[Stoves] Action about Stove Testing

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Paul

Thank you for responding.

>Unless there are errors found in Crispin's re-working of the 
>calculations, those changes should be incorporated 
>into the "authoritative" spreadsheets, etc that
>we are using.

There are several authoritative spreadsheets.

>Crispin presents info about calculations relating to different "species" of
>biomass fuels ranging from wood-types to dung.  This is important, BUT when
>tests are done using only one species, there is no issue, as in the case of
>using Douglas Fir at Aprovecho.  

Actually this is almost true, but not quite.  If you used an incorrect
formula and one wood species, a variation in moisture between summer and
winter would still give errors even with the most accurately run tests.  The
problem is that a reproduceable error is still an error.

I an not yet come to the charcoal calculation error which is much larger in
its impact than the fuel moisture boiling error.

It is not true that an error applied to all tests gives comparable results
across different stoves.  This will be come evident when the corrected sheet
is used.

>Can anyone argue against this?  Is it too hard to put this into practice?

I am patiently waiting, but it is getting thin.  I am intervening with gusto
because of what happened to Roger Samson and his stove programme as a direct
consequence of the errors in the UCB-WBT.  It is not yet able to fairly
compare stoves using very different fuels.

>...So even there, MC needs to be CORRECTLY included in the calculations.

To me this is obvious.

>Again, those who get into the methods of calculations need to respond.  

Ditto. 

>Summary:  This is to be objective science, not a democratic vote on past or
>present formulae.

Thank you.

>Serious doubts are quite justified concerning OUR methods of evaluating the
>stoves.  If we cannot get this resolved pronto, the funders could reject
our
>work as being un-scientific and/or misleading.

This a real possibility if the results of tests that state a certain stove
emits 2 times as much green house gases as it actually does.

Suppose national emissions standards are established based on a testing
protocol that is highly prejudiced against grass pellet fuels?  Who gets
sued for the sidelining of a local technology that is not given a proper
emissions profile per kg of fuel?

This is serious stuff.  People have implementation contracts regarding fuel
efficiency and emissions reduction.  The basic math has to be correct.

>Is there to be ProBEC-WBT different from the UCB-WBT?  Or is that
difference
>already a reality?  If so, can a stove developer choose which one to use?

Yes, yes, and yes.

You can do what you want.  This is the Wild West.

The ProBEC WBT was developed by Piet Visser, Andi Michel and me.  It's
pretty good and can be done in the field or the lab.  It is not at all what
I want to have because I want the fuel preparation time to be added, plus
operator effort, plus safety so we are far from the ultimate assessment.

Prof Lloyd and I (and others on this list) write testing protocols for
stoves: at the end of a Bureau of Standards 'standard' there is a set of
tests to be passed. They include safety, stability, emissions, thermal
performance, fuel capacity and all sorts of other things.  The formula for
each calculation is also stated and is checked by the technical committee or
the group of advising experts.

We would not get far if we all thought about everything and made
presentations at a single meeting.  It has to be a consultative process,
back and forth, agreement, then moving on.  We have one document pending now
for a new stove standard - we have to vote on it by the end of the month.
It is in the final stage of last objections or acceptance.  Usually things
are not very controversial unless someone is trying to get their technology
made compulsory of another's technology banned to limit competition.
Arguments about math last about 1 minute.

Let's move this along and get to the harder parts of a protocol.

Regards
Crispin