Here is our video lecture for week 4:
Here is the text:
Video Transcript:
Greetings! Those of you who are
watching this from New York have just been through a terrible
environmental crisis – the disastrous impact of Hurricane Sandy on
the East Coast of the United States – and many of you are still
living through the difficulties of its aftermath.
When a disaster like this hits, even
those who are lucky enough to be spared immediate damage are often
impacted by the damage done to your local infrastructure. The chief
problems are usually connected with a sudden loss of electric power.
Since so many of the technologies we depend on themselves depend on
electricity, losing power can affect everything from refrigeration to
space heating, hot water, cooking, pumping gas and even flushing the
toilet. Most of us are dependent on electricity from 'the grid',
supplied by the municipality, and this dependence can put us in a bad
situation when a disaster makes it difficult for centralized power
companies to bring all of their customers back on line.
Disasters can also knock out gas lines
and break water pipes, stop delivery of food and other much needed
materials and cause break downs in waste removal services so that
sewage and garbage start creating nuisances and even the threat of
serious diseases.
Fortunately there are solutions to all
these problems that almost anybody can implement. Alternatives to
electric appliances abound, and for devices that do need electricity
there turn out to be an enormous range of technologies available for
producing your own electricity.
The real problem associated with
long-term coping with the effects of disasters is that we are almost
all connected to what we call de-centralized forms of
energy, water and waste disposal services. We rely on just a few
large power plants, a few main water reservoirs and purification
plants, just a few gas suppliers and a handful of water treatment
plants, landfills and garbage trucking services. When there is a
breakdown in services in just a few areas millions of customers are
affected. After a disaster like Hurricane Sandy our electric cables
and water and sewer pipes and our roads and highways all become what
I call "bridges to nowhere".
But what if we could decentralize all
this? What if we could provide every home and community with just
enough sustainable energy, water, food and waste disposal services
that nobody whose property wasn't directly destroyed by the disaster
would be in the dark and nobody would be without heat, water, food
and the ability to dispose of dangerous wastes?
Does this sound like a fantasy?
Actually it is a fairly easy to implement reality and one known by
communities all over the world. In fact it is so easy to create such
a system that if you were one of the people whose home or business
was spared the destruction of the hurricane but whose life was still
affected because of the blackouts and shortages and service
disruptions, you should get mad. Very mad. Because all of that
suffering was completely un-necessary.
In this week's lecture for our Mercy
College Environmental Psychology class I would like to explore what
my experiences over the past few decades in sustainable development
has taught me about existing technologies that can help us cope with
the aftermath of environmental and economic crises and maintain a
dignified quality of life while the larger system is being repaired.
I've listed technology elements in what my experience has suggested
is the best order of priority based on ease of set up and use.
So here they are -- the top
environmental technologies that anybody can create and install in
your own home and community.
'''A. Water Purification'''
Rationale: A human being can only
survive a few days without clean fresh water so in any program aimed
at sharing ideas for a better life dealing with water should probably
come first. In arid countries or during droughts, on the one hand,
and in the aftermath of water contaminating hurricanes or floods on
the other, clean potable water has particular value and simple
technologies to purify it are paramount.
'''DIY Technologies: The Schmutzdecke
Slow Sand Filter'''
There are some simple but effective
technologies for cleaning dirty fresh water; in Egypt my mentor
Professor Salah Arafa proved that in emergency situations exposure to
strong sunlight in a plastic water bottle for 5 hours could kill most
if not all pathogens in a water supply.
Additionally, relief workers in
Afghanistan have shown the effectiveness of low cost 'Schmutzdecke
Slow Sand Filters'. The name comes from the German word for "dirt-layer" and the technology, which we can build and
demonstrate anywhere, calls for a barrel with at least 70 cm of fine
sand and a standing layer of water 20 cm above it that gets
inoculated with local bacteria, protozoans, algae and other
micro-life forms which, over a three week period, set up a
microcosmic ecosystem. This “schmutzdecke' predates on any
pathogenic organisms in dirty water that is slowly trickled into the
vessel, and the subsequent passage of that water through the ionic
surfaces of the sand in the filter captures any residual bacteria
that might be present. What results is a fairly clean and usable
water source.
A recent study of the effectiveness of
Biological Slow Sand Filters in Haiti had this to say in its
conclusion:
"The Biosand Filters
effectiveness in removing microbial pathogens from the water was based on the E. coli colony counts from
the effluent. Eighty percent of the water out of the BSF had zero colonies in the sample,
17% tested between 1 and 10 colonies, while 3% were over 10 (cfu/100mL). Bacterial removal
in the filter averaged 98.5% overall (n=92)."
(http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CE8QFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffiles.meetup.com%2F1138608%2FSlow_Sand_Filter%25255B1%25255D.pdf&ei=v4iZUK3rMMv44QSGrIDACw&usg=AFQjCNGuS7IE_MYYSESSEbCl7QsTnW1LSA&sig2=lVwi-cTPnW3TGV70GOFD_w&cad=rja)
We could prepare several schmutzdecke
filters in our workshop for less than $200 (including water pump) and
demonstrate their construction and benefits; because it takes three
weeks for the microbiome to be established, production of high
quality water could not be demonstrated while I was there, but in
follow up discussions over the ensuing months we could monitor the
progress.
'''Professional Technologies: The Life
Saver Water Bottle and Jerry Can'''
"Life Saver Water Technology"
is a new nanotechnology based filtration system that requires on ly
hand pumping to produce pure water from any contaminated source. It
is being used in Haiti as the principle way of saving lives in clean
water scarce regions. Rather than shipping in expensive bottled
water, relief organization simply ship in the bottles which can
purify up to 6000 liters each before a cartridge must be replaced.
The marginal cost per liter of purified water drops to .03 Cents.
You can see a demonstration of it by
the inventor at a TED talk here:
http://youtu.be/rXepkIWPhFQ
One LIFESAVER® Jerrycan can provide
enough safe drinking water for a family of 4 for up to 5 years.
'''1, Life Saver Water Bottle'''
http://www.lifesaversystems.com/what-we-do/help-us-help-them
http://www.lifesaverusa.com/
1. Life Saver Water Bottle
http://www.lifesaverusa.com/product_p/lsb4hs.htm
Technical specs:
http://www.lifesaverusa.com/searchresults.asp?cat=1845
Cost: $249
I suggest we get at least two for
demonstration and demonstrate it as in the TED talk referenced above.
'''2. Life Saver Jerry Can'''
The Jerry Can version takes about 20
liters of contaminated water and can be used up to 10,000 liters
before the cartridge must be replaced. This is a great technology for
areas where wells have become contaminated. When I was a child my
father, as a journalist traveling to the north of Iraq through a
parched region, was so thirsty that he didn't heed the advice of his
Iraqi companions and ingested water from a dirty well. He contracted
Giardia amoebic dysentary that took a long time to treat. With the
Life Saver Jerry Can that well could now be used as a safe source of
drinking water.
I would bring in at least two of these
as well for demonstration.
Cost: $549.00
'''3. Treadle Pump: An effective human
powered water pump'''
Often potable or useful water exists
(sometimes in underground wells or aquifers, sometimes in rivers,
lakes or storage tanks) but cannot be accessed because there is no
power. Paul Polack, author of "Out of Poverty" and his
group at IDE (http://www.ideorg.org/OurTechnologies/TreadlePump.aspx)
designed what is known as the "Treadle Pump", a simple
device that is like a stair master that one treads on using the leg
muscles to pump water considerable distances. They are used all over
Africa and there are several local manufacturers. We built one for
training in Nigeria using PVC pipe and wood and they can be locally
made for less than $200.
Here is a music video I made to teach
how to build them in Nigeria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkcnSki9unk
We built them from these plans:
https://sites.google.com/site/treadlepump/buildyourowntreadlepump
'''B. LED lighting'''
When I worked for the Roseville
Electric Company in California with DiMassa Utility Consulting,
producing public service announcements about energy conservation and
renewables, we broadcast the saying, “You can't change people.
But you ''can ''change their light bulbs."
This slogan was combined with the
phrases, "Incandescent bulbs are heaters that give off light,
while compact fluorescent and LED bulbs are lights that give off
little heat."
Our job was to inform the public that
it would be difficult to rely on renewable energy so long as we were
using grossly inefficient and outdated technologies like incandescent
, halogen, and even sodium and mercury vapor pressure lamps. The new
energy efficient bulbs used between 70% and 90% less energy. Once a
customer had switched to new lighting it was easy to supply enough
electricity to the home or business without any loss of utility or
comfort.
For this reason the first thing we did
to protect consumers from power shortages and outages was to
encourage them to replace all of their light bulbs. One could easily
satisfy an entire household's lighting needs with a 200 Watt solar
panel once they were using CFL's and if they switched to LEDs a mere
100 Watt panel would suffice. The energy savings were tremendous. On
the other hand, customers who stayed with incandescent lighting were
often discouraged by the cost of solar electricity because they
needed as much as 5 to 7 times the number of panels just to satisfy
their lighting needs.
Now that both CFLs and LEDs are
available in warm glow color temperatures (3200 K as opposed to 5700
K for example) and in all sizes and for all fixtures, there is no
reason to waste energy just to provide light and no reason for
anybody to be ever plunged into darkness when municipal power goes
out. Even a battery backup charged by the grid (a UPS or Universal
Power Supply) can continue to keep a house lit for a day or two when
the grid goes down.
We would demonstrate the latest
lighting technologies in our Sustainable Systems Kit and explain
their pros and cons and use, and demonstrate how to keep the lights
on at all times though their use with a battery backup.
Cost: $13 per bulb, demonstrating of 6
different bulbs = $78, plus fixtures and plugs = $30, plus UPS
battery backup $100.
'''C. Tri-Fuel Generator'''
Rationale: We must be sensitive to the
experience and concerns of people in disaster situations who have
been dealing with power outages . As Dhia Baiee at the Iraqi Ministry
of Science and Technology, whom I will be conducting a workshop with
this spring says, "With 200 to 300 USD Iraqi people
would prefer buying small Chinese generator
which generate electrical power for different purposes instead
off building a 200 watt solar panel even though it is
noisy, pollutant, and has a very short live and
needs maintenance more frequently. This is how most Iraqis
think nowadays."
Indeed this is how most people around
the world think. We experienced this in Nigeria and Kenya as well. To
tackle this in a sustainable way we can take our cue from our
colleagues in Kenya who run their generators off of three different
fuels – biogas which they produce themselves from kitchen
scraps and human and animal manures, propane or methane from bottles
that they purchase at a very low price (the same bottles as used for
cooking and water heating) and, as a last resort, gasoline.
Converting any 4 stroke engine to run
on biogas or natural gas or propane is a simple matter that takes as
little as 20 minutes and can be demonstrated in our workshop. It
doesn't alter the engine – it involves a simple bolt on
Tri-fuel adaptor kit that then makes the generator into a hybrid that
can use gaseous fuels as well as petrol with the simple flick of a
valve. I've made several of these "conversions" and they
are very reliable. We can convert a small (6.5 hp) engine and a
larger genset (11 HP) showing that this is a preferred option for all
users of generators giving complete flexibility of fuel choice when
there are shortages of any single fuel. The generators themselves can
come from the local market; eventually the adapters could be
manufactured by local communities themselves as they are quite
simple.
Materials needed:
Standard 4 stroke gen-set, between 2
and 5 KW (household sizes 6.5 HP and 11 HP).
Generator costs: Dependent on market
but roughly $200 for the smaller and $300 for the larger
Tri-fuel adaptor kit.
http://www.propane-generators.com/order_page.htm
http://www.propane-generators.com/images/C-D.JPG
http://www.tri-fuel-generator.com/
Generator Cost: See local market prices
but somewhere around $300
Kit cost: $200 (I recommend two kits,
one for each sized generator, to show the range of possibilities =
$400).
'''D. Biogas systems: 'From effluents
to affluence'.'''
The slogan "From Effluents to
Affluents" comes from US Embassy official Frank Finver in
Baghdad who has seen the effects of a similar program of "trainer
of trainers" that we worked on together in Palestine and
Israel. Biogas systems take waste materials – effluents from
kitchens, cafeterias, animal stalls, toilets, slaughterhouses, food
processing factories etc. - and turn them into value added products
(combustible methane for transportation, nutrient rich soil
amendments, heat and electricity). They are simple to construct and
operate and require very little maintenance and far from creating any
hazards or pollutants they solve many pollution and contamination
problems.
We like to put Biogas Digesters at the
center of our systems integration efforts because they provide the
only truly inexhaustible source of solar energy for use 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, come rain or shine, light or
dark, hot or cold. Their products are infinitely storable (CH4 and
nutrient rich solutions) and have a useful lifetime that exceeds the
time we humans have been on earth. It is the only technology
available to all human communities everywhere without the need to
import any extrinsic materials and the only technology that can be
created in areas ranging from the most primitive to the most advanced
since it simply relies on some kind of storage, ubiquitous waste
materials that no living community can ever run out of and bacteria
found in our own guts and those of any animal. Around a working
biogas system providing base line energy and nutrients for food
production one can then build up other systems – solar, wind,
geothermal, fuel cell, tidal or wave power, mirohydro etc., but
whenever any of those other systems experiences a shortage or
problem, biogas will keep on producing.
We consider biogas systems the "low-hanging" fruit in any sustainability effort. They
may not be the most well-known but they are certainly the simplest
and most effective of all environmental improvement technologies.
Biogas digestors provide the "biggest bang for the development
buck" so to speak. They can be constructed out of local
materials everywhere in the world and can be scaled down or up in
size depending on the application. Effective and useful biodigestors
can be built very inexpensively with low tech materials so they can
be considered an 'appropriate technology' appropriate for
rural villages and urban high rises, appropriate for placement in
basements, on porches and roofs, in backyards, in homes and gardens,
in schools and institutions, appropriate for the poor and the rich
and everyone in between. Following the lead of countries like Germany
and Sweden they can also be built at a high technical level, as part
of a distributed network of energy and fertilizer production and as
part of regional CHP (Combined heat and power) programs and district
heating and lighting.
Biodigestors produce methane gas that
can be used locally, in homes and institutional kitchens for
smoke-free cooking, to heat bathing water or for space heating, or to
run gas refrigeration or lighting. It can also be used locally to
generate electricity through simple conversions of existing gensets.
Compressed, it can be used to run automobiles, buses and trucks.
Biogas from larger installations can be
integrated into the existing natural gas grid infrastructure or, as
in Germany, used to generate electricity and hot water that are fed
into the national electric and hot water grids, all while producing a
valuable and saleable fertilizer end product.
Biogas disgesters are basically just
sealed tanks of water filled initially with animal manure. Once they
start producing flammable methane they can be fed almost any organic
material to continue producing useful gas and fertilizer
indefinitely. Ground up food scraps from kitchen garbage turns out to
be the simplest and most energy rich feedstock and use of cafeteria
and kitchen waste not only solves energy problems reliably as the
garbage is transformed into a non-polluting odor free gas, it also
eliminates dangerous waste management, health and pollution problems.
There are many designs on the market
today and once workshop participants understand the basic engineering
and operation of a simple biogas system they can go on to create ever
more sophisticated and powerful systems; biogas engineers in America,
Europe and Africa, for example, have transformed waste water
treatment plants into sources of municipal electricity and heat and
suppliers of transportation fuel and they have transformed household
septic tanks into biodigestors that turn not just kitchen wastes but
toilet wastes as well into reliable sources of energy and soil
amendment.
Our proposal for a hands on Mercy
Sustainability Center is to start by demonstrating how easy it is to
build two low cost systems made from local materials, and then
provide instruction for how to use two professional systems that can
be scaled up.
'''1. Hand-made
systems'''
'''a. ARTI India Floating Drum type
made from local water tanks.'''
'''b. Solar CITIES sealed digestor from
recycled IBC tank.'''
The ARTI India systems, invented by
Anand Karve of the Appropriate Rural Technology Institute in Pune,
make use of two fairly low cost Polypropylene water tanks – a
2000 liter tank with its top cut off for the base digestor and a 1800
liter tank with holes cut into its top and inverted into the 2000
liter tank acting as a floating drum gas collector. A feed pipe goes
to the bottom of the base tank and a fertilizer oveflow pipe comes
out the top rim of the base tank. A small valved pipe at the highest
point of the gas collector tank carries gas to the kitchen stove or
generator. Bricks or other weights can be placed on top of the gas
collector to push the gas to distant locations if necessary.
We've built these systems and trained
people in their construction in the slums of Cairo, and Nairobi, at
universities and schools in Jerusalem and Palestine and in rural
areas in the Middle East and Africa.
The cost depends entirely on the market
prices of water tanks and plumbing supplies. In areas where these can
be obtained cheaply, like Cairo, a simple 4 to 6 person family system
producing approximately 2 hours of cooking gas every day from the
previous days kitchen garbage can be built for as little as $200. In
more remote areas the costs increase as tank prices and transport
costs increase. We've never had to spend more than $750 on a system
however.
To add to the reliability of the
systems and make it possible to use them in cold climates or indoors,
Solar CITIES has developed a version that uses the ubiquitous 1000
liter IBC Tote tanks that are shipped around the world on pallets. We
buy these recycled for about $125 dollars in most places and have
built them in the Middle East and Africa as well as the US, Alaska,
Germany, Hungary and Slovakia – the materials are found
everywhere in the world.
In many cases the materials to build
both the ARTI and Solar CITIES IBC systems can be obtained free of
charge. Since all the parts can be sourced locally this is the most
effective of all technologies for solving energy, waste, water and
fertilizer challenges.
We like to demonstrate how the Solar
CITIES and ARTI systems function together, with the insulated IBC
producing the bulk of the gas and the open air ARTI system both
producing and storing the gas from both tanks for use. This way the
system can work all year round.
Total cost: $200 to $750 dollars
'''2. Professional Market Ready
Systems:'''
While India may be the leader in home
scale biogas system (often called "Gobar Gas" , with
many urban markets selling various designs and sizes in addition to a
robust do-it-yourself household biogas market, and while Nepal can be
credited as having one of the most robust government sponsored rural
biogas programs (seconded perhaps by Rwanda), China, also a key
player in the household scale biogas market, is without doubt the
leader in market ready institutional sized biogas systems. When we
were in the Philippines we introduced two of their products to the
government and NGO world there and we would like to introduce these
systems to Mercy College as well:
'''a. Puxin 2.5m3 fiberglass system for
single family '''
'''b. Puxin 10m3 steel mold
multi-family, community or institutional system for use with local
cement'''
The single family fiberglass biogas
system produces 3 to 4 hours of cooking gas a day from kitchen wastes
like the do it yourself systems, but it comes prefabricated and can
be set up in less than a half an hour. It resembles a typical septic
tank but has been modified to accommodate daily feeding of any
organic wastes and comes with a balance of system for capturing the
gas (a large storage bag)
'''3. Food waste grinder as key
technological component'''
Since a biogas digester is basically an
artificial "sacred cow" producing the same methane and
fertilizer that a cow does when it eats, the best way to maximize the
efficiency of a biogas digester is through "biomimicry".
What cows and other animals have that enables them to digest food and
produce gases and fertilizer is jaws and teeth which break food down
to a size where it can be rapidly decomposed, hydrolyzed and
fermented by the bacteria in the stomach and intestines.
In countries like India and Kenya and
Tanzania people often run biodigesters by breaking the food wastes
down by hand (in India women will put food waste into a pail of water
in the sun and let it soften and then crush it with their hands and
then pour it into the digester; in Tanzania they will put the food
waste in a large wooden mortar and pestle used to pound and grind
cassava and will smash it with water and then pour it in the
digestor).
We have found dramatic improvements in
the rate and quantity of gas production using so-called "garbage
disposals" or "food-waste grinders" such as the
Insinkerator brand waste disposal machine. Retailing for between $90
and $500 depending on grind strength, these machines, now dubbed "feedstock preparation devices", can grind up literally all a
household's organic waste, from corn cobs to fish bones and chicken
bones and beef bones, and turn it into a slurry that then can turn
into combustible biogas in as little as 24 hours. The food scrap
grinders use very little electricity (300 Watts for about 5 or 10
minutes a day) and can be powered with a fraction of the energy the
biogas they help produce creates (from a family of 4 to 6 people
enough gas is produced from their garbage each day to run a generator
for 45 minutes on average; we can sacrifice 5 to 10 minutes for
powering the grinder and still have a substantial net energy gain.).
The grinders also consume very little water and used dish washing
water can be used so there is no net water loss. Since the slurry
that comes out of the biodigester is a great liquid fertilizer, using
dish washing water to run the insinkerator or other food grinder
actually turns it into nutrients for irrigation of garden or farm,
increasing the sustainability of homes in arid regions.
Cost of food grinder: We would use two
for demonstration, a $200 model and a $400 model, to show the
different feedstocks they can accommodate.
'''E. Solar Thermal Water Heating
Technologies:'''
Solar hot water heaters are another one
of the "low hanging fruit". In fact we started our work
in the slums of Darb Al Ahmar, Cairo and the informal Zabaleen
communities of Manshiyet Nasser, Cairo, inventing ways with the local
community craftspeople to make our own low cost solar hot water
heaters because it was so simple and effective. Once we had traveled
to India and learned how to make biogas digesters we shifted our
focus because the biogas systems were so much simpler and flexible,
but we believe very much in solar hot water and in fact build solar
hot water systems to complement our biogas systems. We use the free
and reliable solar hot water to bath with and wash clothes and dishes
and discharge the soapy hot water after home use into the biodigester
to keep it warm and thus highly productive no matter what the weather
conditions are, and to allow the soaps in the waste water to be
transformed into biogas and nutrients for gardens and farms. In
effect the solar hot water becomes the first stage of a grey water
system that makes waste water a benefit rather than a liability.
Flate plate solar hot water heaters
have been in use for more than a hundred years (since float glass was
invented) and are robust and easy to construct. They generally heat
water to temperatures of 50 C or more even when self built; a two
panel system can easily heat 200 liters of water for bathing every
day.
Our recommendation is to train our
student trainers of trainers to build a simple single or double panel
solar hot water system from easily found and recycled local materials
so they can learn all the principles of water thermodynamics and
passive thermosiphoning and heat transfer and storage. Then we
propose showing them the new German-invented/Chinese manufactured
vacuum tube systems and compare.
Vacuum tube solar hot water systems
come in two varieties – the inexpensive open loop tubes
(double walled glass tubes with an light absorbing pigment embedded
in the glass) and "heat tube systems" that have a copper
pipe with metal absorbed plates housed in double walled glass tubes.
Both can achieve temperatures in excess of the boiling point (I've
seen ours in Germany get up to 110 C) and therefore a small and
inexpensive system can heat a large volume of water for bathing or
can preheat it for cooking. In our applications we use the vacuum
tube system to produce the hot water we put on the stove and then get
it up to boiling with a fraction of the biogas we would otherwise
use.
Producing the vacuum tubes requires a
dedicated factory and is not easy for the do it yourselfer. It would
not be hard for entrepreneurs in New York to start their own vacuum
tube solar operation but it requires a capital investment. However
once one has the tubes the assembly of the system (tank and plumbing)
is trivial and can be done in less than an hour. We would show
workshop participants the assembly of the two types of popular
systems and review their advantages and disadvantages (open loop
system cost half to one third as much as heat tube systems but if one
pipe breaks the system cannot be used until it is replaced; heat pipe
closed loop systems cost much more but the breakage of any of the
pipes does not dramatically affect system performance.)
Workshop participants will be able to
compare the temperatures achieved from flat plate and vacuum tube
systems and a discussion of the use of vacuum tube systems for solar
air conditioning systems will also be led (California's Audubon
Center in Debs Park Los Angeles has a solar powered air conditioning
system that we have visited. The inventor, Les Hamasaki, is a
friend.)
One point about solar hot water from
our experience in Cairo while flat panel collectors are easy
to build and can be done locally, the mass manufacturing of vacuum
tube systems has brought the price down so low, and the efficiency is
so high, that we no longer recommend people purchase flat plate
systems any more. It makes much more sense to do what we did in Egypt
– train people on flat plate systems so they understand the
principles behind solar thermal energy and can always build their own
if they need to (I've built one out of an old radiator on my porch to
complement the professional heat pipe system I have on my roof), but
start a market for vacuum tube systems for all serious installations.
'''a. Hand-made flat-panel solar hot
water collector'''
Materials:
Copper Pipe, Wood or aluminum for panel
box, plate glass, plumbing fittings, 200 liter plastic water barrels,
polypropylene pipe, polypropylene heat welder.
Cost: Roughly $500 (for a two panel
system) depending on local market prices.
'''b. Open tube vacuum tube solar hot
water system, for demonstration of ease of set up and installation'''
Cost: $200 to $300
'''c. Heat-pipe vacuum tube solar hot
water system, for demonstration of ease of set up and installation'''
Cost: $600 to $800
'''F. Solar Electric Technologies:'''
I've explained the rationale for this
part of the training and traveling technology show in another
document. Since photovoltaics plays and important role in the energy
mix of all countries these days, students would benefit from a
thorough understanding of how they are made and function in the
systems integration portfolio.
Besides teaching our trainers the
theory of the photoelectric effect (for which Einstein won his Nobel
Prize) and how to assemble solar panels from silicon cells, we will
focus on the "balance of system" how to build a
charge controller and an inverter, and how to effectively use the
batteries.
This "balance of system"
training is applicable not just to solar energy, but to all forms of
distributed energy and emergency energy management. Whether one is
relying on solar electricity, wind electricity, hydroelectricity,
biogas generated electricity, or backup generator electricity made
from fossil fuels, the storage of that energy in batteries and its
regulation and use is critical to success. We had an experience with
a Guatemalan street vendor in a rainforest village who would haul her
generator out to the side of the road every night and fire it up just
to light a single incandescent light bulb so people could see what
she was selling. The generator made so much noise she couldn't hear
her clients and so much smoke it was hard to breathe; the smoke and
noise discouraged people from enjoying her business. We suggested
that instead she use the generator to charge a 30 or 40 amp hour
battery and use it to run a CFL light silently for the 6 hours she
was selling at night.
Since all rechargeable battery systems,
especially those used for emergency power, require both a charge
controller (to automatically charge the batteries and prevent damage
from overcharging and discharging) and an inverter (to turn the DC
power they put out into useful AC power for lights and appliances),
teaching trainers of trainers how to build and use these parts of the
system would have application to any form of stored electrical
energy, including the generators that people currently use, to
maximize their fuel efficiency and utility.
We propose teaching how to make a
charge controller and an inverter from simple components as they do
at Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajastan India. Bunker Roy, the
founder of Barefoot College, teaches illiterate women between 35 and
55 years of age from villages around the world how to assemble these
critical pieces of technology and told me when I visited him that we
can best empower people when we give them an understanding of what's
inside things so they can build and repair them themselves. His
program shows that everybody can learn this form of electronics
assembly successfully, even if, or especially if, they haven't had
formal education.
In addition to teaching the creation of
balance of system for battery charging, storage and inversion, and
the creation of solar panels, we would demonstrate the main forms of
solar electric generation on the market today.
'''1. Hand-made PV panel and system
from components'''.
'''2. Market ready solar solution:
Polycrystalline'''
'''3. Market ready solar solution:
Monocrystalline'''
'''4. Market ready solar solution: Thin
film amorphous triple junction'''
'''5. Market ready solar solution:
Foldable CIGS cell panel'''
'''G. Bicycle Generator Power'''
Bicycle Generators use the same
principles as wind generators, hydroelectric generators and fossil
fuel burning generators. In all cases a magnetic stator and rotor
system is used, magnets are caused to spin around copper coils (or
vice versa) and electricity results. How the rotor in spun is
irrelevant, as long as it spins we generate electricity. A generator
can be spun by a crankshaft pushed by pistons moved by the burning of
gaseous or liquid fuels, it can be spun by the action of wind on
blades and propellers, or by the action of water on a Pelton Wheel or
Harris Turbine, by a hand crank or by the action of human legs on
pedals using a bicycle.
A human being riding on a bicycle
generator can generate 75 Watts of continuous energy with bursts up
to 150 Watts. Most people can generate the 75 watts for an hour,
storing it in a battery. This can complement all other energy
generation systems and can get people through an emergency. An hour's
pedaling can run an eleven watt light-bulb for 6 hours.
Once people are trained in the use of a
bicycle generator they can apply this knowledge to all other forms of
rotary electrical generation. My first exposure to this principle
came from an acrobat in the Egyptian Circus in 1982 who took me to
his home in Darb Al Ahmar, Old Cairo for dinner. When the electricity
went out, as it frequently did, he generated power for our lights
using a pedal powered sewing machine that he had modified to generate
electricity and charge a car battery. Once the principle is known
there are many ways to create the required electricity for a
dignified life.
There are two kinds of bicycle
generator that I use. One consists of a frame upon which a standard
bicycle can be easily mounted. The user takes only a minute or two to
afix the bicycle and then pedals to charge the batteries. They can
then take the bicycle off the mount and use it normally for
transportation. They can even bring the generator, which is about the
size of a fist, with them and pedal to friends homes and then charge
their friends batteries as a service in times of power outage.
The other system is a dedicated
recumbent type that sits on the floor. I used to sit in front of my
13 inch television in an easy chair and pedal to power it.
Cost for Windstream Bike Power
Generator: $595.00 (uses normal bicycle; can be hooked to the same
battery systems we will be demonstrating for solar energy).
http://www.windstreampower.com/Bike_Power_Generator.php
http://www.gizmag.com/the-pedal-a-watt-stationary-bike-power-generator-create-energy-and-get-fit/13433/
Cost for recumbent Bicycle generator "Human Power Generator" with optional Hand Cranks:
$550.00 + 35.00 = $585.00
http://www.windstreampower.com/Human_Power_Generator.php
http://www.windstreampower.com/sp_Hand_Cranks.php
Cost of Portable Power Pack (Black and
Decker 12 V Electromate 400)Battery with built in charge controller
and inverter and cables; can be used with other renewable energy
systems too): $155.00
These type of portable power
packs are most often used to jump cars or run small appliances like
laptops, radios, lights or charge mobile phones etc.
The website says,
"If you are using the Human Power
Generator, it is likely that you will be charging the battery at an
average of 5 amperes. At this rate, it will take approximately 4
hours to fully charge the battery from flat. We recommend that the
battery is not allowed to be completely drained and that the
generator is used to keep the battery topped up instead.
If you are using the Bike Power
Generator, it is likely that you will be charging at an average of
8-14 amperes. It will take approximately 2 hours to fully
charge the battery from flat. However, it is usually much
easier to "top up" the battery in intervals rather than
letting it discharge completely.
The power pack can also be plugged into
the AC wall socket and left to trickle charge overnight when
needed. This is a good idea every couple of months and this
will keep the battery in good health."
Many people use these systems as
backups in emergencies; I keep them plugged in the wall using
conventional power when it is available but able to be charged by
bicycle, solar, wind or biogas generator when conventional power goes
out.
Once student trainers see the
simplicity of building a bicycle generator they will know how to make
their own local variants. The module on making a DIY wind generator
will apply to making a DIY bicycle generator – essentially the
one we demonstrate for use with a normal bicycle will show that it is
simply a DC brushless motor with a shaft mounted over the wheel of
the bicycle. Quite simple to back engineer and replicate.
'''H. Wind power'''
Wind Power generators are almost
identical to Bicycle generators in principle but require no effort
from a human being after set-up. Brother's Engineering Group in
Palestine (Beit Sahour) have created self-built wind generators using
motors from washing machines and treadmills that were thrown away by
the Israelis, and cut the blades from discarded plastic sewer pipes.
An idea of how that is done can be
found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQfG9vLF2uc
Making a windmill is not that difficult
depending on where you want to start. Some people make their windmill
generators from scratch, mounting neodymium magnets on a rotor and
using self wound copper coils for the stator. Others, like Brothers
Engineering,, use existing motors and rewind them. Some people use
the same generators that are found on the bicycle generators but hook
them to a windmill. The book "The Boy who Harnessed the Wind"
talks about Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba who built a windmill
charger from bicycle pats and materials collected in a local
scrapyard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kamkwamba
In our workshop/demonstration facility
we would show how to put a simple windmill together as a DIY project,
then we would demonstrate the professional 200 Watt Chinook wind
generator that I installed in Nepal last year.
'''1. 100 W Hand-made wind generator,
using plans from Brother's Engineering in Palestine'''
http://www.brothers-group-eng.com/
Cost $300
2. Market Ready Solution: Chinook 200 W
windstation
http://www.air403windgenerators.com/chinook-wind-generator.html
Cost: $695.
'''I: Micro-Hydro Electric Generator
'''
A micro-hydro electric generator is
conceptually similar to a bicycle generator or a wind generator. The
only difference is that water pressure turns the rotor instead of
pedals or wind blades.
Many do-it-yourselfers take old
alternators from cars and rewind them for higher current production
relative to turning speed and then use spoons or cups to catch flow
from water jets to spin them. We will not be teaching how to do this
at this point but will demonstrate the use of professional models.
There are two general types of
micro-hydro generators on the market. The first is the Pelton Wheel
which is basically an alternator with a turbine shape that catches
water from nozzles to spin it. The most efficient kind is called a "Harris Turbine" and it works with heads as low as 25
feet giving between 25 and 230 watts given flow rates between 15 and
100 gallons per minute.
http://www.thesolar.biz/harris_hydro.htm
These can be placed in streams in
mountainous areas like Dahok, a village north of Mosul that I visited
with my grandfather as a child.
A Hi-Power, Low Voltage HydroElectric
Generator 150 W (Harris Turbine) can be ordered from
http://www.backwoodssolar.com/catalog/hydropower.htm
Cost: $1,600
The other type of micro-hydro
generator, often called a stream generator, is built
like a boat propeller. Rather than pushing the water as it turns, the
swiftly flowing water pushes the propeller and turns the dynamo. A 12
V 100 Watt Stream Generator water turbine can be purchased from
http://www.absak.com/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/33_89_90/products_id/3
Cost: $1,400
Essentially, once we've created
awareness of how rotary electric generation through dynamos can be
achieved, student trainers of trainers will see the enormous
opportunities for capturing energy from a plethora of sources all
while using a plethora of materials. What is most important is
demonstrating the feasibility of all these options and showing that
any motor is a backwards generator and vice-versa, teaching the
principles of conversion (rewinding standard motors and alternators
so they can produce electricity at lower torques, and understanding
the differences between AC and DC generators, and brushed and
brush-less motors).
'''J: Composting Toilet'''
Due to cultural fecophobia
in many countries, we often do not talk about composting toilets and
the elegant solution they provide to avoiding a host of dangerous
water-borne diseases (cholera, typhoid, dysentary) and creating
fertile soil for desertified regions. China is one of the few areas
where this topic is not met with any resistence; fortunately the US,
Canada, Australia, South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique and Brunei have
begun implementing compost toilet systems in a huge number of public
settings, particularly in national parks where contamination of water
bodies by tourists could have devastating effects on the wildlife as
well as in urban slums where diseases from inadequate water
sanitation has claimed to many lives.
It is agreed that anaerobic biogas
digestors are actually a superior way to deal with fecal material as
they not only render it into harmless liquid fertilizer, but produce
energy at the same time. For this reason many international agencies
build public toilet biogas facilities like the one we visited in the
Makuru slum in Nairobi which earns money both from patrons who pay to
use the toilets and from the cooking gas they pipe in and sell to the
adjacent restaurant. But aerobic composting of fecal material, such
as is done at the Mukuru Art Center and school, is also a viable
option. At the school they use sawdust or wood ash to add carbon to
and cover the human waste and have used the resulting compost to
create a lush garden of flowers and edible fruit trees for the
students.
A fellow National Geographic Emerging
Explorer, Feliciano dos Santos, trains people to build compost
toilets all over his native Mozambique and sings songs about it in
festivals. His observation, endorsed by health workers, is that the
mere act of covering one's toilet waste with sawdust or ash forces
people to want to wash their hands, while using a water toilet and
toilet paper only gives the illusion that the hands are clean and
often transmits diseases. Thus the use of compost toilets, besides
conserving fresh water and preventing contamination of water supplies
(because they use no water) radically lowers the incidence of hand to
mouth and hand to food disease transmission. Furthermore, in water
scarce areas it is considered now a crime to use expensive pure fresh
drinking quality water merely to flush feces down a sewer pipe.
Advanced wet toilets use recycled grey water for flushing, and even
more advanced wet toilets port the effluent to biodigestors, but
compost toilets eliminate the use of all water. At the Kibbutz Lotan
eco-village in Israel we have observed a very clean and aesthetically
attractive multiple stall compost toilet facility that is creating
agricultural land out of desert.
Compost toilets can easily be built at
a very low cost (I made my own for an apartment I lived in in Los
Angeles for disaster preparedness and drought contingency that worked
well for the three years I lived there); the 5 gallon bucket system
has been made famous by Joseph Jenkins in his book "The
Humanure Handbook"
http://humanurehandbook.com/.
I used this
to build them for an urban slum and rural village in Guatemala and
when working with the Arco-Iris Eco-Caravana in Quitos Ecuador .
Professional models, like the Sun-Mar
or Clivus Multrum, which are very effective, can be purchased at
http://www.sun-mar.com/prod.html
'''Cost: $1,595.00'''
'''K. Fuel Cell Introduction'''
Fuel Cells are the technology of the
future. Some, called unitary regenerative fuel cells, can on water by
using renewable electricity sources to electrolyze the water into
hydrogen and oxygen for storage and then recombining the H2 and 0 to
create water again while liberating heat and electricity. In a sense
these fuel cells, usually PEM or "Proton Exchange Membrane"
cells, are "water batteries" that store intermittently
produced electrical energy temporarily for later use. They run at
normal temperatures and pressures.
Other kinds of fuel cells, such as the
Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, run at high temperatures and can be used with
fossil fuels or biogas (we've scene them in operation using natural
gas bottles to power a refrigeration at a supermarket in San Diego),
and at least one fuel cell type, a copper-cerium based fuel cell
called the Franklin Fuel Cell, runs on diesel fuel and other
hydrocarbons without reforming.
Fuel cells, which are used on the space
station, have been around since the mid-1800s but have always been
very expensive. Nonetheless their high efficiency relative to the low
Carnot efficiencies obtained through combustion, makes them very
attractive.
Our intent here would be to introduce
the fuel cell concept to our trainers of trainers. In the early 2000s
I took small 1 W fuel cells to Lebanon, Egypt and Syria to
demonstrate. These were unitary regenerative types running on water
that we lysed using either a small solar panel or a small hand
generator. They either ran a small fan, a light, or a model car.
In addition to small kits that exhibit
the principles, there is now a useful 30 Watt Fuel Cell Stack Kit
that is on the market.
Our intent would be to use these to
give students a headstart in the growing fuel cell innovation path
and market.
We would also demonstrate the
generation of hydrogen from waste aluminum foil or aluminum cans and
wood ash based lye (KOH). Lye, a strong base, can be produced from
used charcoal mixed with water, and given the abundance of charcoal
that goes to waste every summer in barbecues, we can demonstrate how
easy it would be for people to produce their own Potassium Hydroxide
for free from this wasted resource while generating useful heat. Once
we have KOH it will react with scrap aluminum from the garbage to
produce temperatures as high as 70 C while evolving hydrogen gas
which can be used ultimately with fuel cells or in combustion
engines.
Fuel Cell Kit H30 30 Watt Fuel Cell
Stack Cost: $857.00
Tutorial RFC (Regenerative Fuel Cell)
Set; $319.61
Intelligent Fuel Cell Model Car Lab:
$55.00
'''L: Aquaponics Introduction'''
Adequate protein is a grave concern all
over the world and obtaining it in a crisis when food supply lines
may be cut makes it acute. Aquaponics provides the simplest way to
grow adequate protein for a family or community. When staying with
former Nigerian President Oluwasegun Obasanjo in his home two years
ago working on community biogas training, he took me to see his
aquaponics projects. The growth of the African cichlid fish "Tilapia" for market has been well established through
aquaponic systems.
Aquaponic systems use artificial ponds
or plastic tanks to grow edible fish which feed on algae that grow
with sunlight. As the fish foul their water with their own feces a
pump pumps the water to a raised bed of gravel which is planted with
small pots containing vegetables. The vegetables roots consume the
fish waste turning it into edible food and cleaning the water. The
clean water flows back to the fish tank and the process starts again.
The Aga Khan Trust for Culture
experimented positively with such a system on roofs we were working
on in Old Cairo. High yields of both fish and vegetables can be
obtained from a properly maintained system with no additional inputs
other than sunlight, electric power for the pumps (provided by
renewable energy) and additional water to compensate for evaporative
losses.
DIY systems are not hard to construct.
Professional Systems like the "Fantastically Fun Fresh Food Factory" from
http://store.aquaponics.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=74&product_id=302
cost $3,320.00.
'''Conclusion:'''
'''Total Material Cost without Full
Shipping, Handling and Customs/VAT/Import Duties and local labor:'''
'''$45,000'''
'''Materials/Equipment Budget Requested
to cover everything: $60,000 (not including instructor salary,
transportation and food and lodging).'''
There are many more systems out there
that have been developed to help humanity cope in a sustainable
fashion with the existential demands of guaranteeing fresh, clean
water, food, energy and waste treatment for a growing population. New
ones are being innovated and developed every day. The ones I've
listed would, in my experience and opinion, be the best suite of
sustainability options to introduce to Sustainability students,
providing a fairly complete range of complementary technologies. It
is believed that a permanent but mobile and ever evolving exhibit of
these technologies, with the proper training workshops and follow up,
equipped with the right manuals and educational materials, would
jumpstart students into a high gear motion toward not just
implementation but innovation and social entrepreneurship, not only
safeguarding her precious people but creating new opportunities at
home and abroad for leadership in creating a fertile and lasting
civilization.
When I lived in Iraq in the late 1980s,
my neighbor Ali Hazim, whose father ran an construction engineering
company in Baghdad, astounded me by showing me computers he had built
and programmed himself from available parts in what was then a very
constrained market. He said, "you will see the genius of our
people. War has hurt us, but we have always been clever and
resourceful and we know how to put things together when things are
scarce. We will not fall behind, we can leapfrog with technology once
we have access to the right materials and designs. Ihna Shatreen!"
They say that necessity is the mother
of invention. But we don't have to go through more disasters in New
York to help our students develop their inventive capabilities.
Buckminster Fuller said, "Everyone is born a genius, but the
process of living de-geniuses them." We can RE-genius students
at Mercy College. It is my hope and belief that we can call on their
American can do spirit to stimulate and liberate that native genius
in the fields of science and technology that is the birthright of
every citizen through a sustained commitment to this sustainable
development center at Mercy College.
