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.
Looking for an eco-friendly and convenient alternative to charging your cell phone, camera, or laptop? The Brunton SolarRoll beats out solar-powered bags and backpacks and, certainly, the hassle of trying to find an electrical outlet when you’re traveling with mobile devices in tow. All you need is a little sunlight, and you can easily charge laptops, cell phones, cameras, and even car batteries!
Imagine you are one of the billion people on this planet who live with intermittent power. You may live in Baghdad, or more likely you live in one of the many Squatter Cities where power is bootlegged or in short supply.
When your lights go out, which is every night, you get out your trusty kerosene lamps and light your home with the most inefficient light source known to man. If you are like most of your neighbors you will spend $60.00 - $75.00 per year to keep your home from going dark.
The GaiaLux light is a new design I’ve entered in the NASA Create the Future Design Contest. It is a simple, inexpensive, sustainable alternative to kerosene lamps. The key components are a recycled cell phone charger, a set of rechargeable batteries, and very efficient LED lights. When power is available, it charges the batteries; when light is needed the batteries can provide up to 40 hours of continuous use.
On display at a recent alternative-car expo here, this is Titus’s second and latest rendering of a solar-powered car concept. It gets up to a fourth of its 60-mile capacity from 200 watts of roof-mounted solar panels.
Titus is among those entrepreneurs trying to create and market an affordable, renewable-energy vehicle – a step beyond gas-electric hybrids.
The ranks of potential buyers for such cars are growing by leaps and bounds, say many car-industry analysts. But don’t look for them on normal streets just yet, they add quickly. Limitations of batteries and solar panels – though lessening – are still issues, among others.
It looks like a tuktuk.
Related:Another up and coming electric vehicle
The Aptera, absurdly futuristic but pri-tayyyy!
Duration: 1min 49 sec
This was Kurt’s first time in the Aptera. As the lead ME, he designed the suspension and all things mechanical. We thought he was going to drive real slow and careful……as it was the only prototype! Instead, he starts tearin’ it up causing us to laugh uncontrollably. This particular prototype was VERY noisy due to the kind of drives system we were testing at the time and the fact that there was no soundproofing or wheel-pant panels installed.
Though it may sound primitive, it’s not. Building with earth is a venerable world tradition dating back at least 4,000 years, with the oldest surviving specimens found in the Middle East and South America and ending up today in places like Britain, France, USA, Peru, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, India, Morocco, Mali – the list goes on. In the Future of Mud: A Tale of Houses and Lives in Djenné, a documentary on the rich heritage of earth architecture in one town in Mali, Africa, one gets a true sense of love of craft combined with a love for the creative and integrative possibilities of earth.
If we told you there was a sustainable substitute for concrete you’d probably say rubbish!… and you would be right. The dream of a resource-saving, emissions-reducing replacement for concrete is becoming a reality in the form of BituBlock - made from post-consumer waste. Dr. John Forth of the University of Leeds is behind the revolutionary process that turns rubbish into a strong, less-energy intensive structural material that is poised to make concrete obsolete.
The U.S. Navy, taking inspiration from the legions of folks who scavenge used cooking oil from behind Chinese restaurants and fast food joints, have constructed a biodiesel processor for their Guantanamo base. This machine turns the cooking oil that the base produces into biodiesel, which is then be mixed with regular diesel fuel to create a blend. They use approximately 1,500 gallons of cooking oil a month, which previously had all been disposed of in the base’s landfill.
How do you get the most bang for your buck when it comes to water usage? In Israel you look for the drip.In a suburb of Tel Aviv, the municipality has started implementing a creative water-saving method: recycling air-conditioner unit dripwater for garden irrigation.
THERE are few international conferences these days at which delegates can hope to be presented with a souvenir ball of dried human faeces. Indeed the World Toilet Summit, which was convened in Delhi last week, may be the only one.
According to a new study, the coverage of solar water heaters in China will increase by 50% to more than 150 million square meters. The country accounts for more than half of the world’s solar-heated water consumption as well as for half of the world’s annual output of solar water heating systems. As of 2006, more than 200 million people benefited from the technology. In comparison, the United States has about one million residential and 200,000 commercial solar water-heating systems installed.
The Big Dig House by Single Speed Design is a testament to recycling. More than 600,000 pounds of material were recovered from the massive Boston transit project known as the Big Dig and were reused to make this 4,300 square foot house. Temporary road sections (formerly used as access ramps for a bridge), support beams that shored up a slurry wall, and other pieces were saved from being sent to a landfill and instead became the bones of this unique home
Collecting the heat in a southern exposure wall and using it to warm the air is a fairly simple and straightforward process.
The principle behind that project is the same idea behind SolarWall. Using a perforated steel wall cladding over the existing wall, air is drawn in through small openings across the surface and as the wall itself is heated by the sun. In addition, the system helps recapture some of the heat being lost through the outside wall of the building and helps to further warm the incoming air as well. The warmed air is driven by a fan into the building where it can be directly distributed or brought into the building’s heating and ventilation system as pre-conditioned air.
[Cold cathode fluorescent lamp (or CCFL)] contain half the mercury of conventional “hot cathode” fluorescents. They have a thinner tube diameter, which allows them to run cooler, and last up to four times as long (a lifespan of 25,000 hours). This means that the mercury is reduced by 85% over the life of a cold cathode bulb, because a regular CFL would have to be replaced three times during that period. Another big advantage of CCFLs is that they are fully dimmable, and “on/off” cycles do not shorten their life.
The community of 5,900 residents is receiving a cash injection of $2 million (20 million pesos) from Venustiano Carranza borough president Julio César Moreno to build gardens in schools and apartment buildings, install solar panels, and recycle wastes.
Alex sez, “My colleague Jer Faludi has put together a terrific overview of the recent advances in creating greener tech for server farms, which — since they make up about 1.5 percent of US energy consumption — are a major target for sustainable computing efforts.”
Harnessing wind power for use in residential applications has been a challenge, but a new breed of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) from Helix Wind offers a promising design that may change the way we do wind at home. The Helix Wind Savonious 2.0 uses a unique rotor capable of capturing omni-directional winds to provide quieter, kinder small wind power for your urban home.
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