One of the best things about conferences is when you get to meet people who’s work you enjoy/admire in real life. Erik Hersman of Afrigadget documents low-tech entrepreneurialism in Africa. Specifically he looks at ingenuity born of necessity, “tech that keeps economies on life support”. Raised in Sudan (until the war got bad), Kenya, and then again Sudan, he’s a bit of a tech anthropologist searching for Africans solutions to African problems.
Because I haven’t done an appropriate tech roundup for a long while and because Erik’s Better World By Design talk showcased tech featured in his blog, I’m just going to pick my fave 10 posts from Afrigadget.
[A] local organic farming company Green Dreams has been documenting the progress of transforming a garbage dump [in the Kibera Slum] to an organic farm on the Green Dreams blog. They are working with a local youth group comprising reformed criminals in converting garbage into organic manure, and garbage dumps into organic farms.
Not to be a wet blanket, but I do wonder what sorts of chemical may have leached into that soil.
A pilot project placed an electonic collar containing GPS and GSM units on Kimani, a bull elephant who was the last surviving member of a 5 elephant group with a penchant for raiding farms to eat crops. This collar allowed park rangers to track the elephant’s movements using Google Earth / Google Maps. The project also allowed park authorities to monitor animal locations at all times and acted as a deterrent against the poaching of this important resource.
Just the other day on a visit to Kibera Slum I came across this interesting bio gas latrine which is being set up for Kibera people as a response to lacking community toilets. The sanitation situation in Kibera is really really poor! There are a couple of community toilets which where set up after the shooting of the Constant Gardener but only a few years later these are in bad shape! Again, they cost 3/= per visit which is really above of what a typical Kibera inhabitant can afford. Just sum up what it will cost for 5 visits per day for a family of five! So the bio gas latrine is a really good option, since it will generate a little income to make the toilets free of charge.
Morris Mbetsa, an 18 year old self-taught inventor with no formal electronics training from the coastal tourist town of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean in Kenya, has invented the “Block & Track”, a mobile phone-based anti-theft device and vehicle tracking system.
Phillip Isohe is a metal fabricator in the jua kali, non-traditional industrial sector, in Kenya. In his spare time he builds models of airplanes and buses. This seems to be an extension of what many of us did while growing up in Africa - building wire, or tin can, cars. What’s most interesting is the excruciating attention to detail that he puts into each one. In fact, they each have motors with working lights, steering, engine and interiors.
Because I’m one of those people who love director’s commentaries and behind the scenes sneak peeks.
How does Afrigadget find all these innovations?
People send them a lot of stories, but also the Afrigadget bloggers walk into a welding shops, go scouting in industrial areas and pay close attention to what others might not see. It would be a very interesting/useful exercise to try out in Haiti or Guatemala.
A very noteworthy thing Erik mentioned is that folks are working on a Maker Faire Africa in Ghana in 2009. Maker Faire is a 2 day festival of arts, crafts, wild inventions and amazing sculpture that takes place in the Bay Area and Austin, Texas every year. The African version would have a slightly different focus however.
The aim of a Maker Faire-like event is to create a space on the continent where Afrigadget-type innovations, inventions and initiatives can be sought, identified, brought to life, supported, amplified, propagated, etc. Maker Faire Africa asks the question, “What happens when you put the drivers of ingenious concepts from Mali with those from Ghana and Kenya, and add resources to the mix?”
According to Afrigadget:
The focus here is not on high-tech, but on manufacturing. Specifically, fabrication, the type of small and unorganized businesses that pop up wherever an entrepreneur is found on the African continent. It gets exciting when you think about gathering some of the real innovators from this sector into one place where they can learn from each other and spread their knowledge from one part of the continent to another.
AIDG’s somewhat weekly roundup of appropriate technology stories. This week: prefab homes that look like computer servers, power from poop, sugarcane charcoal in Southern Haiti, a mobile phone-based vehicle anti-theft system and more.
Nestled among the towers of midtown Manhattan is a new housing development made entirely of prefab houses … that look like rack-mounted computer servers … In fact, these houses are intended to be mounted and stacked in giant racks that can be built in days. Soon, all of New York City may look like a giant Google server farm.
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The houses are part of an art installation for the Museum of Modern Art exhibit “Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling.”
The exhibit is running from July 20–October 20, 2008.
At a properly run farm, “nothing is waste. Everything is a resource. It’s just a matter of harvesting.” With 750 cows, Laurie Stanton’s farm has a lot of manure to harvest. Martin Mittelstaedt writes in the Globe and Mail about Ontario’s largest farm-biogas installation. It seems like the perfect solution to a big problem; there are only so many places to put the 50 million tonnes of “biomass”, as it is politely called, that is produced each year in the province. Instead, it is fermented in a big tank, and the methane is collected and piped to a diesel generator. The leftover liquids make a good fertilizer and the solids become bedding for cows.
Haiti and other nations continue to struggle in the grip of a worsening world food crisis. But Haitians in the island nation’s remote Artibonite and Northwest regions are gaining food security, through a sustainable agriculture program supported by global humanitarian agency Church World Service and funded in part by a new grant from the U.S.-based Osprey Foundation.
The program’s expansion will provide more people, particularly women, with opportunities to grow enough food for their families and increase income for other basic needs through access to credit and training.
According to a new technical market research report, Carbon Capture & Storage Technologies from BCC Research, the global market for carbon capture technologies was worth $88.7 billion in 2007. This is expected to increase to over $236.3 billion by 2012, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.8%.
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This report … goes against the findings of a similar UN report that show that renewable energy is really where the money is.
Morris Mbetsa, an 18 year old self-taught inventor with no formal electronics training from the coastal tourist town of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean in Kenya has invented the “Block & Track”, a mobile phone-based anti-theft device and vehicle tracking system.
This instructables will show you how to recycle, by desoldering, all your old PCB’s components.You can find PCB in every electronic things(DVD,computer,camera,toys…).All you have to do is to disasemble them, and desolder the components you want.So here how to do step by step.
8. The folks at Proje Espwa in the South of Haiti have been making charcoal from corn cobs. A fewpics oftheir success.
This is JaRoro holding a briquette of charcoal we made this morning from our own vegetable waste. We use the stalks of corn along with vertiver and end up with this which lasts longer than regular charcoal. It is economical and ecological as we don’t contribute to the huge problem of deforestation here. JaRoro was the project leader for this and did and excellent job. The idea is based on Doctor Amy Smith’s (MIT) D-Lab work. We now have a team of 16 working on making these briquettes and freeing us from super-expensive propane and regular charcoal.
[A] team from CEA/Leti-Minatec has created a system that is capable of recovering kinetic energy from the impact of falling raindrops.
In a study featured in Smart Materials and Structures, a physics journal, the authors, Romain Guigon, Thomas Jager, Ghislain Despesse and Jean-Jacques Chaillout, write about how it is possible to recover [very small amounts of] energy from the impact of a raindrop of water.
General Motors is working with utility companies to make sure its next-generation plug-in hybrid has a smooth rollout in 2010. GM is pushing utilities to move forward on so-called “smart-metering.”
Hawaii has become the first state to require solar water heaters in new homes. The bill was signed into law by Governor Linda Lingle, a Republican. It requires the energy-saving systems in homes starting in 2010. It prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Hawaii relies on imported fossil fuels more than any other state, with about 90 percent of its energy sources coming from foreign countries, according to state data.
One of the more interesting innovations is the development of a dual SIM card hack so that users can access multiple carriers.
“This product has two SIM card slots in a single phone - primarily to support price sensitive/prudent consumers who wish to optimise their call costs by maintaining SIM cards from two different phone operators. As in many countries - calls to a customer using a different Ghanaian operator cost slightly more than those on the same network.”
The US military is looking to cut back on two things in Iraq: fuel consumption and trash. So they’re finally getting on board with alternative fuel sources, using the trash they don’t want to get the fuel for electricity they need.
In March, we let you know that trash-to-fuel generators were getting shipped to Iraq. Well, they’ve arrived and are being tested.
The bike itself started as a $150 walmart special. Within 30 minutes of getting it home I had stripped everything off the frame. Then bolted on 2 brushless hub motors rated for 500 watts. Next came drilling some holes through the frame and bolting on some sheet aluminium panels to hold the electronics. There are 2 battery packs( 36volt 8amp nimh cells ), 2 36volt 3 amp charges for them and 2 speed controllers. Both speed controllers are tied to the throttle grip and you can switch between front wheel drive, rear wheel or both. 2/wheel drive is a lot of fun when you go offroad with it. And the side covers and tank where made from scrap pink insulation core then covered with fibreglass cloth and epoxy resin. I was trying for a Thunderbirds look, maybe I need to make wheel disks.
When I think about people who live off the grid the first thing that pops to mind isn’t hydropower. Solar panels, small wind turbines, geothermal? Yes. Technology that dates back to 1870? No. Granted, the number of sites where small-scale hydro can work for a home are more limited than those which are suitable for other technologies. Perhaps that’s part of it. In any case, as an example of what can be done if the site suits witness the Shaul family of Juneau, Alaska.
[C]lose to three quarters of U.S. ethanol plants, or 123 of America’s 160 operating ethanol plants, are at risk of being shuttered in the coming months, according to Citigroup analyst David Driscoll. (hat tip MarketWatch). Small and mid-sized ethanol plants are in trouble due to a record-setting spike in corn prices, bumped up by the Midwest floods and increasing demand. This news comes after Citigroup downgraded all the major publicly traded ethanol players including Archer Daniels Midland, BioFuel Energy and VeraSun Energy.
A great example of rainwater harvesting can found at the Langston Brown Community Center and High School in Arlington, Virginia. The community center has two 24-foot-tall 11,000-gallon cisterns that store rainwater.
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The center captures 280,000 gallons of water a year. Regrettably, the rainwater is only used for onsite irrigation, sidewalk washing, and other non-potable uses. However, the center has waterless urinals which result in a 23% reduction in potable water use.
Related:
A LEED Summary of the other environmentally friendly features of the high school.
Indoor pollution is a major cause of death for people in developing countries due to the inefficiency and uncleanly burning of indoor stoves. Indoor air pollution-related deaths claim the lives of 1.5 million people a year, mainly women and children.
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The newly designed stoves reduce harmful emissions by as much as 80% - a significant percentage that will go a long way to improving not only air quality, but the quality of life of people who use the stoves. They’re less expensive to run because they use half the fuel of traditional stoves, while still using the same sources of fuel such as wood, crop waste and animal dung that the users typically burn. And the stoves have an added perk of speeding cooking time up by as much as 40%, which I’m sure is helpful to harried mothers.
Makeni is a small town in Sierra Leone. Like the rest of the country, it is trying to recover from years of internal strife. Unlike the rest of the country, they have the Binkolo Growth Centre, a small industrial project near Makeni where the manufacture of small farm implements, tailoring, carpentry and blacksmithing takes place, and includes the use of disabled people. Two VSO volunteers, one from Kenya one from Canada, work to train and bring new ideas to the centre.
One such idea was to create a fuel replacement for their pickup by using local palm nuts, a by-product of the palm kernels, which are generally fed to pigs or used for fertilizer. Since diesel fuel for their truck runs approximately $5/gallon, it wouldn’t hurt to try.
When working for the National Health Service, Marsh uses a £30,000 compressed-air medical drill, but he uses a £30 drill with the standard medical drill bits when operating in less ideal settings in Ukraine. How does he ensure patient safety? “The traditional way… by talking to them throughout the operation.”
In January 2001, the world held its breath when the tanker Jessica, loaded with 150,000 gallons of fuel, struck a reef and began breaking up in the heart of one of the most precious, famous and fragile ecosystems on earth – the Galapagos Islands.
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[T]he sight of thousands of gallons of oil pouring into the ocean off the Galapagos island of San Cristobal triggered a determined international initiative to mitigate risks of future spills by dramatically reducing the islands’ dependence on diesel fuel to generate electricity.
Several efforts have been made, by NGOs and the Government, to make the process of [electronics] recycling safer and more eco-friendly. In continuation to these efforts a newly launched company, Eco Reco (Eco Recycling Limited), looks promising. It is the first of its kind in the state of Maharashtra and fourth in the country.
The way the system works is simple and straightforward. The company pick-up vans collect discarded electronic items from homes, institutions, offices, schools, etc. The e-waste is brought to the company’s advanced facility for processing and recycling. The e-waste goes through the shredder and then metal extractor for the separation of components. Finally, the plastic is separated manually.
AIDG’s erstwhile weekly roundup of appropriate technology stories. This week: solar thermal in South Korea, the innards of an LED traffic light, printing OLEDs like a newspaper, $350M biogas fund for N. America and more.
Electronic circuits in discarded computers, cellphones and other devices could be recycled less harmfully using a technique developed by researchers in China. Unlike current methods, it can be used to reclaim valuable metals such as copper without releasing toxic fumes into the air.
As solar technologies improve and costs fall, South Korea’s plans for solar energy are heating up.
In the coastal city of Gangneung, South Korea, look up and you’re likely to see solar panels or a solar water heater on the roof of at least one house.
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According to BP, South Korea’s national goal to produce 1 GW of solar energy by 2012 would make it the world’s tenth largest solar market. Even more ambitiously, the country hopes to reach 4 GW of solar production by 2020 and 18 GW by 2030.
Many cities are switching to LEDs for their traffic signals, and is it any wonder? The energy savings are tremendous, never mind not having to change burnt-out bulbs all the time. Luckily for us, LED traffic signals are finally ubiquitous enough to show up at the surplus stores. Our local junk shop had a couple of big barrels of LED stoplights and turn signals of various sizes. We picked one out that still had the connector attached for screwing it into a regular light bulb socket.
Of course, after we made sure it worked, we promptly took it apart. It is a fabulous object, designed to be used, abused, taken apart, and maybe even fixed, though there is not much to go wrong. Click through for more gory photos and delightful design details.
Barely a week after blogging about the challenges of charging mobiles in developing countries (see February 5th post), I had the chance to meet Clemens Betzel, President of G24 Innovations, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. G24i develop a range of solar charging solutions, some of which are geared towards developing countries, and mobile phone users in particular. I left our meeting with a portable solar charging pack for the ZTE mobile which I recently bought in Uganda
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Here’s the breakdown. My basic, no-frills ZTE phone comes in at around $22 new, putting most rival entry level handsets in the shade. And the solar panel to charge it? Add another $20. So, suddenly, for about $42 we have a works-out-of-the- box rural mobile solution. (Just one short year ago the handset alone would have come in at around that). What’s more, the owner of the solar charger could earn a little extra income running a small charging business on the side.
Since the early days of OLED research, people have said that OLEDs could potentially be made at very low cost because they don’t require expensive semiconductor manufacturing techniques. The ultimate low cost fabrication method would be a continuous “roll-to-roll” process like what is done in newspaper printing. However, so far, no one has demonstrated that OLEDs can be made this way. So about 4 years ago, we set out to find out for ourselves whether it could be done.
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Because this had never been done before, we faced some real technical challenges - especially given our program time constraints that often meant we had to start designing machine modules before we had the device fabrication process completely figured out! Anyway, in the end it all came together and we were successful in making our deliverable.
The Liberator project aims to make an “open source” compressed earth block machine that can turn out 3-5 blocks per minute for a total cost of $1,000-$1,350. That’s enough blocks to build a new house every day, turning dirt into shelter.
(Image: Cebhomes.jpg, by Dan Powell, from Wikimedia Commons)
Toronto-based startup StormFisher Biogas has partnered with private-equity firm Denham Capital of Boston to create a $350 million fund that will be used to source out, construct or buy into about 30 biogas projects across North America. The composition of the fund will be part private equity and part debt financing.
The “Modern Style” Cape Schank House in Victoria, Australia, designed by Paul Morgan Architects, sports a rain water tank in the middle of the living room. The tank cools the house, stores rainwater and is a structural element too.
Great idea, though it looks a bit out of place giving all the straight lines in the rest of the house.
If you want to build a wind farm in Minnesota right now, you’re in for a nasty surprise. A 612-year nasty surprise in fact.
The Midwest Independent Transmission System (MISO), the organization in charge of the power lines, has to approve every new project that will connect to existing power lines. And MISO is only used to dealing with coal-plant-sized projects. Thus, the current regulations say that they must dedicate 2 years of their time to every project that will connect to the grid.
Not only that, but they’re only allowed to process one application at a time.
A good news, bad news story about wind power in China. The Chinese government’s growing romance with wind remains significantly unrequited. Many of the recently erected wind turbines remain “unplugged.” Either there’s no grid connection nearby or grid owners don’t want the power for reasons that can only be speculated on. Good green intentions and investments are of little value without social consensus, matched infrastsructure, and market mechanisms in place. Is China just too big and complex to be serious with renewable power?
AIDG’s somewhat weekly roundup of appropriate technology stories. This week: wireless tracking devices for Miners, solar panels that work at night, bicycle forklift, rejuvenating African soils and more.
Two high-tech communication firms, Venture Design Services, Inc and Helicomm, Inc., teamed up to create a wireless tracking system for underground miners, and it is the first product of its kind to be approved by MSHA since the Sago, WV disaster. That 2006 event, which claimed the lives of 12 coal miners and forever changed the lives of their families, coworkers and community, was the impetus for the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (MINER Act) and its requirements for wireless tracking systems.
Helicomm has been using the CONSOL Energy’s Big Branch mine in Mingo County, WV to test the system. The Big Branch mine is not an active mine, but since June 2007 has been the demonstration site for the ”MineTracer” system.
The Bamboo Bike, an endeavour that aims at building bicycles in a sustainable fashion using bamboo as the primary construction material, is a joint project run by Craig Calfree of Calfree Design, a high tech bicycle design firm based in California and The Earth Institute at Columbia University.
The bicycle is the primary mode of transport in Africa and it is used for everything from personal transportation to moving medicine and the sick to hospital. Sadly, the design used in most of Africa has not changed for the last 40 years to take into account the different ways in which the bicycle is used. In fact, most bikes in use in most of Africa today are based on a colonial British design tailored to individuals travelling short distances on smooth roads.
I’m enthralled by this. So much so that I dream of writing a sci-fi screenplay where it is a primary feature. Anyhoo.
Twenty-one boxes filled with 7,000 unique seed samples from more than 36 African nations were shipped to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a facility being built on a remote island in the Arctic Circle as a repository of last resort for humanity’s agricultural heritage…
Despite the enormous untapped potential of solar energy, one thing is for sure- photovoltaics are only as good as the sun’s rays shining upon them. However, researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory are close to the production of a super-thin solar film that would be cost-effective, imprinted on flexible materials, and would be able to harvest solar energy even after sunset!
What can we do with cow emissions and animal waste emissions? Animal waste can be collected in a biodigester to make methane gas. Small farms can make enough gas to cook their meals, and larger farms can run their equipment and/or run generators that feed power into the grid. Farm animals belch and otherwise emit copious amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
Near New Zealand scientists have discovered a bug that eats only methane. The bug can live in extreme conditions, and I hope it can be safely added to cattle feed to reduce the gas generated by our bovine friends.
Have you ever wanted to weld some aluminum, just to discover the cost of a new MIG/TIG welder is a little too expensive? Don’t forget about the tank of shielding gas you are going to have to buy. As you may remember, from those late night infomercials, Alumaloy could be the answer. It is an easy way to weld aluminum, with no flux or shielding gas, and only requires an inexpensive tank of propane or MAPP gas, easily purchased at your local hardware store. Then again, there is always JB Weld for those down and dirty connections.
We have covered a lot of bike stuff around here from bike powered super computers, bike powered welders, even bicycle powered tennis ball launchers! Here is yet another awesome bike device (yaabd).
A five-year, $180 million project to revitalize the soils and agricultural sector of sub-Saharan Africa has been launched in Nairobi, Kenya. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa’s (AGRA) Soil Health Program will work with 4.1 million farmers to regenerate 6.3m hectares of farmland, which have been degraded by unsustainable farming practices in the last few decades.
“Currently, farm yield in Africa is one-quarter of the global average, and one-third of Africans face chronic hunger,” says Dr. Namanga Ngongi, president of AGRA. “We know that the use of high quality seeds, combined with the rejuvenation of African soils, can begin to turn around this dismal situation.”
The MythBusters show is all about the crazy stuff that happens when technology meets man. In fact, we go out of our way to think of creative ways to play with technology. My MythBuster partner, Adam Savage, has just about every kind of iPod, iPhone and iPipewrench he can get his mitts on. But there are times when innovation produces aggravation, and when that happens, technology can flat out drive us nuts.
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Here are some prime examples of technology that’s not smart. Instead, it ranges from mildly annoying to knuckle-gnawing infuriating. But since our show, like Popular Mechanics magazine, is about problem solving, we’ve included the MythBusters fix for some of this misguided machinery.
A few key annoyances: Tools/flashlights/cellphones/electronics all with different chargers, battery packs or other unnecessarily non-interchangeable parts [”You don’t buy a Chevy battery to start a Chevrolet”], bloatware, cars designed to make it very tedious to do basic maintenance.
When disaster strikes, the need for short-term housing is immediate and urgent. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that more than 800,000 people were displaced after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and UNICEF reported 130,000 residents were made homeless by the 2006 earthquake in central Java, Indonesia.
State-provided housing is expensive, too temporary and can be potentially harmful to residents. A growing number of architects and designers is exploring humanitarian design for people displaced by a natural disaster or other emergency. This gallery shows some of the most promising quick-fix shelters, from inflatable concrete tents to houses made from recycled wood pallets.
Nigeria’s government has just announced its intention to make another round of investments in solar energy to supply up to 10 rural communities that currently lack access to the national power grid. The initiative, funded by Nigeria’s Ministry of Science and Technology, will benefit around 5,000 individuals living in villages spread across several local governments and is projected to cost 150m Naira, or $1.25 million.
A German design firm has created load-bearing concrete containing optical fibers, allowing light and color to pass through to the other side (the shadowy hand is what you can see through the concrete in direct light). The result is that you can live inside a sunlit dome and still be protected when the space invaders come and drop those dangerous light thingies on your head.
Meet the ZiPee, a cute and functional electric scooter and one solution the UK’s pollution problem (ZiPee stands for Zero Input of Pollution from Emissions into the Environment). The ZiPee is a scooter marketed for London commuters, enticing them to trade in their gas guzzling vehicles for their everyday journeys. Hoping to change the outlook of passengers and urging them to make a choice in their commuting habits, the ZiPee is ideal for travel within London and other cities.
Retailing at £799, the electric scooter is capable of 30 miles on a single charge, takes only two hours to charge up and if you run out of power the incorporated pedals can get you home safely. You only have to be 14 to ride one and there are no requirements for road tax, insurance, licence or registration. Even the London Congestion Charge can’t get you!
It’s expensive right now and you need to be a Java programmer to use it, but aside from that, it’s very intriguing.
Described as “the Lego of gadgets” by Webware’s Rafe Needleman, the Bug Labs platform starts with a minicomputer, the Bug Base, onto which you can snap multiple modules, such as a digital camera or an LCD screen. You can then program your own software to run your custom gadget or download software others have written from the Bug Labs site. Need a GPS-enabled digital camera that will automatically upload your images to Flickr? With the Bug Labs platform, you can build one.
I ran across some news that Marquiss Wind Power just raised $1.3 M in series A funding, which, in and of itself, isn’t that big of a deal to me (because funding doesn’t = anything). That said, Marquiss Wind Power has quite the value proposition with their ducted wind turbine product called Aeropoint, a product that comes in three sizes. It’s a small-wind turbine built for commercial buildings of 1-3 floors. Based out of Folsom, California, the company had encouraging results with the first three test turbines. Actually, the results were so good the company claims purchasers should have a payback period of 2-7 years. You’ll notice that depending on a lot of different factors, a 2-7 year payback is about 2x faster than the payback for solar.
The Coskata process that GM is promoting can use a wide range of different feedstocks to produce ethanol. Materials ranging from agricultural waste to purpose grown crops that can be raised on marginal lands (switchgrass being the most widely known example of this) to waste materials such as old tires and even municipal waste streams can all be used as the raw materials that can be turned into ethanol with very little to zero landfill waste.
Advances in business-to-business Internet transactions in the spare parts industry in recent years have helped make it easier for consumers to find replacement lids, chargers and remote controls, and for repair technicians to find obscure parts on a moment’s notice.
According to Ecofriend, one cubic foot of biogas can be produced from one pound of cow manure (heated at around 28 degrees Celsius, or 82.4 degrees Fahrenheit). That, it says, is enough to cook one day’s worth of meals for four to six people in India. One cow in one year can produce enough manure, which when converted into methane can match the fuel provided by 200 liters-plus (about 53 U.S. gallons) of gasoline, it adds.
Around 7,500 cattle can produce 1 megawatt (MW) of electricity (1MW can power the average home in the developed world), according to the University of Alberta, Canada. The university also says it would take all of the manure of 6 million cows to fulfill the needs of 1 million homes — or about six cows per home.
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The U.S.-based Sierra Club, however, doesn’t hold much hope for biomass. It believes that AD manure has limited potential in the U.S., pointing out that even if all the 7,000 farms in the U.S. cited by the EPA as “good candidates” for AD were to use the technology, they could only produce 0.0002 percent of all energy consumed in the country today.
While this may sound like something out of a Homer Simpson fantasy sequence a group in the UK just made a journey from the UK to Timbuktu in a truck powered entirely by biodiesel made from chocolate; or rather the waste chocolate from a manufacturer.
What separates the mobile handset winners from the losers? The answer seems to be success in developing markets like China, India, the Middle East, and Africa.
Once viewed as expensive and unprofitable, developing regions such as Africa, China and India are now being thought of as the cash cows of the mobile phone industry.
As penetration rates in many developed regions such as Europe approach 90 percent or more, mobile operators and handset makers are looking to new markets where people may have never even picked up a regular telephone, let alone a mobile phone, according to a panel discussion Wednesday at the 3GSM World Congress.
In developing countries - where food is scarce and reliable energy supplies are even scarcer - necessity often becomes the mother of invention; so it is in Uganda, where farmers have resorted to using human urine and excreta - mixed in with banana peels, algae, water hyacinth and poultry droppings - as an inexpensive source of biogas.
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In an effort to stave off the growing threat of deforestation in Uganda, HIU is working with several partners to build biogas plants; the inflammable [sic] gas is typically produced by bacteria in an air tight container called a digester. Biogas made from excreta contains 60 - 90% methane - enough for it to burn without further purification. There are currently three available plant models: floating, polythene tubular system and Chinese fixed dome - the latter of which is most commonly used by HIU’s beneficiaries.
Mike sez, “The multimachine is a milling machine, drill press, and lathe all in one machine that is made from old truck engines and other scrap parts. The very making of it imparts the skills needed to use it. It’s of the ‘teach a man to fish’ school rather than the ‘here, have a fish’ school. Some hand tools are required to build it. I’d love to see a group handing out the tools needed to build one and the manual all over Africa.
Ever since I was a kid I have always loved old scooters. However I have never really wanted the responsibility of maintaining a “vintage” machine. I always thought to myself, “why can’t we have the convenience and reliability of modern engineering like a Honda with the class and styling of an old Lambretta?”
Recently it occurred to me that as an adult, I actually have the skills and facilities to address this important issue that has nagged me all these years.
I am a metal sculptor, and have absolutely no experience with scooters at all. What follows in this instructable is my experience of stripping down a mid 1980’s Honda elite 125cc scooter, and totally redesigning it with aluminum scrap metal.
Instead of letting rainwater flow off their roofs and yards, more people are looking at ways to capture and reuse it. In drought-prone areas, wastewater from sinks and washing machines can also be rerouted for landscaping.
The infamous buffets of Sin City may soon be able to advertise their food as wholesomely local. A 30-story farm is in the works for Las Vegas – an agricultural skyscraper designed to include over 100 different crops, from miniature banana trees to strawberries.
Khosla Ventures announced it has invested in EcoMotors, a startup building more efficient engines, in particular a diesel engine that can do 100 mpg by 2011.
Unlike Khosla’s other biofuel investments, which total more than a dozen, backing EcoMotors is a play on making traditional vehicles more energy efficient. While the ultimate aim is getting drivers to kick their oil addiction altogether, there’s a lot of room for innovation in our traditional engines. Particularly with the Energy Bill’s new increases in the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard, which raises the average mileage of the auto fleet to 35 mpg by 2020.
AIDG’s somewhat weekly roundup of appropriate technology stories. This week: underwater turbines, lighter-than-air turbines, turbines powering cell phone base stations in Africa and more.
Illustration Source: FAU Florida Center for Electronic Communications
As described by Green Daily:
Secretary of the Interior Dick Kempthorne recently made the announcement that we should be using the ocean’s wind and waves as our servants, harvesting their seeming toddler-like hyperactive energy for our own myriad needs. Sounds megalomaniac, but hey, it’s clean.
For a company that is currently harnessing energy through underwater turbines, see Verdant Power
San Francisco hit another major green milestone earlier this week when Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that the city had converted its fleet of approximately 1,500 diesel vehicles to run on biodiesel - a month earlier than the goal it had set in 2006. Fire engines, ambulances and MUNI buses, amongst others, will now run on B20, a blend of 20% biofuel and 80% diesel fuel.
Note: The writers of the press release from the SF mayor’s office made a wee mistake. You don’t convert a diesel vehicle to biodiesel. Diesel engines can automatically use biodiesel. One instance where you would have to convert however is if you have a pre-1993 diesel vehicle. Biodiesel tends to dissolve rubber gaskets and fuel lines over time. Newer vehicles however use non-rubber materials for these parts and are for the most part already biodiesel compatible. Check with the manufacturer if there is any doubt.
San Francisco’s progress on biodiesel conversion puts San Francisco on track to meet its commitments under the Local Climate Action Plan, which calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by 2012.
In 2001, Fabio Rosa, a pioneer of rural electrification in Brazil, had a flash of inspiration: he would rent solar energy to rural low income families.
Rentals would allow people to purchase electricity with monthly payments, similar to how grid-connected households pay. In addition solar rentals in Brazil are smart business, rentals are not subject to Brazil’s mind numbingly huge sales tax that adds more than 50% to the cost of a purchase.
I think Soluz used to do something similar in the Dominican Republic.
MARS is a lighter-than-air tethered wind turbine that rotates about a horizontal axis in response to wind, generating electrical energy. This electrical energy is transferred down the 1000-foot tether for immediate use, or to a set of batteries for later use, or to the power grid. Helium sustains MARS and allows it to ascend to a higher altitude than traditional wind turbines. MARS captures the energy available in the 600 to 1000-foot low level and nocturnal jet streams that exist almost everywhere. MARS rotation also generates the “Magnus effect” which provides additional lift, keeps the MARS stabilized, and positions it within a very controlled and restricted location to adhere to FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) & Transport Canada guidelines.
Clayton County wastewater and storm water runoff are diverted to a series of man-made, wetland ponds and channels that eventually feed two small reservoirs. Afterward, naturally polished wastewater can be withdrawn for human consumption via the existing potable water treatment and distribution system.
Starting today, the Orange County Water District will put into operation the world’s largest sewer water treatment plant for reclaiming drinking water. The $481 million groundwater replenishment system will supplement the Southern California county’s potable water by processing some 70 million gallons of municipal sewage each day through the use of reverse osmosis, which involves forcing water through a semipermeable membrane to remove solutes
During peak performance, the Aluetia E1 consumes just 8W of power, 4% of what a typical (200W) desktop uses. Runs off a car battery or a cheap solar panel.
The MAKE:it - Electronic Makers Toolkit ($99). Hand picked by our Makers this kit features everything you need to get started with electronic construction. When people ask me how to get started and what tools to get when learning electronics this is the way to go.
The recent Cosco Busan oil spill in the San Francisco Bay may have just met its match in an eco-cleaning solution that uses human hair and mushrooms! A group of intrepid volunteers has embarked on a project to clean up oil at San Francisco’s beaches using an unusual, yet totally organic, method of waste removal: hair mats and mushrooms.
Cooking fuel doesn’t seem like much to ask for, but an estimated 2.4 billion people worldwide struggle to find it. Consider Haiti, where 700 tons of wood is burned annually, and smoke from thousands of charcoal fires has led to widespread respiratory infections. “Propane is not accessible, and electricity is not affordable,” says Haitian native Jules Walter. “These people do not have any alternative.”
That’s why Walter has started a company called Bagazo to sell low-cost charcoal briquettes made from plant waste to his countrymen. Bagazo is Spanish for “bagasse,” or sugar cane waste, but corn cobs and banana leaves can also be used in Walter’s process.
An underground rice and vegetable field has been planted beneath an office building in Tokyo’s Otemachi business district. This urban farm - in what used to be the vault of a major bank - is maintained using computer-controlled artificial light and temperature management. It was brought into being by a personnel company as a means of providing agricultural training to young people who are having trouble finding employment and middle-aged people in search of a second career.
Tank-less water heaters, common in Europe and Asia, are an efficient alternative to the conventional tank heaters. Since they don’t heat your water until the hot water knob is turned on, they use much less energy, and they produce continuous hot water on demand. That said, there are a few shortcomings differences that you need to be aware of before you invest in one of these contraptions.
