initiative of India (</span><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R115" class="m_-4098691071209752442m_-9130209995596446881gmail-bibr m_-4098691071209752442m_-9130209995596446881gmail-popnode" style="color:rgb(100,42,143);font-family:"Times New Roman",stixgeneral,serif;font-size:15.9991px" target="_blank">Venkataraman et al. 2011</a><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:"Times New Roman",stixgeneral,serif;font-size:15.9991px">) and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (</span><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R98" class="m_-4098691071209752442m_-9130209995596446881gmail-bibr m_-4098691071209752442m_-9130209995596446881gmail-popnode" style="color:rgb(100,42,143);font-family:"Times New Roman",stixgeneral,serif;font-size:15.9991px" target="_blank">Smith 2010</a><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:"Times New Roman",stixgeneral,serif;font-size:15.9991px">).</span> "</div><div><br>Evidence of toxicity of emissions is sparse. Mark those words, for they apply to all fuels and combustion technologies and practices. EPA's assumption of equitoxicity, combined with Smith/WHO fiction of Relative Risk computations and Population Adjustment Factors, have built up a palace in the clouds, with serious greenhouse consequences. </div><div><br>All said and done, Lam et al. (2012), i.e., Kirk Smith included, just wanted more money, the standard route for academics: <br><br></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:"Times New Roman",stixgeneral,serif;font-size:15.9991px">"In conclusion, considering the widespread use in the developing world of kerosene as a household fuel, the scarcity of adequate epidemiologic and exposure investigations, the <u>potential for harm</u> <u>suggested by some of the few</u> relevant studies that do exist, and the implications for national energy policies, researchers are urged to consider collection of data on household kerosene use, for cooking, heating, or lighting, in their household surveys and studies of health in developing countries. As noted, much can be achieved by simple extension of questionnaires. Given the potential risks of kerosene, policymakers may consider alternatives to kerosene subsidies, such as shifting support to cleaner technologies for lighting and cooking.</span> " </div></blockquote><div><br>Amen. I wrote to this effect in a paper, with Ramesh Bhatia, for APDC Kuala Lumpur in 1990 - "Drive out kerosene from cooking in urban areas, substituting by LPG, and drive out kerosene for lighting in rural areas, substituting by electricity. The kerosene released is enough for rural cooking." <br><br>It was sensible then and remains so today. I didn't need any "environmental health" or HAPiT quackery, nor do biomass or coal stove designers need it now. Forget WHO and Berkeley parasites parading as principled pundits. Don't complain "it doesn't seem to occur" to them what they are conveniently blind to.<br><br>Nikhil<br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="m_-4098691071209752442m_-9130209995596446881m_8547718542697337295gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_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><font face="georgia, serif">-----------------------------</font></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><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 10:04 PM Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <<a href="mailto:crispinpigott@outlook.com" target="_blank">crispinpigott@outlook.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Dear Friends<br>
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I was looking for standards on the fuels and found this from the NIH talking about the inherent emissions fuels release.<br>
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<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/</a><br>
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How can we bring common sense to these large organisations? They even talk about how kerosene produces a certain PM mass per m3.<br>
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"Numerous studies demonstrated that heater design (radiant or convective) is influential on emissions of pollutants (Apte et al. 1989<<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R5" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R5</a>>; Cheng et al. 2001<<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R28" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R28</a>>; Leaderer 1982<<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R56" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R56</a>>; Lionel et al. 1986<<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R60" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R60</a>>; Traynor et al. 1983<<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R105" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R105</a>>; 1987<<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R106" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R106</a>>; 1990<<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R107" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R107</a>>; Yamanaka et al. 1979<<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R121" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R121</a>>; Yamanaka 1984<<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R120" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R120</a>>; Zhou et al. 2000<<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R127" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/#R127</a>>). EFco were, on average, four- to fivefold higher for radiant heaters than for convective heaters; conversely, EFNOx from convective heaters were two- to fourfold higher than from radiant heaters (Table 1<<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/table/T1/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664014/table/T1/</a>>), indicative of the hotter combustion temperatures of convective heaters. SO2 was not influenced greatly by device type, as emissions are primarily dependent on fuel sulfur content."<br>
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"Primarily"? Otherwise, what - transmutation of elements?<br>
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Even though the authors were aware that inherent emissions a related to the fuel analysis, they still go on about the emissions from burning it as if it too, is inherent. They report that emissions of PM vary eight-fold depending on the fuel grade. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the combustors are suited to some grades more than others. It is akin to comparing the emissions from different gasoline engines from different manufacturers burning diesel instead of gasoline.<br>
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While there is plenty of interesting information in the documentation and reference articles, it doesn't seem to occur to the authors that promoting the development of cleaner burning appliances is the solution, not banning the fuels preferred by the poor.<br>
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Regards<br>
Crispin<br><br>
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