[Stoves] Fuel Testing

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear David

There are problems here:

>If different methods are used, shouldn't they be used in addition
>to the international methods and offered as a comparison!

>Steve this link will take you to the internationally recognized
>testing protocols.

Recognized by whom?  So far, these tests have been changed at will and 
people use them when it suits.  I am not fully convinced there are 
'internationally recognized' tests.  There are lots of test methods and they 
have good and bad aspects.  It depends what you are testing for.

The main driver of discussion for the past two months is that there are, in 
my view, errors of both logic and science in the tests themselves, as well 
as issues related to attaching them 'officially' to funded stove programmes. 
I don't fund stove programmes but I have to evaluate stoves with the methods 
they give me so it matters a lot.

As I wrote earlier, there are problem so severe that some major funders of 
projects do not use the three tests you mentioned to determine if a stove is 
'improved' and what its performance is.  Now, how could you get a greater 
vote of no-confidence than that?  Of non-acceptability?  Of non-recognition? 
It is not as if they don't know about them.

It is perfectly reasonable for people to contribute to the discussion 
putting up suggestion for complete test texts and spreadsheets if they wish. 
There is no moderator.  Fire away!

Basically there are 3 types of test that have usefulness.  The earliest 
missing-water tests were tests of heat transfer and are not useful in 
predicting fuel savings.  Saving fuel is what is driving all the stove 
programmes in the world at present save those which are specifically aimed 
at lowering emissions only.

1.  Specific fuel consumption test to boil and simmer water.   It is an 
inexpensive test.  This is not a 'missing water' test.  The UCB version has 
the lid off because of a hangover from the days when a boiling test _was_ a 
missing water test.  Obviously that is a problem which has been explained to 
death already.  They have not responded to the problem other than to say 
that Baldwin's book recommended in 1987 that the lids be off.  We already 
knew that.  He even explains in the same book why it is a problem, still, 
the error persists.

2.  Specific fuel consumption test to cook a certain meal.  It costs quite a 
lot to conduct, especially in remote places.  This test can be done to 
compare actual savings in a real house cooking a real meal.  It compares two 
stoves to look for savings and emission changes.  The presence of the 
observer is usually responsible for additional savings.  The more 
remote/rural, the more likely the presence of an expert observer is to cause 
a change of behaviour.  In certifiying the effectivenes of a stove 
programme, this test is about as far as expenses will allow because the 
evaluation budget of a stove programme will be about 5% of the overall 
budget.  It is more important to have a higher number of sites tested than 
to do the 'site evaluation' type of test which follows below.

3.  Specific fuel consumption per household. This as a test to see if the 
improved stove saved fuel, in the end, on a gross consumption basis.  It is 
expensive to administer.  It means monitoring the total fuel consumed over a 
period of time in a household to determine whether or not the savings are 
real, actual, and not re-directed from cooking to other energy needs. 
Homestead net savings are achieved: yes or no?  A good example of why this 
test is a good idea is as follows:

Suppose you are funding a programme in Lesotho that is intended to save wood 
for CDM carbon offset sales and you find that the people have so little fuel 
they simply don't cook the food properly.  If you build a better stove, they 
will still use all the fuel available and cook the food properly.  They are 
happy but the programme can't go ahead because it has nothing to sell.  Test 
3 will find this out.  Test 2 might.  Test 1 will not.

Fuel moisture compensation:  There is no agreement on how to count the 
losses for water in the wood.

There is no agreement on what volume of water (initial, as boiled, as 
simmered, averaged) should be used as the denominator in the specific fuel 
consumption equation.

There is not even agreement on using local pots filled with 'normal' amounts 
of water.  The Dutch Government (DGIS) has a set of tests that are used to 
evaluate whether or not stoves they have funded saved 40% of the fuel (in 
the case of charcoal) or 50% (in the case of wood).  They are quite 
practical and fair to the funder and work in a lab as well as in a house. 
The testing protocol is not very expensive and can fit within 5% of the 
programme budget.  It is used in several countries which I guess could 
qualify it as 'internationally recognized'.

The pressure to 'do something' about the testing is coming from the funders 
who want to know if their interventions have had the intended effect. 
Lab-based tests only show that a certain technology _could_ have the 
intended effect if people used it correctly.

As you know, some stove technologies are to stove programmes what Swedish 
cellphone throwing contests are to the communications industry: not what was 
originally intended.

Money talks and BS walks, even if it is de-watered, press-caked and 
freeze-dried.  The programmes are forging ahead; the money is there to make 
huge impacts.  Roger S and others will bring CDM on line.  By then the World 
of Stoves should have its house in order or we will be clucking in the 
henhouse eating chicken feed as the big corporations take over the farm.

Greetings to all
Crispin

+++ "I am not sure I like that protocol!" Tom said testily. +++