<div dir="ltr"><div dir="auto">Crispin:<div><br></div><div>1. A simple answer to why the GoI doesn’t have a requirement for combustion efficiency - for the alcohols or solid biomass - might be that efficacy in use is impossible to regulate for small uses and small users. The theoretical rationales for efficiency or emission rates - to save forests or lives - belong in the grant-driven metaphysics of the pundit caste, not proven in real lives. What can’t be controlled shouldn’t be attempted. </div><div><br></div><div>2. “Clean Fuel” is a dirty business. Biomass-derived alcohols are called "clean" because they are presumptively "renewable energy" and presumptively "climate neutral". There is no evidence of renewability or climate neutrality; this is another instance of purported noble objectives justifying pretentious pursuits. If at all, land or forest clearance for large scale sugarcane farming places high demand on land prices and water, and waste management is a headache too. I am sure experiences vary, but from what I have seen and heard of the political economy of sugarcane, sugar, and sugar-based alcohol, this business seems to depend on slave-like labor of growers, even when they happen to own the land. (Anil can testify to the sugarcane politics and finance of India. I have known in East Africa. And then there is the history of imperial sugarcane business in the Caribbean and elsewhere.) If at all, once you move away from the physicists' beancounting of joules and carbon, sugarcane might be one of the most environmentally and socially destructive agricultural products. <br><br>3. About CO and water content: I have heard of anhydrous sugarcane ethanol - during a trip to a Malawi distillery. I don't know if production costs of a 5% water product are much higher than a 10% or 20% water at a large scale. However, it may well be that higher water content permits higher overall efficiency in cooking - if, as I am thinking, the cook varies the power level. (Varying power is why efficiency cannot be controlled in actual use, irrespective of CO production.) I am speculating here on the basis of some 50-years old memories of Bunsen burners in labs and different kinds of kerosene stoves at home.<br><br>BTW, what Malawi subsidies for water and ethanol? Never heard of it in my 30 odd years of looking at Malawi energy sector now and then. Electricity is the best cooking solution there as in much of Sub-Saharan Africa.<br><br>Nikhil<br><br><br><div dir="ltr"><br>On Dec 23, 2018, at 9:44 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <<a href="mailto:crispinpigott@outlook.com" target="_blank">crispinpigott@outlook.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr">
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<div name="BB10" id="m_2901509249837076921BB10_response_div_BBPPID" dir="auto" style="width:100%">Dear Anil</div>
<div name="BB10" id="m_2901509249837076921BB10_response_div_BBPPID" dir="auto" style="width:100%"><br>
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<div name="BB10" id="m_2901509249837076921BB10_response_div_BBPPID" dir="auto" style="width:100%">I found two things odd about the low concentration ethanol story and perhaps you can comment. Why low concentration? Was it easy to make? Or make without a distillation process? Or
a <i>good</i> distillation process?</div>
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<div name="BB10" id="m_2901509249837076921BB10_response_div_BBPPID" dir="auto" style="width:100%">Ethanol is being tried in Madagascar maybe for the past five years. Kenya is in their sights. The local producers have no problem getting 85% concentration which is above the SANS
requirement of 80%. </div>
<div name="BB10" id="m_2901509249837076921BB10_response_div_BBPPID" dir="auto" style="width:100%"><br>
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<div name="BB10" id="m_2901509249837076921BB10_response_div_BBPPID" dir="auto" style="width:100%">The energy content at 20% water is not great to begin with and when there is more of it the stove's cooking power becomes ever-more hopeless. So the first question is why sell water
as fuel in the first place?</div>
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<div name="BB10" id="m_2901509249837076921BB10_response_div_BBPPID" dir="auto" style="width:100%">There was a suspicious program in Malawi trying to sell water as a bonus in ethanol looking at the energy from reformation of H2O without mentioning the energy it subtracted to break
it down. It got lots of subsidies. </div>
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<div name="BB10" id="m_2901509249837076921BB10_response_div_BBPPID" dir="auto" style="width:100%">Next is the expectation that ethanol is "a clean fuel". This silly talk has been going on for longer than most stove makers might realise. Some of the worst stoves are those thrown
together in a garage burning ethanol or ethanol gel with attendant claims that because " the fuel is clean" the emissions are "safe". </div>
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<div name="BB10" id="m_2901509249837076921BB10_response_div_BBPPID" dir="auto" style="width:100%">Your story about the CO is not unusual at all. It is easy to create CO with ethanol. So my question is why the GOI doesn't have a performance requirement for combustion efficiency.
It ethanol is that magical category of "clean fuels" that are acceptable no matter what the emissions are from the stove?</div>
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<div name="BB10" id="m_2901509249837076921BB10_response_div_BBPPID" dir="auto" style="width:100%">Thanks</div>
<div name="BB10" id="m_2901509249837076921BB10_response_div_BBPPID" dir="auto" style="width:100%">Crispin </div>
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<div id="m_2901509249837076921from"><b>From:</b> <a href="mailto:nariphaltan@gmail.com" target="_blank">nariphaltan@gmail.com</a></div>
<div id="m_2901509249837076921sent"><b>Sent:</b> December 22, 2018 9:06 PM</div>
<div id="m_2901509249837076921to"><b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:ndesai@alum.mit.edu" target="_blank">ndesai@alum.mit.edu</a>; <a href="mailto:stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org" target="_blank">stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org</a></div>
<div id="m_2901509249837076921reply_to"><b>Reply to:</b> <a href="mailto:stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org" target="_blank">stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org</a></div>
<div id="m_2901509249837076921subject"><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Stoves] News: Methanol cooking fuel for india...</div>
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Stovers,</div>
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We pioneered in early 2000 the <a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnariphaltan.org%2Fethstove.pdf&data=02%7C01%7C%7C182f652d235e4bb90ddd08d6687b4ccc%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636811276103212334&sdata=szrBG39BkSR0%2F1JGJ6%2BdTr%2Ff%2F6wLi7SfD5ML9tJq1hw%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">
development of low concentration ethanol stove</a>. However testing them in rural huts we found high amounts of CO emitted. This gave headaches to few hut dwellers. There is a propensity of higher CO emissions in ethanol/methanol fuels. They should be taken
care of properly. Thus the combustion systems have to be better designed.</div>
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GOI in its stupidity is pushing all these things irrespective of their consequences. They are also pushing for ethanol production for cars from different biomass fuels. Stovers might like to read about a small essay that I wrote about it recently. </div>
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<a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebetterindia.com%2F167321%2Fsugar-replacement-eco-friendly-ethanol-production-india%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C182f652d235e4bb90ddd08d6687b4ccc%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636811276103368575&sdata=T8G6JENXMlLsmpXNSPQ5ozLDLw4TG22JiIqKsakzcjA%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">https://www.thebetterindia.com/167321/sugar-replacement-eco-friendly-ethanol-production-india/</a></div>
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Cheers.</div>
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Anil</div>
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