By Tilak Doshi,
The shock resignation of World Bank President Dr Jim Yong Kim, announced in early January, more than three years before his term would have ended, and the nomination of David Malpass, one of the institution’s sharpest critics in the current US administration, has been seen as yet another disruptive change to the global order under President Trump’s watch.
While disruptive change has become a regular affair under this most impetuous of US presidents, the changing of the guard at the World Bank is potentially of great consequence to the world’s poor. That is, assuming the Malpass nomination is not seriously challenged by the EU which jealously guards its say in the appointment of IMF Managing Director as part of the quid pro quo over the twin Bretton Woods institutions that served the post-World War order.
Malpass has been a strong advocate for accountability at the World Bank and comes with a “back to the basics” focus on pro-growth projects for countries which include people in extreme poverty. He has also been a known critic of the World Bank’s loans to China and India, arguing that these countries have become rich enough to tap global capital markets on reasonable terms.
The post-1945 Bretton Wood’s arrangement, of course, is very much associated with Maynard Keynes, a key founding economist-architect of that order. Lord Keynes’ much-quoted prognostication, that practical men find themselves under the influence of some “defunct economist”, couldn’t be better illustrated than in the World Bank’s intellectual evolution.
It did not take long for Dr. Kim, an appointee of President Obama in 2012, to impose a ban on the financing of coal-fired power stations (in 2013), followed subsequently by a ban on investments in all new upstream oil and gas resource development projects. For this onslaught on fossil fuels, Dr. Kim seems to have been under the thrall of Keynes’ defunct economists and political philosophers who cast votes for the Bank to favour mitigating long run climate change over economic growth to serve the immediate needs of the world’s poor.
There is no shortage of commentary on the World Bank’s flight to defunct economics. Prof Deepak Lal, a former Oxford don and Research Administrator of the Bank remarked that Dr. Kim incredulously “over-ruled the cost-benefit estimates of coal-based power over solar and wind-based power generation produced by his own economic staff, justifying this by reference to a wish to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases“. https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/deepak-lal-wolfensohn-s-world-bank-104101901068_1.html
Mikko Paunio, a public health expert who has worked at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the European Commission and the World Bank, found that the Bank (along with WHO and the Lancet) conveniently forget the “energy ladder” which allowed the now-developed countries to graduate to their current 24/7 access to reliable and cheap fossil-fuelled electricity (mainly coal, and more recently, natural gas) while denying the very same process of development to the now developing countries. https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2018/05/Paunio-EnergyLadder.pdf
Rupert Darwall, a former special adviser to the United Kingdom’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, charges that during Dr. Kim’s tenure, the “World Bank lost its way and sacrificed the interests of the poor to green ideology”. https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2017/10/Darwall-WB-1.pdf
The resignation of Dr. Kim, for some, could not have come at a more opportune time. The World Bank and its counterparts such as the Asian Development Bank have taken a lead role in denying poorer countries the development strategy that the now-rich countries had taken so successfully since the Industrial Revolution. By the 1980s, Europe, North America and Japan had already cleaned up their cities of urban smog while ensuring clean, reliable and affordable energy which included high-efficiency, low-emission coal and natural gas-fuelled power plants, and cleaner transport and cooking fuels.
The Bank’s enthusiastic adoption of the “sustainable development” meme – that much-enamoured slogan of special interest groups proclaiming “civil society” interests – has had an insidious effect in development economics. There has not been a single instance of a country successfully developing to middle income status without the use of fossil fuels as the workhorse of industrialisation and modern economic growth. Yet elastic concepts of “sustainability” and the like remain the lead talking points among many pundits of economic development.
The previous chief economic advisor to the Indian government Arvind Subramanian recently warned that India, like other developing countries, cannot allow the narrative of “carbon imperialism” to come in the way of realistic planning. https://www.livemint.com/Politics/obWqbtfIao8hmrs8tpezTN/Arvind-Subramanian-slams-carbon-imperialism-calls-for-globa.html
This would include adopting the best technology using cheap coal for power generation, increasing the use of cleaner fossil fuels such as natural gas, and recognising the hidden costs of subsidising newer technologies such as wind and solar power.
The Trump administration’s Treasury Guidance for the US position on multilateral banks regarding energy projects and policies includes the objectives to “help countries access and use fossil fuels cleanly and efficiently” and “support development of robust, efficient, competitive, and integrated global markets for energy”. https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/international/development-banks/Pages/guidance.aspx
These are good first steps.
But the nomination of David Malpass could not have come sooner, and the sooner World Bank managers shake off their enslavement to defunct economists, the better. The hopes of the world’s one billion poor — yet to achieve access to reliable, affordable and clean energy taken for granted in the developed countries — depend upon it.
Published in Business Standard (India), 21 Februry 2019, paywalled
Great article, this is very good news.
Let us all hope that Malpass is approved quickly, & starts throwing some metaphorical grenades into the corridors of power at the World Bank.
But why this calumny against Trump in the 2nd paragraph: “…this most impetuous of US presidents….”?
The Donald does not follow the imperial script – he has them hopping like cats on a hot tin roof.
Author also wrongly attributes Bretton Woods to Keynes – a shallow analysis.
India is at the moment foot-dragging with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, has not elevated 700 million out of poverty like China has – this shows the Commonwealth’s invisible hand.
Commonwealth hasn’t held back Canada or Australia.
“The Donald does not follow the imperial script – he has them hopping like cats on a hot tin roof.”
Yep. As in the movie “Bull Durham”, he’s Nuke LaLoosh, just as likely to throw a wild pitch and hit the mascot as he is to throw a 101 mph heater down the plate. Or give up a grand slam.
In short, he’s a metaphor for actual climate, vs. the models (GIGO) of mainstream politicians.
Caligula, Has he hit anybody with wild pitches? No he hasn’t. He has good instincts, and good aim. He’s a true ‘Man of the People”, and a true Constitutionalist. He’s beaning the bad guys, one after another.
The negative Trump comment early in the article is a hook to get people who support the green approach to read the article. Many later comments show that in fact he supports the nomination of Malpass and the types of strategies taken by Trump.
Who elevated the other 65 million Indians out of poverty? Did they do that all by themselves with no outside help or influence whatsoever?
Government doesn’t like Trump because they have become more than used to operating in their own benefit. The longer, more detailed, and micromanaged a project is the longer a bureaucrat can be assured of a job and more and more people to supervise, i.e. higher wages. Trump is making them operate in a more business like atmosphere where money is made by completing projects ASAP and with fewer and fewer people. That is anathema to the deep state. There won’t be a government employee ever vote for a businessman for president again.
“…under this most impetuous of US presidents”
I think the author detracted rather than added with this statement/opinion. The word impetuous is typically pejorative in nature (i.e. of, relating to, or characterized by sudden or rash action, emotion; impetuous and impulsive both refer to persons who are hasty and precipitate in action, or to actions not preceded by thought.) The author uses a pejorative term and then goes on to describe a positive result (i.e. Malpass nomination). I think President Trump is actually following a pretty consistent script that was signaled pretty clearly during his election campaign. Draining the swamp is messy and seems to be violating the sensibilities of many. (Don’t agree with everything he’s doing but) it’s about time.
Perhaps there is something new in the air at the World Bank. This decidedly pro-poor report posted on line this week is enticingly entitled:
“World Bank Group. 2019. Advancing Heating Services Beyond the Last Mile : Central Asia Pilot Experience with High-Efficiency, Low-Emissions Heating Technologies. ESMAP Paper; World Bank, Washington, DC. © World Bank.
This paper on HELE stoves is downloadable from the following webpage:
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/31282 or http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31282
The direct link to the PDF is
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/31282/134620-WBAHSWEB.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
+++++++++++
The document provides a detailed description of how one of the cooking and heating stove technologies used in the Kyrgyzstan Winter Heating Pilot was developed. It is a comprehensive discussion of the social and technical factors that contributed to the success of this Pilot, producing significant impacts on health, income and comfort of people living “beyond the last mile”.
The point of saying “beyond the last mile” is that whatever are the current plans to extend modern heating services, there are a large number of people who will not be reached soon. This group of about 500 million people “beyond” are, now and in the medium term, dependent on burning solid fuels (e.g. biomass, dung and coal). The question addressed is: What can we do for this group of low income, deeply rural and hardly accessible families which suffer all the negative consequences of chronic cold, poor combustion, indoor leakage of smoke, inconvenient drudgery and a dire lack of access to modern energy? How can we bring modern science and engineering to these spatially and culturally diverse groups? The report proposes a comprehensive approach and describes how this was done in highland, rural areas of Kyrgyzstan. It covers in some detail how the KG4.3 crossdraft stove was developed over 9 years and the scientific cooperation between groups in several countries that led to the development of this open-source High-Efficiency, Low-Emissions Heating (HELE) technology.
This document can be used to inform policy in multiple ways. If we are to eventually bring modern energy services to everyone, which will take time, there are highly beneficial interventions which can be made a low cost per person, even in poorly served regions using carefully crafted technology transfers. Apart from improving heating services, the pilot also makes positive impacts on health, gender, local employment, and emission reductions of CO2, Black Carbon and PM2.5.
Crispin in Waterloo February 20, 2019 at 11:25 pm
Okay you impressed me.
Still getting my head around the design and manufacturing methods.
Can the top plate be cast be cast with the opening pre-molded into the casting.
what are they using for the back sides and front? New steel or recycled?
Okay I know I seem picky, but I am machinist / Toolmaker.
Made molds, dies, one time builds. I am intrigued.
thank you
michael
This is of course only one initiative in providing such stoves… there are programmes in most parts of the world, e.g. google search immediately produced:
http://www.ecologic.org/actions-issues/solutions/fuel-efficient-stoves/
https://shop.arocha.org/product/fuel-efficient-cook-stove-uganda/
https://www.carbonfootprint.com/vcskenyacookstoves.html
https://www.peacecorps.gov/tanzania/stories/fuel-efficient-cookstoves/
some of these, e.g. second one, you can contribute to…
so it appears theyre basically old style rocket stoves by a new name and a pr spin and govvy funding to promote?
the top link ones anyway
ozspeaksup
This combustion system is fundamentally different from the Rocket Mass Heaters of Ianto Evans (Oregon) and others products carrying the same name with different functions.
Please see the airflow cartoon in the technical section of the document. Principally, there is no air flowing through the fuel bed. This puts it into its own class from bottom-lit updraft, and downdraft, and top-lit updraft technologies. There is a Chinese manufacturer with a very clean burning coal stove that looks similar in cross-section, very similar, but the air flows through the fuel from above, which requires a specific size of fuel. The KG4.x can be loaded with duff and powder and lumps at the same time.
There is also a design from the Chinese Academy of Sciences – the result of 15 years of CFD modelling, that is reputed to be very clean as well, using a very similar approach: see the 6 zones in the combustion system. I am in touch with them through the China Agriculture University team dealing with stove testing (they also have a pretty good lab for solid fuel burning devices). Rather humorously (for this blog) it is called the BEST Lab. 🙂
There are at least 620m people in Eurasia dependent on solid fuel combustion to stay alive in winter. I think that deserves some attention from our top engineers and scientists.
Excerpt from: Crispin in Waterloo – February 20, 2019 at 11:25 pm
A 55 gal steel drum is easily converted into a biomass burning stove for cooking and heating and there are tens of millions of them lying around awaiting to be re-purposed.
that or smaller ..I have a postwar handy hint book showing uusing sawdust or any burnable leaflitter whatever tamped down tight with a small pipe centred and later removed creating its own flue interior
small intake and lighting area at bottom
once lit it burns slowly and for a very long time
more slow cooking and home heating effect.
a short flue extensionaddition for safety wouldnt be hard
and as you said theres no shortage of stuff like this at tips etc
if aussie power costs and wood prices keep rising i will be making one for my own home
ozspeaksup
You describe viable technologies for those who can tinker. The stresses of rural life, raising animals and children, social demands often with an absent working male who is away in Russia setting tiles or driving a bus, require a reduction in time and attention. I watched someone feeding a dung-fired stove that was all-cast iron and held together with fence wire wrapped around it. She had to feed a piece of dung into it every 15 minutes – all day. It worked, but it was impossible to get much done with the children and in the barn.
The Model KG2.5 (not mentioned in the article) can be loaded with dung and will burn for 4 hours. Think of how much that liberates. The refueling interval for the KG4.x is about 12 hours in most cases, instead of 2-3 hours even at night. These are transformative social changes.
In Central Java, Indonesia, 85% of people with sugar palms make palm sugar, either once or twice a day for 4 or 8 hours. They have to attend the fire every 5 minutes, for the entire day. There is local product that can burn the local fuels and be attended once per hour. That’s ridiculous.
Agree. Basic materials plus knowledge about rocket heaters is all that they really need. No need for the high end fabrication.
In most highland communities there is no wood to burn. It is either dung or coal. Coal is locally available and cheap ($50/ton). Rocket Mass Heaters are not good for cooking and do not accept the huge woks preferred in that region. Milk is a major trading commodity so people want to boil 20 litres at a time, repeatedly, at high power.
There are no stainless steel oil drums in the villages or towns. There are no oil drums. There are no large chimneys. There are no barometric draft regulators. There are building regulations. There is a huge fear of CO poisoning.
There are welders with pretty good skill. There are refractory bricks for lining boilers in power stations. There is sheet steel. There is cheap cast iron (grates and so on).
There is a long experience with high mass heaters (petchka Russkia) but none of them have high efficiency combustion. What emerged from the WB-supported series of projects is a new method of burning coal that is profoundly clean and it is mounted in a stove that is very thermally efficient, while being extremely safe at all power levels.
“Rocket Mass Heaters are not good for cooking and do not accept the huge woks preferred in that region”
Nonsense. The top of the barrel, or whatever you use, is the cooking surface.
“There are no stainless steel oil drums in the villages or towns. There are no oil drums. There are no large chimneys. There are no barometric draft regulators. There are building regulations. There is a huge fear of CO poisoning. ”
“There are no stainless steel oil drums in the villages or towns. There are no oil drums” Stainless is not necessary; that was a personal preference. I’m sure they could come up with something. They’re pretty industrious. btw metal drums are used for more than just oil.
“There are no large chimneys” A chimney can be formed from rock and clay.
“barometric draft regulators”? Huh? Not used in rocket stoves.
“building regulations?” Are you kidding? In the 3rd world?
“huge fear of CO poisoning” And your point is? Do you have data that rocket stoves emit CO into the living environment?
Samuel C Cougar
I agree that many things are possible if you make it yourself and can replace things as needed. What is needed in Asia, especially upland Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Mongolia is a low priced, highly efficient (above 85%) cooking and heating stove that will last 5-10 years, with local maintenance possible. These particular stoves described in the article were all made “locally” which requires some agility because of different skill levels and materials available.
The relevance to the World Bank topic above is that this whole process was supported by individuals at the World Bank or their consultants who understood the vision: making a dramatic different not an incremental adaptation while waiting for mannah to fall from subsidy heaven. There were multiple aspects that permitted this group of technologies to come forward: The clean air project in Ulaanbaatar, which saw this model appear in late 2010 under a GIT project, then support from WB Indonesia (cooking stove pilot) developing the contextual test method to ensure the fit with local cultures. It was then assisted by CARITAC Switzerland and WB Tajikistan to get the first 6 “big leap better” stoves designed. The Mongolian support with assistance from South Africa (Univ of JHB) created better and better combustion every year. When combined in Kyrgyzstan it finally produced a local product made by artisans for $160. It is cleaner burning than any power station costing billions.
Again the point is that if the WB has a consciously pro-poor attitude, it will include working out how to support the development and large scale roll-out of such advanced technologies that are deceptively simple to look at. I feel it requires the application of modern science and engineering and materials – not recycling what is left from other industries.
It might surprise you how many low pressure boilers (hydronic heaters) there are in Central Asia. Hot water heating is well understood – the problem is the ultra-clean combustion of the fuel.
Crispin in Waterloo – February 21, 2019 at 8:06 am
Crispin, you are right, I was surprised, TWICE. First at finding out what “hydronic heaters” are and secondly how common they are in Central Asia, ……. especially when I thought this discussion was about “dirt poor” farmers and herdsmen living in a skin tent or wood shack with a goat tied up in the back. 😊 😊 The High School I attended was built in 1921 and it had a “hydronic heater” – an NG fired boiler and radiators in all rooms.
And Crispin, you and I both know that ….. “having a means of an ultra-clean combustion of the fuel” is nothing but a “pipe dream”, …… a stovepipe dream, that is. …. unless one is blessed with an ample supply of CH4 or H2 for burning. Catalytic converters in the exhaust flue of biomass burning stoves “help” …… but are not 100% efficient.
The secret to having a highly efficient biomass burning “heating” (or cooking, or combo) stove is to extract all of the thermal (heat) energy one possibly can, out of the exhaust gas (smoke of oxidation) before it is vented to the outside of the heated area.
The design of a fireplace and its chimney determines whether it will be 10% or 70+% efficient.
Samuel C
“And Crispin, you and I both know that ….. “having a means of an ultra-clean combustion of the fuel” is nothing but a “pipe dream”, ”
Well, I ha breaking with tradition. It is important to understand that the smoke so often expected is nothing more than unburned fuel. If the conditions are right, it burns, not just all of it, but even pm in the air from other people’s fires that goes into the stove.
Here are some videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX7ExIRXsRc (TV show)
http://www.bbc.com/kyrgyz/media-39377945 (BBC)
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/video/2017/05/04/magic-stoves-for-cleaner-air-better-health-and-more-effective-heating-in-the-kyrgyz-republic (WB Cartoon)
The last one indicates the level of support received on this pro-poor innovative approach by the WB Team.
Mike the Morlock
“Can the top plate be cast be cast with the opening pre-molded into the casting.”
Different countries are at different stages of production. In Kyrgyzstan, they now have locally made cast iron tops with cast iron rings and the hopper cover, which has to be air tight under its own weight. You see some of them have a rope seal and a clamp. Those are preliminary to get the technology demonstrated. The hopper cover has to be machined slightly, as do the rings. That lathe is typical of what people have to work with. Ancient Russian stuff, most is very heavy and strong. The top of the cast iron where the cover sits is “machined” by taking off the guard from a 9″ angle grinder and using the flat surface to grind the whole seal surface at once. Tricks like that bring accuracy and function to the remote areas.
Mongolia has cast iron bridge parts – the machining of the gap was done there to get the fuel feeding right. They also have a lab – the SET Lab – which is capable of making good quality assessments of efficiency and smoke production – no mean feat in a place that is literally at the end of the line. South Africa is going straight to geopolymers. They have advanced materials – very strong, high temp (1300 C) and unbelievably cheap. Cheaper than cement.
So the prototyping was initially done with a hand-held plasma cutter or even (in Kyrgyzstan) a skilled guy with an angle grinder only. Many workshops only have two tools: angle grinder and a welder. They do not even have an electric drill, most of them. Some have an ancient guillotine. When we made a number, there are CNC facilities available. I found one place with a 2m x 6m CNC plasma cutter in Bishkek but the engineers didn’t know how to set the kerf width in the software – never heard of such a thing. After some testing we go it to cut within 0.2mm.
“what are they using for the back sides and front? New steel or recycled?”
It depends where you are. In Mongolia the sheets are new because there is no second hand material to speak of. In Tajikistan the material is second hand (large off-cuts) from Russia – almost all steel available to artisans is like that. That means no standardisation of layouts because the sheets are partial. New steel costs more. What you can find varies hugely. I found a working de-coiler that could handle 12mm plate!
“Okay I know I seem picky, but I am machinist / Toolmaker.”
You would love the plastic refractory production. Now they make their own moulds, mix and pour these phosphate bonded refractory high alumina ceramics (closer to geopolymers) independently. I employed one of my Masters of Engineering students to learn this and she did a great job. She is one of those wonders you can find in the developing world: thermal/power engineer who can speak English, Mongolian, Chinese and Japanese. Her Masters is on performance testing this mode 4.
The point of the article is not so much the technology as the process of properly helping low income communities, plus to kick sand in the face of those who condemn “all solid fuels” as inherently “dirty” just because they have never seen a piece of modern technology scaled to domestic use. Clearly, in some cases, that is an anti-poor agenda. We should be pro-poor, as ESMAP was in this case.
I know this may sound unbelievable, but that stove, once lit and left alone to “do its thing” actually scrubs the ambient air of particles emitting nothing up the chimney detectable while burning bituminous coal or lignite.
Why should all the R&D money be spend on solving the problems of rich people? Especially when the purpose of the organisation is to be pro-poor.
a “highly beneficial intervention” doesn’t take 9 years … you have to be kidding ??? so for at least 8 years these poor suffering people had to wait for this stove that is probably 10% more efficient than the design 8 years ago … spare me the virtue signaling nonsense … they where not creating a new drug … they where designing a stove which is not exactly a new concept …
Kaiser Derden February 21, 2019 at 12:51 am
Kaiser, they are trying to accomplish a lot of things on a shoe string. Whatever they design and test has to be able to be produced locally. While they used a CNC laser cutter for the test run, that is not going to be the machine that a local shop will have.
Go to page 37-38 in the second link, take a look at the lathe that is being used. Take good look. Its like something from a “mad Max” movie. The tooling in the four poster looks like high speed steel. that is what they have to work with. Some areas will have a bender others will have do a lot of welding.
Wielding uses fuel or electricity, (arc) wielding rods and metal spools.
Want to try and design a stove where there is no consistency on the equipment or materials that will be used in its manufacture? They were not just testing “one” stove but in reality several. How it would work was the same, but all the assembly methods had to be tested.
God that lathe, the jaws in the chuck looked like blocks of rust. Don’t be quit to judge, I shutter at what the other equipment looked like. I think well of the locals who are making those stoves. Also the folks who did the design work.
michael
Thanks Michael
You are so right. I take photos of equipment to show outside the region because people will not believe what is in use. It is always a mix, of course. The formal sector (only interested in huge projects with lots of fat) may have CNC bending brakes, or plasma cutters (more and more common). There are pretty decent welding machines but in many cases people do not know how to MIG weld properly. They dribble welds onto the surface – no penetration.
The lathes often have only brazed carbide tips – not indexable inserts. No one has a green grindstone to sharpen them. A diamond wheel is out of the question. No dial calipers. Try squaring the head on a vertical milling machine without a dial indicator. Go on! Try!
Everything about the manufacturing environment has to be accommodated in the design. We got one workshop a 40 ton bending brake. Every bend used 40 tons, even re-bar – the concept of air bending was unknown. No one knew what those Y-numbers meant on the screen. You should see the tooling now…
There is a certain level of grit required to get a product design that you dare put onto the web. It has to work in spite of circumstances. You would probably enjoy going back to basics!
Crispin in Waterloo, February 21, 2019 at 8:42 am
Try squaring the head on a vertical milling machine without a dial indicator. Go on! Try!
+/- .002 I can do .001 iffy.
You have to make a gauge. It will look like a “T” with one side of the top bar bent up. It can be three wielded pieces. The arm length needs to be long enough so that once the center leg of the “T” is placed in the spindle it will pass over the width of the table when rotated. Adjust the head as you would with an indicator, use a piece of paper once you are close. When the end of the probe just barely touches the paper at four points, you’re there.
The Vertical Mill was invented/ manufactured prior to the invention of the dial indicator.
I went to a Conn state tech school. Half shop, half regular high school. Had to make the probe freshmen year. Thirty of us started sophomore year in machine tool& die and seven of us graduated.
And no I don’t want to play any more, the next one you toss at me I may not be able to answer. 🙂
michael
Mike the Morlock
Spot on. Now teach someone to do that who has only used a drill press before. Oh, and cool the workshop to 6 degrees C and the floor below freezing. First, stand there all day.
I also attended such a school – an experiment of Bill Davis, Minister of Education in Ontario. Five technical subjects for 4 years plus full 5 year academic curriculum. I believe we can fix anything.
Good one, Mike tm.
Most people don’t realize that fancy high-tech instruments ….. came after the fact.
One doesn’t design a fancy new “instrument” …. and then invent something to make with it.
Kaiser Derden
The first model went to market in 2010, the same year the concept was first developed in a brief GTZ/GIZ contract. The contributing experts were Henning Shulte-Huxel, a physicist, and myself. It was available in small quantities over all those years. The big initiative came in 2015 when the stove was greatly simplified to be makeable in Muminabod, Tajikistan where the facilities were extremely limited. The steel cutting was done on a CNC plasma cutter in the workshop of a guy who did not own a computer (at all) so he could not program it, and the machine was run manually by a 12 year old (because he could read) who played hooky for a couple of weeks. That is the real life of the poor.
A demo in China in October so impressed the president of the Russian Masonry Heaters Association, he immediately reproduced one which is presently in testing mode in St Petersburg. It has also been replicated in Poland from the drawings downloaded from the internet (look in the library at http://www.newdawnengineering.com).
As for the efficiency – these stoves are typically used for space heating at very low power, continuously. In China this is the case nearly 100% of the time. Traditional stoves at low power have an efficiency of 20-40%, tending towards 20%. The KG4.3 stoves are in the high 80’s, even at low power – a huge difference. The fuel saving potential is 66% (the article says 60% to be conservative). This was achieved in the field in some cases, but most prefer to keep the home warmer using 25% of the potential, and save 40% (a widely reported number). At the same time smoke production is down 99% (because smoke is unburned fuel, not an inherent pollutant in the fuel).
If the World Bank implements new policies in terms of coal and heating for the marginalized, this example shows they can support it at scale, if they want.
Unbelievable sophistry. In that decade China took 700 million out of poverty, has less poor no than the USA. The old coopted Bretton Woods rotting outposts of empire would be a laughing stock, if they were not intent on genocide.
Pushing “sustainable” stoves is genocide, pushing the relative potential population density below existing levels. This is Dr. Schellnhuber, CBE, in bankers garb.
Time for a New Bretton Woods!
In the US, poor is defined as a percentage of the mean income. As a result, the percentage of poor in the US will never go down.
The poor in the US would be middle class or above in almost all of China.
bonbon
I encourage you to investigate the matter a little more closely and with less cynicism. The development of a new class of combustor that can be produced in a simple workshop is an arduous task. Consider that the first example was demonstrated in 2010 (see the article for the 2010 emissions profile – a PM reduction of >99.9%). To get a World Bank supported technical assistance grant approved by a developing country government, takes time. It was accomplished several times. The KG project was evaluated for social and health impact independently by a Fresh Air project (Netherlands) to quantify the change in people’s exposure to harmful pollutants (which effect was produce by eliminating them). Such independent evaluation is very costly and after peer review, it will appear in a forthcoming WHO article. The impact was profound – beyond all expectation from a “solid fuel burning stove”.
The proof of thermal and emissions performance is no mean feat: there are very few labs capable of performing such tests to a high standard, and the national requirements for coal-burning appliances often ask the wrong questions and report the wrong metrics. They often date from the 70’s. The reason there is no national standard for coal or wood stoves in the USA is precisely because of these problems, yet we have new standards in Mongolia (complete), Indonesia (Draft stage) and China (forthcoming).
Sustainability is a real word. Ultra-clean-burning coal stoves are a real thing. Without the participation of multiple country science teams this would not have happened. Neither would it have happened without the World Bank’s foresighted teams, who could easily have said, “These are poor people, give them free electricity” as pundits are wont to do from their European offices. Even now, some are saying that. Talk about unicorn power!
There is no available electricity to give free to anyone. In rural Tajikistan, electric power in winter is on twice a day for an hour or two. It is -40 in places. And guess what the greens want: no more big dams and no more coal-fired power plants. That, sir, is genocide and a crime against humanity.
That’s like a nurse describing writhing pain as discomfort.
“Inconvenient drudgery” has a huge opportunity cost.
Crispin,
You continue to demonstrate why you’re one of the most consistently high-value contributors to the conversation here. Very interesting stuff. Good on that job on that report, btw. Looks like your team was successful. Must be immensely satisfying to work on something that will provide such a huge value for so many people.
rip
Agree completely.
My thanks – well done!
Auto
ripshin
I found that there is so much interest in this device that it might take off (at least in 4 countries) with no more support than making drawings available. I placed everything in the public domain.
Have a look by this guy: Wojciech Treter who has a blog on stoves. It is a rare gem. We have never met and communicate through a web-translator. He is not unique – there are others thinking that we have to break this logjam of anti-fuel silliness.
First article
http://czysteogrzewanie.pl/2018/05/prawdziwy-postep-techniczny-w-spalaniu-wegla/
Second article
http://czysteogrzewanie.pl/2018/12/tani-i-czysty-piec-weglowy-bez-pradu-budowa-i-testy/
Also see the videos above including one from the BBC. The lady (homeowner) in the BBC video was a great find – she can communicate with the high and mighty. She babysit infants and could turn off her two supplementary electric heaters for the first time.
Crispin,
What I find particularly intriguing is the application of some fairly sophisticated engineering into an industrial design capable of being fabricated at low cost by local artisans. That truly is an achievement!
In fact, it’s difficult for me to wrap my head around the pushback from several commenters. This seems to be everything we’d want from an institution like the World Bank. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that unless you’ve lived in an environment such as this, you can’t understand the impact that a simple stove improvement can bring. I don’t know. Or maybe it’s just our general cynicism regarding governmental / institutional projects. I mean, I certainly share that cynicism, but when confronted by such a seemingly clear cut example of a positive result, one would have to at least consider the possibility that “some good can come of it.”
Sorry, this is a bit of a thought ramble. Just wanted to respond that you’ve done a good thing. You should be proud. I’m going to tell everyone I know about it (as well as pretend you’re a personal friend… 🙂 )
rip
Thanks for those links. From 1950 to 1963, Prof. Jacob Bronowski was Director of Research for the National Coal Board (NCB) developing smoke eating heating stoves & smokeless fuels. In the early 1960s, I worked for the erstwhile NCB for nearly three & a half years. To progress within the organisation, I went to night school for two years, studying for City & Guilds qualifications related to the production, distribution & utilisation coal, including Prof Bronowski’s research. When North Sea Gas came on stream, the market for domestic coal plummeted & further development ceased. Steam locomotives were also replaced by 1967 & the miners’ strike of 1984/85 finished the coal industry.
The November 1949 issue of Popular Mechanics contains a very good article about smoke eating furnaces in the USA. What goes around, comes around!
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WdkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=smoke+eating+coal+fired+stoves&source=bl&ots=YeHfxDPJCh&sig=ACfU3U2J0ah0d4QC-LFhUQ8_dJdULNKM5w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi537bF_s7gAhVix4UKHej3DNgQ6AEwDXoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=smoke%20eating%20coal%20fired%20stoves&f=false
Wonderful news! We wish him rapid success in overturning the disastrous policies of his predecessor.
Only poverty is sustainable. This would be good news for Africa.
And article in a German paper stated that the Merkel administration had spent over one and a half TRILLION euros on climate change, the German government financial watchdog says that this sum has produced ZERO results.
The Max Plank Institute says that the above sum would put water and electicity in every hut, tent, house in Africa.
long live German socilisium /climate madness.
Of course it produced results – a tripling of energy prices!
The Morgenthau Plan with deindustrialization finaly got its way.
The World Bank is an institution that seeks to overcome the defects of central planning with more central planning. It has predictably failed miserably.
The World Bank and the IMF create poverty . You can’t loan (or print) yourself out of poverty. Like the unconstitutional (not) Federal Reserve these mafia organisations were created to enslave the world. These organisations are the blood suppliers for most crisis we have had over the last 60+ years.
They are the New World Order. Without their funding the global warming scam would not have been possible.
Robertvd
I think you mean the WB as it was in the 1970’s. See “Confessions of an economic hitman” and the sequel. Those days are gone.
Then have a look at the implementation guidelines for project implementers. See the controls and ethical guidelines – it will take time to read. Canadian giant SNC Lavelin is banned from even bidding on WB contracts. Then please reassess your opinion.
And article in a German paper stated that the Merkel administration had spent over one and a half TRILLION euros on climate change, the German government financial watchdog says that this sum has produced ZERO results.
The Max Plank Institute says that the above sum would put water and electicity in every hut, tent, house in Africa.
long live German socilisium /climate madness.
The US then could spend money on bringing electricity etc to Africa… since it isn’t climate change spending.
It doesn’t though, does it?
France’s Areva and Westinghouse offered to build 20 GWe – with a further ten large EPR units or 17 AP1000 units by 2025. This would have been coupled with wider assistance for the local nuclear industry, in the Westinghouse case including development of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Westinghouse was an investor in the PBMR company and was then sponsoring the design in the USA).
So Africa suffers from the green insanity rampant in the EU / USA.
The PBMR is a blind alley. I think you are thinking of the liquid salt reactors. RSA continued the PBMR research for a while but the real motivation was to prevent the scientists involved from leaving the country, unemployed, freelancing, knowing what they know about nuclear things in general.
What happen in N Korea was that unemployed highly skilled Russian rocket builders (about 40) showed up one by one in Pyongyang and started assembling old 1960’s era leftover ICBMs snuck over the border. You can see the result.
That was a wake up call the South Africans avoided. They pumped money into PBMR then after everyone had their retirement packages, concluded it would never work. That was a major contribution to nuclear non-proliferation and world peace.
Spending other people’s money again I see.
How much money have you donated to these charities?
It is now time for a New Bretton Woods, with Russia and China on board. The original was rendered defunct by Nixon just before his exit. The China Belt And Road Initiative needs such a new agreement. This time around no Keynesian invited (last time he was systematically vetoed by Dexter White), nor Hayekian.
Anyone mentioning Keynes must note the preamble to his major tome printed first in Hitler’s Germany – that only a total-state could implement that theory. Hayek is an even worse case.
As after all China is using the American System of economy last partially used by FDR and JFK, there is natural kinship.
“Taken from the Asian Development Bank, there was an estimated average annual growth rate of 0.5% in China between 2010-2015. This brought the Chinese population to 1.37 billion in 2015. It is important to note that 7.2% of the Chinese population live below the national poverty line” Wikipedia.
China’s poverty numbers are something of a guess as are all statistics. The USA poverty line and standard of living are far, far advanced of China. You can have your own opinions but not your own facts. The failing Chinese economy and the pygmy Russian economy really aren’t worth getting into agreements with.
Too late, China already went another way with its own World Bank 2 in protest.
The World Bank is a product of the same cabal that brought you the EU and the UN. Nothing more than another institution to undermine Capitalistic countries and supposedly promote progress in third world countries but actually promoting nothing but Socialist political dogma.
markl
I think you should continue your research on a sider reading list. The World Bank loans money to governments for projects that are approved by both the Bank (with its lending and implementation criteria) and the government (with its development strategies).
The EBRD is the European version focusing on Easter Europe, and because they made so many profitable loans, more of Asia.
China has started their own “world bank” project that is development oriented but has fewer impositions in terms of internal national policies. As a result, it tends to favour their national industrial interests and PR goals. Financing power stations would be filed under “bleeding obvious”.
The UN is the result of the catastrophe that was WWII and the failure of the USA to join the League of Nations to create international bonds of collective security. If the US had joined the League of Nations, WWII would not have happened because the US representatives would have prevented it. After the next global conflict, I suspect the US will lead, rather than obstruct, a process of creating institutions and agreements that will permanently prevent war.
After the next global conflict, I suspect the US will lead, rather than obstruct, a process of creating institutions and agreements that will permanently prevent war.
All the previous “institutions and agreements that will permanently prevent war” have spectacularly failed to do so. What makes you think creating yet another one will have any different results?
Because this time, “We will get it right.”
John
One reason is the internet and social media. In the next big conflict, the women of the world will prevent it from happening. They will refuse to allow their sons go to war, no one will transport them to the front, people will simply refuse to attack their fellow global citizens.
We have far too much understanding of each other and the demonization of “others” as a technique for prosecuting wars will simply fade. Permanent peace is not just possible, it is inevitable. Sooner or later, it will be established. The memories of the madness will fade and we will get on just fine.
Climate change is nothing like the threat that global conflict and “essential disunity” presents. While nuclear conflict is pretty much inevitable too – at least one strike each – it ill soon go the way the Cuban missile crisis did: communication between the leaders of the potential belligerents with an agreement (as Kennedy made with Khrushchev) that they simply will not be the people to go down in history as having done that.
When is this rise of women supposed to take place?
I haven’t seen any evidence of it in any of the conflicts over the last 30 years.
As to demonization of others, that’s at higher levels today than at any time I can remember. Even during the cold war the rhetoric was lower.
One reason is the internet and social media.
…
We have far too much understanding of each other and the demonization of “others” as a technique for prosecuting wars will simply fade
And you don’t see the inherent contradiction between those two statements? Clearly you are unfamiliar with the cesspool that is social media.
While nuclear conflict is pretty much inevitable too – at least one strike each – it ill soon go the way the Cuban missile crisis did: communication between the leaders of the potential belligerents with an agreement (as Kennedy made with Khrushchev) that they simply will not be the people to go down in history as having done that.
That assumes the ones with their fingers on the triggers are sane, rational people. One of the main reasons why we want to prevent Rocket Man Kim and the Mullah’s of Iran from getting and keeping the bomb is because they aren’t particularly sane, rational people. If we let them have the technology they’ll likely use it at some point when events don’t otherwise go their way.
What makes you think the British and French would have listened to an American ambassador.
Their own politicians were warning them of the danger from the Germans, and they choose to ignore them.
As PJ O’Rourke says, if you want to find out where the food riots will be in 6 months, just watch were the IMF and World Bank go.
Caligula Jones…
….As PJ O’Rourke says, if you want to find out where the food riots will be in 6 months…..
Bin Thar dun That, ‘fraid ure rite… see: PJ O’rourke: Peace Kills.
Cheers
Mike
The claim above that India’s slow development is the fault of the Commonwealh is false. The Gandi-Nehru dynasty of rulers were Marxists and became Soviet allies. Churchill knew they were frauds from the start, with a London lawyer pretending to be a Fakir when faker was appropriate! Fifty years they wasted of their peoples’ lives, until Sikhs gained power and so now India is leaping ahead. Cheered on by we Commonwealth fellow-members. We are glad to see them out of Marxist thralldom at last, though about a third of Indian States remain under Red State governments. For now…. Brett
Thanks for those links. From 1950 to 1963, Prof. Jacob Bronowski was Director of Research for the National Coal Board (NCB) developing smoke eating heating stoves & smokeless fuels. In the early 1960s, I worked for the erstwhile NCB for nearly three & a half years. To progress within the organisation, I went to night school for two years, studying for City & Guilds qualifications related to the production, distribution & utilisation coal, including Prof Bronowski’s research. When North Sea Gas came on stream, the market for domestic coal plummeted & further development ceased. Steam locomotives were also replaced by 1967 & the miners’ strike of 1984/85 finished the coal industry.
The November 1949 issue of Popular Mechanics contains a very good article about smoke eating furnaces in the USA. What goes around, comes around!
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WdkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=smoke+eating+coal+fired+stoves&source=bl&ots=YeHfxDPJCh&sig=ACfU3U2J0ah0d4QC-LFhUQ8_dJdULNKM5w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi537bF_s7gAhVix4UKHej3DNgQ6AEwDXoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=smoke%20eating%20coal%20fired%20stoves&f=false
The World Bank is in a dilemma, under pressure to improve the lot of the poorest by providing cheap electricity and under pressure not to do so with cheap-electricity coal plants. Maybe, just maybe, it might take a flutter on a molten salt nuclear plant, as a way out of its difficulty. If successful, that would break the logjam preventing deployment of nuclear power worldwide.