Nikhil wrote today 2 August 2017:
Let me quote a paper “Fuel use and emissions performance of fifty cooking stoves in the laboratory and related benchmarks of performance Energy for Sustainable Development, Volume 14, Issue 3, September 2010, Pages 161–171. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2010.06.002 ... The authors claim in the Abstract:Performance of 50 different stove designs was investigated using the 2003 University of California-Berkeley (UCB) revised Water Boiling Test (WBT) Version 3.0 to compare the fuel use, carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM) emissions produced. While these laboratory tests do not necessarily predict field performance for actual cooking, the elimination of variables such as fuel, tending, and moisture content, helps to isolate and compare the technical properties of stove design.It stretches credulity that stove designs are tested on the basis of excluding fuel, tending, and moisture content. This is engineering madness. Standard fuel, standard pots, standard water, standard field conditions (wind, humidity, temperature, ventilation). Not cook.
Let’s look at the timeline of that report:
1. Publication in 2010. — In modern-era cookstove chronology, that is now rather old.
2. Did you notice that the WBT version was from 2003? (that would now be called “ancient”). There is a story behind the half-decade between 2003 and 2010.
3. From my memory (so others can correct me with documentation and rememberances, if needed), the 50 stove study was conducted in about 2004 – 05 (maybe in to 2006??). It was conducted by Aprovecho, with funding from EPA or PCIA (or ???). I saw and read a draft (nearly final, I think) back around 2005 or 06. But there were delays. Maybe questions about funds for pubishing?? Anyway, in these types of reasearch with grant money, the project file is not closed until results are released, in this case a book. By 2010, the results were already old. I have a copy somewhere, filed away. It has historical value to show the thinking of the early times (2005, not 2010). And that is what Nikhil pointed out with his comments about:
[Quote from 2010 report]: While these laboratory tests do not necessarily predict field performance for actual cooking, the elimination of variables such as fuel, tending, and moisture content, helps to isolate and compare the technical properties of stove design.[Nikhil’s 2017 comment]: It stretches credulity that stove designs are tested on the basis of excluding fuel, tending, and moisture content. This is engineering madness. Standard fuel, standard pots, standard water, standard field conditions (wind, humidity, temperature, ventilation). Not cook.
Perhaps in 2017, we (the “stove-study community”) are moving away from those former practices. The testing proceedures today are certainly not as rigid as in the past (even pellet fuels can be allowed in testing 🙂), but much of the old ways still remain. One example is the allowance of “stove tending” to the extreme of the Rocket-stove practice of spacing sawn wood that is advanced inch by inch (maybe cm by cm?) to keep just the tips burning. Stove testers were (and are) trained and then sit there for the entire test (with the stove conveniently positioned at eye-level), nursing the fuel supply into the fire zone. Nothing at all like the realities in the kitchens.
Paul
Doc / Dr TLUD / Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD Email: psanders@ilstu.edu Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072 Website: www.drtlud.com