Recognize Clean Cooking with Renewable Solid Fuels 2017-09-29
File name of attachment. Any changes / revisions should have the date altered and add the initial of the person making the changes. A message from Paul Anderson to the Stoves Listserv, and beyond via forwarding.
Subject: Recognition of clean renewable solid fuels for cooking
Dear Stovers, 29 Sept 2017
(Sorry for the length, but this is the starting point of a major issue to be addressed. The exact same content is attached in Word .docx format for ease of forwarding.)
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.
There are no clean fuels. Stand next to a leaking LPG or biogas tank. It not only stinks, it is extremely dangerous.
There are only clean COMBINATIONS of stoves and fuels. And such combinations exist for wood / dry solid biomass as well as for other fuels.
1. Note: Coal is excluded from this discussion because it is fossil / non-renewable. Let advocates for coal handle that topic separately, especially because (most) residential coal burning is where space heating is also needed.
2. The specific stoves that do cleanly burn solid dry biomass are those classified as “Woodgas from Biomass” stoves. These are TLUD stoves and also other micro-gasifier stoves (high turbulance “fan-jet” stoves). See the classification table at: www.drtlud.com/2017/04/11/classification-stove-technologies-fuels/
More on this later.
3. Please consider the recently circulated article about comments by
Rachel Kyte, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All and special representative of the United Nations secretary-general for sustainable energy for all.
(available at: Clean cookstove market needs ‘wholesale reappraisa )
Andrew has pointed out that “she seems to be steering the discussion to one of promoting “access to clean fuel sources”
How can she, a prominent and supposedly well informed person, be so uninformed about the abilities of modern advanced cookstoves that use wood and other dry biomass? She needs to be better informed.
4. Others world-leading experts are great advocates of “clean cookstoves and fuels” but do not mention renewable dry biomass (wood) in the list with LPG, electricity, solar, biogas and alcohol fuels. Some of them, including Kirk Smith, are well aware that microgasifier stoves can be very clean burning, but somehow they do not state that message clearly enough to generate interest in those stoves. Smith wrote in recent months of the need and challenge for having some biomass-burning stoves to reach the many millions of households that are acknowledged as being beyond the physical and financial reach of LPG, but he did not recognize that such stoves already exist (and can be getting even better).
5. COMING EVENT: On Monday afternoon, 23 October 2017, at the GACC Forum in Delhi, will be this session with these 4 speakers
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Cooking 101 – For Those New to the Sector
Open to both new and experienced partners, Cooking 101 will provide a broad overview of the clean cooking sector’s efforts to build a healthier, more sustainable market. This session will discuss the Alliance’s market-based model, critical sector opportunities and challenges, progress to date on building the evidence-base, and highlight innovative partners and models to strengthen and scale clean cooking impacts. Participants are encouraged to come with questions regarding the sector, the Alliance’s model, and strategies to continue strengthening the global clean cooking sector.
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We need to be sure that these presenters properly acknowledge “clean fuels” as including wood. Certainly Dean Still and Kavanaugh Livingston of the GACC should present this message clearly.
Previously Kirk Smith was listed as a presenter. He will be at the Forum and will have his own opportunity to properly recognize that wood and other dry biomass should be considered as clean fuels, and specifically name the micro-gasifier “woodgas-burning” stoves. He is a panelist on Wednesday 25 Oct about the topic:
Transition Scenarios: Moving Toward Clean Cookstoves and Fuels by 2030
Those of us who will be in the Forum audiences will be listening for such statements from any and all presenters / panelists, and will be challenging incomplete comments or the lack of adequate statements.
6. About the Classification of stoves and fuels, (Item #2 above): Yes, I formatted that table with 10 columns of content. But the CONTENT is faithful to the cited classification that came from ESMAP (of the World Bank) and the GACC (Global Alliance). My 2-page and 4-page explanatory comments explain why and how I reformed the ESMAP/GACC table. Feel free to disagree with me, but be aware that you will also be disagreeing with ESMAP / GACC. But if you can find yourself in agreement with the presented Classification, please tell others and please start referring to the table (that can be freely copied and distributed.)
We can hope that anyone who works for the GACC or ESMAP will utilize this classification of stoves technologies and fuels to make their presentations about which combinations of stoves and fuels are in the “Modern Advanced Clean Cooking Solutions” (with the nice acronym of “MACCS”)
7. What next????
a. Discussion will be at the Stoves Listserv. (If comments are sent directly to me at psanders@ilstu.edu , I might post them with your name attached.)
b. Who will help carry this message forward? Please speak up. Some assistance is needed.
c. To whom should this message be sent (as is or improved): One person is Sophie Edwards the journalist who wrote the 18 September 2017 item about Rachel Kyte.. And also send to Rachel Kyte.
d. Perhaps a “Declaration of Clean Cooking with Wood” could be prepared, and presented for endorsement / adoption by organizations and persons. (Suggest a better name??)
e. Whatever is next, we need to utilize the format and facilities of the GACC, including the Forum in Delhi. This is what the GACC is all about: With emphasis on the word CLEAN, we are all seeking to have clean cookstoves reaching even those people who only have biomass fuels for daily cooking. And this can be done with existing methods, etc., that will be further improved with the feedback from the woodgas stove users.
Paul
Doc / Dr TLUD / Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
Email: psanders@ilstu.edu
Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website: www.drtlud.com
Recognize-Clean-Cooking-with-Renewable-Solid-Fuels-2017.docx