[Stoves] Which technologies will best reduce CO and black carbon, improve health and safety and lower household energy costs?

[Tom Miles]

RESULTS

IMPROVED BIOMASS COMBUSTION/GASIFICATION, HEAT TRANSFER, INTEGRATED COOKING
(sidewinder, center fire, rocket, "good" stove etc) 48% (13 votes)

LOW COST AND MASS PRODUCTION OF STOVES (sixbricks, ring mold, ecofogon)22%
(6 votes)

PROCESSING ALTERNATE FUELS (alcohol, canecoal, fireball, firebiscuit,
briquette, compact biogas, dung, paper, plastic, oil,gas)19% (5 votes) 

IMPROVED CHARCOAL COMBUSTION (improved Malgach, Maputo ceramic stove,
charcoal rocket, sprocket rocket, new Lao bucket, etc.)7% (2 votes)

IMPROVED CHARCOAL AND BRICK PRODUCTION (low emission kilns, Bioenergy LLC,
VSBK) 4% (1 vote)

Total votes: 27 (Jeff takes home the door prize with his guess of 20 votes.)

COUNTRIES (Poll page selected and viewed with or without vote.) Total views
50
United States 54% (27)
Germany 10% (5)
Canada 10% (5)
Bolivia 6% (5 - one duplicate vote)
India 6% (3)
United Kingdom 4% (2)
Colombia 2% (1)
Netherlands 2% (1)
Australia 2% (1)
Thailand 2% (1)
Indonesia 2% (1)

Estimate of number times the poll was viewed on the web(the poll could be
viewed without selecting the poll itself): 266
Current Stoves Discussion list members during polling period: 484
ETHOS members: 80? 

DISCUSSION
We conducted a simple poll to measure people's perceptions about strategies
or technologies to reduce emissions, improve health and safety and lower
household energy. The poll was sent to about 564 email addresses. The total
vote represents about 5% of those who received the poll by email. About 266
people directly viewed the poll on the web. 50 selected the polling page. 26
(1 duplicate) actually voted.   

Of the people who selected the poll page 64% were from North America (US,
Canada); 16% from Europe (Germany, United Kingdom, Netherlands); 8% from
South America (Bolivia, Colombia); 10% from Asia and Southeast Asia (India,
Thailand, Indonesia); 2% from Oceania (Australia). One of the Canadian
votes/views may have been from Africa. We do not know which of these viewers
actually voted. 

The vote reflects the interests and knowledge of the stoves discussion group
in that improved gasification/combustion, heat transfer and integrated
cooking was clearly preferred.

>From off-list comments we received we understand that low cost and mass
production appeared to have support primarily from people who are active out
in the field installing stoves. The message is: make them cheap and lots of
them. 

Processing alternative fuels is a popular choice on the list and is part of
what prompted the poll. It ranked with low cost and mass production in a
second tier.    

We get the impression that the group that voted is not interested in
charcoal. Given the insatiably high demand for charcoal and the potential
fuel and emissions savings from improved charcoal combustion we were
surprised to see little support for improved charcoal combustion as a
technology. This is one of "best seller" topics on the Stoves web site. We
think the potential impact of improved charcoal combustion deserves a closer
look. Groups like GTZ, Practical Action, Enterprise Works, Peracod, Dread &
Works, GERES, ARECOP should be further questioned about the potential impact
of improved charcoal combustion and the means to pursue it.

Improved charcoal and brick kiln production is clearly not seen as having a
large potential. While making charcoal production more efficient and less
polluting would conserve fuel and reduce emissions it is a difficult
activity to do anything about. As Cambodia Fuel Saving Program (Geres) has
pointed out it is largely carried out in the informal economy (which is
abuot half of the African economies), improvements are capital intensive and
it is a product where labor rather than capital is invested in exchange for
cash.  

The poll generated useful discussion and clarification of terms. It has
given us some new ideas about how to present information on the Stoves
website and about supporting information that we could provide, especially
regarding the actual use of biomass and processed biomass (charcoal,
briquettes, etc.) fuels.

Thank you for your participation.

Kind regards,

Tom Miles
       


-----Original Message-----
From: stoves-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:stoves-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Tom Miles
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 4:49 PM
To: 'STOVES'
Cc: ethos at vrac.iastate.edu
Subject: [Stoves] Which technologies will best reduce CO and black
carbon,improve health and safety and lower household energy costs?

It's a world of hard choices. I have grouped the stoves and processes that
we have discussed for the last few months into five technologies. If you
could only select one, from a global perspective, which technology group
will best reduce CO and black carbon, improve health and safety and lower
household energy costs?
 
1. Improved charcoal combustion (improved Malgach, Maputo ceramic stove,
charcoal rocket, sprocket rocket, new Lao bucket, etc.)	
	
2. Improved charcoal and brick production (low emission kilns, Bioenergy
LLC, VSBK)	
	
3. Improved biomass combustion/gasification, heat transfer, integrated
cooking. (Sidewinder, center fire, rocket, Reddy "good" stove, Retained Heat
Cooking, patsari,. Inkawasi, TLUD, etc.) 	
	
4. Low cost and mass production of stoves (Sixbricks, ring mold, ecofogon)

	
5. Processing alternate fuels(canecoal briquettes, fireballs, fire biscuits,
holey briquettes, compact biogas, dung, paper, plastic, plant oil)	
 
Vote for ONE Technology
 
http://bioenergylists.org/en/techpoll
 
 
Note: We have about 600 members on the ETHOS and STOVES lists. Any bets on
how many people will vote? (The site will only allow you to vote once.)