[Stoves] Re: Stove testing –

Yes, LOT’s of assistance will be needed.   Currently, the level of assistance is some readers (not action) from the Stoves Listserve plus some specific project assistance (Honduras, South Africa, Uganda, India) that is fewer than 20 people in direct contact with me.   MORE assistance is welcomed at any time.

I, too, and reading Kirk Smith’s latest publication.   Please send your review comments soon.  He will be at the GACC Forum in 3 weeks from now.   Clarity about his position on ANY acceptable (or seriously getting close and meriting assistance) stove for the the use of wood and other dry biomass will be important.  LPG cannot service everyone (not even in India with big financial support).   For the remaining millions of households, will Smith and others be supportive (or silent or against) about the ADVANCED modern clean cooking solutions (namely the micro-gasifiers).   We want clarity.

Even the GACC needs to be more clear.   “Technology neutral” is not acceptable when preference is given to LPG while overlooking the micro-gasifiers but giving grants and support to regular “stick-burning” stoves that cannot burn wood cleanly.

I am awaiting some  comments about my previous (here attached).    It starts with:

We need to deliver a message to the world that any discussion of access to clean fuel sources for cooking MUST include recognition that renewable solid fuels (mainly wood / pellet / chips, but including some forms of agro-refuse) are also highly clean burning in modern advanced cookstoves.  So, the topic is correctly stated as “clean cookstoves and fuels”, but it is often reduced to be only “clean fuels,” which is very misleading. 

I hope that this is of interest and wiil have advocates.

Paul

Paul:

Will require LOTs of assistance. 

By way of reference, the current year estimate of India’s expenditure on its various LPG programs is about $4 billion. 

Some years ago, when these costs were carried entirely on the books of the public sector oil marketing companies, they were about $8-10 billion a year. While the customer base was smaller, the prices paid to upstream oil companies – including public sector ones – were high, in keeping with the world oil prices. 

India’s LPG cost burden on the government and public sector companies is difficult to estimate, but I reckon in the 50-odd years to date it’s been about $100+ billion in total. 

Prof. Kirk Smith is elated at such new investment in public health by expanding LPG access to the lower-income customers, even as direct public health expenditures on medical services far lag behind the need for these groups. (I am preparing a critical review of Prof. Smith’s latest celebration of Prime Minister Modi and will be happy to share it when done.) 

Nikhil

 

On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 10:00 AM, Paul Anderson <psanders@ilstu.edu> wrote:

Stovers,

Nikhil writes:

. The real task is to see whether a “truly health protective” biomass stove can be marketed at scale in the next five years.

Working on it.   The TYPE of stoves is the micro-gasifiers.  And the best of those (based on my experiences) are the true TLUD stoves  (with char making) that have fans.   Working on it.   Will be announcing before or at the GACC Forum in 3 weeks.

CURRENTLY and on-going, the TLUD-ND (natural draft) gasifier stoves are having great acceptance in the expanding efforts in West Bengal (will be reported at GACC Forum).   Financial solutions are shown in the Deganga case study.  

Yes, “can be marketed at scale in the next five years.”   But that will require SOME sort of assistance (currently negligible). 

Working on it.

Paul