Christian L'Orange Preliminary Exam for the Ph.D.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012, 03:00 PM
EECL Conference room

Christian L’Orange Preliminary Exam for the Ph.D. 3 p.m., Wednesday, July 25, 2012 EECL Conference Room.

Co-Advisor: Morgan DeFoort Co-Advisor: Bryan Willson Committee: Anthony Marchese, John Volckens.

Development of an Impact Assessment Tool for Evaluating Biomass Cookstoves

Abstract Internationally, there is a need for between 500-600 million improved cookstoves, and the number is increasing. Despite many well-meaning groups, little improvement is actually been achieved. The cookstove sector has been hampered by scattered research and development with little direct collaboration between groups. In the vast majority of cases, cookstove developers have not directly worked with health experts or climatologists or had a working knowledge of these fields. Cookstove development has changed over the years. Historically, cookstove programs have relied on artisan based, location specific approaches. Cookstove developers worked on the ground where they evaluated the requirements of the community, developed prototypes which were evaluated in the field, and then facilitated local production. While this method can work at small scales, it it’s not feasible for global programs. The level of sophistication which is required to both test and produce the cookstoves required cannot practically & economically be accomplished in the field. In order to account for both locale specific considerations and the centralized design and production techniques which are necessary to achieve the 500 million needed cookstoves, innovative new methods and approaches will be needed. There are two fundamental questions which currently cannot be answered: (a)What should an “improved” cookstove do? (b)Will this “improved” cookstoves making any difference? Until these questions can be answered cookstove development will be occurring without any real direction. The questions can be presented slightly differently: (a)What does a cookstove need to do in order to have the most benefit in the real world? (b)Based on the performance of this cookstove, do the improvements which will occur justify the capital and resource requirements which will be needed to implement it? In order to design and produce reliable cookstoves which make a real difference in the world the sector needs to be able to answer these qustions; however, a method for answering them does not yet exist. The methods and techniques currently used to evaluate cookstove designs cannot adequately quantify the impact that cookstoves will have when used in the real world. This is an unnecessary limitation; there is extensive knowledge, experience, and understanding in the cookstove sector, the elements just have not been brought together in an effective and usable manner. While it is not currently appropriate, and likely never will be, to predict the specific impacts of a given cookstove in a home, it is possible for numeric modeling to provide guidance to the process. Numeric modeling can be used to assess the potential impact of a cookstove designs on the macro scale; the potential impact a particular cookstove design will have in a given country or region. The ability to systematically evaluate cookstove designs and program options will be critical in ensuring the most benefit possible is being achieved with the resources available. An evaluation tool is being proposed to quantify the potential impact of cookstove designs in regards to human health and global climate. The tool will guide stove developers in determining design goals and will provide the technical backbone required by cookstove implementers to determine the optimum design for their program. In both cases, the tool will be aiding the interested parties in maximizing impact from their investment. The development of the tool will also be invaluable in documenting and quantifying current understanding in the sector regarding cookstove impacts. The gaps identified throughout the course of developing the toolset will provide vital guidance for prioritizing future research efforts.

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Event Contact: Zulema Sierra can be reached at (970) 491-6036

Sponsored by the Department of Mechanical Engineering.