Solar as a Cottage Industry

Richard Komp (sunwatt@juno.com) has been building solar cottage industries in Nicaragua, Niger, Peru, Mali, Rwanda, Pakistan, Mexico, Haiti, India, and Mexico for the last few decades. He teaches people how to build small solar electric systems using factory second photovoltaic cells and assembling them into collector arrays themselves.

Here's a video of his 2009 Pakistan project


One of his latest projects is in Colombia (http://www.mainesolar.org/Colombia2011.pdf PDF alert) at the Universitaria de Investigacion y Desarillo (UDi) in Bucaramanga and uses solar to make more solar: solar cookers are used to encapsulate solar electric panels using ethylene-vinyl-acetate (EVA) instead of silicone. The EVA cures at a temperature near the boiling point of water and the students built two solar cookers big enough to fit 65 watt PV modules. 24 students in one week made six 65 watt PV modules and about 8 solar cell phone chargers, besides studying the design of several different PV systems. One of the solar cookers ended up in a restaurant on the beach while the second was used for making PV modules. "There is about $90 worth of materials in each big cooker," writes Komp.

Komp also gave lectures on solar thermal systems, including solar air conditioning, relevant as the UDi is designing a zero energy addition to their campus, a building where all the electricity, hot water, and air conditioning will be 100% solar powered.

"We designed a lithium bromide absorption air conditioner that ran from heat from an array of 150 evacuated solar water heater tubes. The only electricity the air conditioner will need is to run the pumps and fans since the heat furnishes all the energy needed to produce the chilled water, which will be stored in large insulated tanks for use when cooling is need[ed] at night or cloudy days. All the hot water needed (and then some) will be from the waste heat from the air conditioner system. ($100,000+ in costs)"

Part 1 of Richard Komp's 10 part introduction to photovoltaics series.

http://www.mainesolar.org/Komp.html - reports on Richard Komp's various international projects

Richard is not the only person taking factory seconds to the developing world to make local solar devices locally. Here's a BBC story (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15876602) on making solar cell phone and battery chargers in Kenya through Mark Kragh and KnowYourPlanet (http://www.knowyourplanet.com).

Richard is also not the only person using solar to make more solar as this article about an industrial solar furnace for PV manufacture points out
http://inhabitat.com/nrels-new-optical-furnace-bakes-more-efficient-solar-cells-using-50-less-energy/

Some 30 or more years ago, Solarex talked about building a solar breeder facility where the solar panels on the roof would provide the power to make the solar panels inside the factory. Unfortunately, Solarex never completed its project and no longer exists.

There are other cottage industries that can be built around solar besides solar electricity. Solar ovens have been used in African refugee camps for years now, supported by such institutions as German CARE (http://www.care.de/) and the Jewish World Service (http://www.jewishworldwatch.org/donate/solarcookerproject.html)

Here's a video on a solar cooker workshop held in Nyala, Sudan under the auspices of the Darfur Peace and Development Organization.



This video from German CARE is especially close to my heart because it shows a woman in one of the 3 international displaced person camps they run in Easten Chad using a solar oven and a "haybox" or retained heat cooker to prepare a meal.



The haybox is simply an insulated box into which you place a hot pot. The heat has nowhere to go but into the food. You can also use a stone as a heat reservoir: heat the stone, place it in the box with a pot of food, cook. It's an old, old technique updated with solar. I love these ancient solutions to common problems.

In Tanzania, Robert Lange has been working with the Maasai people adapting an efficient cookstove to their local needs (http://www.maasaistovessolar.org). They have established a small factory to produce them using local materials.

"Lange reports that, 'Our particulate and CO monitors show that the stoves cut indoor smoke by 90 percent. They also reduce the amount of wood use by 60 percent, thereby saving 12 to 15 hours a week of wood-gathering for the woman of each household.'

“'We are finding that householders are willing to pay for stoves if they know they will really save time and eliminate the smoke compromising their children’s health. Maasai typically have little cash but they have goats and cows. If they are able to see value in the stoves, they are ready to sell "a goat and a half" to purchase one. Referring to Lange as "Babu”, they affectionately call the stoves “Jiko ya babu” (Grandpa’s stove).'

"'The numbers also show the potential in business stimulation. The final cost for a stove is about $55. Of this, $10.40 goes to the local brick maker; cement and other building materials cost $8.50 at the local supplier; steel for custom parts is purchased for $12 from the Arusha steel merchants; transport of bricks and labor required to form the steel parts come to about $9.00. And the women’s team that makes the stoves in the homes, building them, maintaining them, and training the householder how to uses them, earns $14 per stove to be divided among team members.'"

Animation of stove design http://www.informmotion.biz/Maasai_stove_v2.html

This 5 gallon solar shower design is also ripe for a locally produced solar cottage industry
http://www.greendiary.com/solar-shower-affordable-solution-healthy-life.html

One of the best introductions to the variety of solar solutions being implemented around the world is The Renewable Revolution by Sajed Kamal. Sajed is another person who has been doing solar internationally for a number of decades. He lives in an apartment house in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston and practices what he preaches:

"It inspires me to look at the 46W stand-alone PV system we installed in our home in 1986. Sitting on the south-facing window sill of our fifth floor condominium unit in the Fenway, with the battery box placed inside and under the window, it has been supplying electricity for a room with two 15W fluorescent lights, a table lamp, a small table fan and a record player diligently and reliably, around the year, for over 20 years! All I had to do was to replace the set of two interconnected 6V, deep-cycle batteries twice. The room is also equipped with a variety of solar cookers - both home-made and factory-made - well-used over the years. The PV system also has the capacity to power our 'Tulsa Hybrid' solar cooker that can cook three ways, day and night, year-round: by direct sunlight, being plugged into the regular household current (110VAC), or by solar electricity from the PV system (12VDC converted to 110VAC through an inverter). Last but not least, the battery in our digital camera too, gets recharged by the PV system."

I know Richard Komp, Robert Lange, and Sajed Kamal personally and thus can say that their work is a labor of love, lasting over many years and now decades. Richard and Robert are always looking beyond their own pockets for support in what they do. You can contact them at their respective websites if you care to contribute.

Occupy Green

This idea may be moot after all the forced evictions of the Occupations from public spaces but I thought I'd share it anyway.

I've visited the Occupations in Wall Street, Boston, and Providence, RI. Every time I go to one of them, I try to connect with somebody about making the Occupation green with, as yet, little success. In New York, I saw the greywater treatment system Mobile Research Labs set up and talked to a couple of people about using some simple solar techniques. In Boston, I've tried to connect the winterization team with the student Energy Clubs at some of the local colleges and universities and alerted my own network of solar enthusiasts to Occupy Boston's efforts. I've also tried to do the same by contacting OWS's Sustainability Group. In Providence, I talked with the only occupier I saw up and around early on a Sunday morning. He was picking up trash around the park and was disappointed that the group hadn't organized themselves enough to do recycling. I gave him my card and my elevator pitch for a green occupation and he said he'd pass it on.

I look at the Occupations and see economic refugee camps and a possible test-bed for emergency response and sustainable economic development around the world. Some may say that's crazy but the links are there if you look.

Occupy Wall Street had the aforementioned greywater treatment system and bike generators in NYC built by Time's Up. In October, Greenpeace brought solar panels to the site (video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZI8WSM7O2w ). There was even a system for carrying compostable "wastes" to community gardens by cargo bike.

In Boston, Revolt Lab designed and built a portable solar charger (more at http://www.tgdaily.com/sustainability-features/59128-occupy-wall-street-spawns-diy-solar-power ). Sage Radachowsky built a winterized micro house and brought it to the Occupation.

There is even an effort to Occupy Rooftops on Community Solar Day, November 20, by Solar Mosaic, a group which has been building community solar projects one panel at a time.

All of these are great ideas and a good start but there are many other things that are possible.

How about the 99% expressing solidarity with the Other 90%, the poorest people around the world, by using the solar cooking techniques that has been used in African refugee camps for years:



I especially like this video because it not only shows you how to use (and make) a simple solar cooker but also demonstrates an old slow cooking technique, the hotbox or haybox cooker. This is simply an insulated container into which is placed the a pot of food once it has been heated up to cooking temperature. This is an idea that goes back a long ways into our history and is just as useful today.

Rainwater harvesting is another simple idea that the Occupations could use as access to water has been an issue for most Occupation sites since they started.

Sanitation is an obvious problem that has not been adequately addressed. I wonder if the Drink Pee Drink Pee Drink Pee process where you can pee in a container and "then perform a biochemical reaction that transforms the nutrients in your urine into an immediately usable fertilizer to feed your own plants" might be applicable.

The US military is now making solar and wind powered forward bases. Can some of their technology be adapted by the Occupations? Does Architecture for Humanity and Crisis Commons have any interest in trying out emergency response ideas through the Occupations?

These ideas are only a beginning of what is possible.

----------------

All I know about simple solar is at
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2009/09/simple-solar-parts-1-2-and-3.html
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2009/12/simple-solar-parts-4-through-8.html

Trash Technology and Recycled Solar: Plastic Bottles

Trash Technology and Recycled Solar: Plastic Bottles

Solar water disinfection
http://www.sodis.ch/index_EN
A two liter plastic bottle can be made into a water treatment system simply by filling it with contaminated water and exposing it to the sun. Sodis is an organization that promotes this technology around the world.

The disinfection process can be speeded by turning aluminized mylar snack food bags inside out and making them into reflectors as two young women in Belo Horizonte, Brazil discovered: http://hybridliving.com.au/news/index.php/2008/05/isef-sterilizing-water-with-trash/

Solar bottle bulbs for daylighting
http://www.elliottlemenager.com/2010/06/21/amazing-water-bottle-sky-lights/

In 2002, during a long electrical shortage, at Uberaba, São Paulo, Brasil, Mr Alfredo Moser discovered a way to gather sun light in the house through plastic bottles hanging from the roof. First shown at the Globo Reporter in the 25th May 2007.

Alfredo Moser was pressed by a scarce electricity substitution and found out that he could light his house with a bottle of water filled with water and a protection cap made of camera film.

The bottle is just refracting sunlight very effectively and produces an equivalent light power compared to a 50/60W lamp. In a rainy day, even without much light and direct sun, one still have some light. Scientist have now visited Moser and are looking into ways to take this concept to maximize its potential.

That was 2002. Now over 10,000 households, small businesses, and schools in the Philippines have installed solar bottle bulbs. Iliac Diaz of Liter of Light is attempting to spread it worldwide.
http://isanglitrongliwanag.org/

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2011/0822/Used-soda-bottles-light-up-the-world-for-free

The invention is something that is so simple, cheap, and sustainable that anyone can create and maintain it themselves.

As Diaz says, the three rules of appropriate technology are that people can find it, they can replicate it, and most importantly, they can make a business of it.

Here's another Brazilian design, for a PET bottle hot water heater
http://www.temasactuales.com/temasblog/environmental-protection/waste-recycling/a-solar-water-heater-made-of-pet-bottles/

There are also plastic bottle houses
from Argentina
http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/the-house-of-plastic-bottles.html

and Nigeria
http://nationaldailyngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6798:plastic-bottle-house-now-in-nigeria&catid=111:real-estate-today&Itemid=455

In Nigeria, they fill the bottles with sand or dirt to make bottle bricks.

Here's a backpacker solar water heater
http://www.instructables.com/id/Solar-Water-Bottle-Heater/

A recycled solar cloche or cold frame for the garden
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2005/03/recycled-solar.html

All these devices make use of the Simple Solar Principles
Dark gets hot
Light reflects
Clear keeps the wind out

Most any and everybody can understand how to build and use them.

Even when a plastic bottle is chopped up, it may still help in purifying water
http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=222&content_id=CNBP_028110&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=83404a1a-b1e0-4304-bd02-54148b96d1ca

“Plastic bottle” solution for arsenic-contaminated water threatening 100 million people
Note to journalists: Please report that this research was presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.

DENVER, Aug. 31, 2011
“Dealing with arsenic contamination of drinking water in the developing world requires simple technology based on locally available materials,” said study leader Tsanangurayi Tongesayi, Ph.D., professor of analytical and environmental chemistry at Monmouth University, West Long Branch, N.J. “Our process uses pieces of plastic water, soda pop and other beverage bottles. Coat the pieces with cysteine — that’s an amino acid found in dietary supplements and foods — and stir the plastic in arsenic-contaminated water. This works like a magnet. The cysteine binds up the arsenic. Remove the plastic and you have drinkable water.”

Water bottles walls, hanging bottles in south-facing windows in south-facing windows, is folk technology that goes back at least to the 19th century. Always wanted to set up a stacked thermosyphon from one gallon to five gallon container to another to see how that would affect the system. Has anyone combined solar water disinfection with solar daylighting? How about water collection and treatment with solar daylighting, water and space heating, plus PV power as one integrated system.

Previously:
Trash Technology for Education and Survival
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/31/980477/-Trash-Technology-for-Education-and-Survival
Fastfood Containers as Solar Devices
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/05/20/868401/-Thought-Experiment:Fastfood-Containers-Recycled-into-Solar-Devices?detail=hide&via=blog_563738
Recycled solar
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2005/03/recycled-solar.html
Solar Is Civil Defense
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2008/05/solar-is-civil-defense-illustrated.html
Small-scale LED Lighting, Off-Grid Cell Phones
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2009/05/small-scale-led-lighting-off-grid-cell.html
Solar Insurgency
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2007/11/solar-insurgency.html
Solar Swadeshi
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2010/12/personal-power-production-solar-from.html
Gandhian Economics
http://www.globalswadeshi.net/forum/topics/notes-from-foundations-of


All I know about simple solar is at
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2009/09/simple-solar-parts-1-2-and-3.html
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2009/12/simple-solar-parts-4-through-8.html

Solar PSA: A South-Facing Window Is Already a Solar Collector

Here's my latest Solar PSA on how a south-facing window is already a solar collector:


"Any window that sees direct sunlight is a solar collector. You can learn how to use that free energy to make your home more comfortable and secure. Caulk and seal the window against drafts. Install storm windows on the exterior, interior, or both. Cover the window at night with an insulating curtain to prevent conduction, convection, and radiative heat loss. A valence above the window will stop night-time drafts and reduce condensation. A sunny window can double as a greenhouse for starting seedlings or growing house plants. Expand the solar space below, above, or beside the window with a windowbox solar air or water heater. You can even design a living system to provide fresh vegetables and fish year round while producing space heat, cleaning the air, and reducing waste. A south-facing window is already a solar collector. Learn how to use it."


I made the following four 30 second public service announcements for public access TV around 1991. They served as intro and outro to the videos of the Boston Area Solar Energy Association lectures (http://www.basea.org) I shot and cablecast on Cambridge Community TV (http://www.cctvcambridge.org/) for a few years. The tape archive of all those lectures needs to be digitized.

I made the following four 30 second public service announcements for public access TV around 1991. They served as intro and outro to the videos of the Boston Area Solar Energy Association lectures I shot and cablecast on Cambridge Community TV for a few years. There is still a tape archive of all those talks by national and world class energy experts that could be digitized if anyone was interested.




30 seconds of solar history (based on the book A Golden Thread by John Perlin and Ken Butti and independent research) along with modern, working examples, often hidden in plain sight.



Energy sources broken down by btu (though I'm not quite sure my math is correct).



These two trick questions were collaborations with the polymathic Ed Hill.





I made another set of 15 second spots back in the late 1970s and early 1980s for the Urban Solar Energy Association, the precursor of BASEA which hosted workshops and solar barnraisings as well as monthly lectures and talks. Those PSAs went to the local TV stations and, if memory serves, two channels ran them at least once. There may even be a 2 inch tape somewhere in my archives. That was the first south-facing window is already a solar collector PSA. The others were "A south-facing porch can be a sunspace or greenhouse. Learn how to use it at the Urban Solar Energy Association.

Recently, I put all I know about Simple Solar online in eight video installments that add up to about a half hour.
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2009/09/simple-solar-parts-1-2-and-3.html
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2009/12/simple-solar-parts-4-through-8.html
Al Gore is doing 24 hours of Climate Reality on Current TV on September 14. I wonder how many minutes will be devoted to solutions rather than describing the problem and persuading the unconvinced. An inconvenient truth about "An Inconvenient Truth" is that it was very light in the solutions department.

I say Solar IS Civil Defense. At least that level of solar is affordable, available, and practical today whatever Climate Reality you inhabit.

DIY Climate Change: Ongoing Global Brainstorm

Since it seems that we can't expect too much out of the international or national policymakers for the next couple of years, I've been thinking that the next logical step for 350.org and the climate movement is to do it ourselves. That could take the form of an ongoing global brainstorm on local, practical solutions where people who are working on projects can report their successes and failures, trade ideas on what works and what doesn't, and help us all climb the learning curve faster as well as replicate successes quickly and modify them appropriately for different local conditions.

There are a number of people already thinking and working along these lines (appropedia, globalswadeshi, the coalition of the willing, global system for sustainable development...*) but they are dispersed, not networked, and there is no central nexus you can point people to. This is something that needs to be done in order to make do it yourself climate change happen. If done right, it would eliminate a lot of unnecessary duplication around the world and could build a community of practitioners that could be brought to bear on specific areas and problems like an Emergency Rescue Squad or ecological SWAT team.


Last year, when the Haitian earthquake happened, there were crisis camps set up in response all around the world. Pecha-kuchas, short design talks using only 20 slides with only 20 seconds allowed for each slide, devoted to helping Haiti occurred on one night in cities on almost every continent. Resources were brought to bear in an ad hoc way that are currently being institutionalized. It seemed to me that people had begun to learn from the experience of the Asian tsunami, New Orleans and Katrina, and now Haiti how to respond in a way that was more effective. I think the same kind of thing could happen with the long emergency of climate, especially if it were focused on building security and developing a better standard of living.

The other day, I ran into Thomas Goreau who has publish the first of a set of books on innovative technologies for small island developing states. His field of primary interest is the coral reefs and he told me he is going to Panama to work with some islanders there on a solar project. Now I know why I went into that supermarket even though I didn't buy anything. A handbook or encyclopedia of appropriate technologies in printed and electronic form could be distributed and updated by the users as they build their own indigenous projects. The same day, Robert Lange ( http://www.the-icsee.org/projects/africa/maasaioftanzania.htm ) who has been working in Tanzania with the Maasai developing a more efficient cookstove and building solar LED lighting systems emailed me about getting his new stove design tested. I've been trying to put him in contact with Richard Komp ( http://www.mainesolar.org/Komp.html ) who's been doing solar as a cottage industry, seeding small solar businesses around the world for the last 20 or so years. The point is that there is so much expertise and so many different people working, mostly in isolation, on the same problems. Lots and lots of things are happening on the local and regional level that never reach the outside world. We need to link all of it together and reveal for ourselves a new infrastructure of development and economics that is hidden because it is disconnected and unrecognized.

I've seen this in the local agriculture field. When we started direct marketing here in MA back in the mid-1970s, there were only 12 or 18 farmers' markets. Now there are over 140 and bids to make some of them year-round. In the 1990s, I tried to get the local ag folks to start mapping the economic system that had grown up around those efforts but they weren't interested. It was only a year or so ago that Boston's Sustainable Business Network started doing that and went on to hold a huge event by the Children's Museum, a local food festival that was more successful than they'd dreamed of. It was packed, all day, and everyone had a great time. I think the same dynamic is happening with local responses to climate change and I think one of the next steps will be recognizing that fact. I just hope it doesn't take 30 years.

The 10/10/10 world-wide climate work day was great as was the international art day that happened in November. Both need to keep happening. Add the linking and networking on practical, local solutions and responses and we can start a parade that the politicians will be running to get at the head of, as they always do.

I've sent this idea to Bill McKibben and 350.org They are interested in the concept.

DIY Climate Change: Ain't Nobody Else
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/11/23/922941/-DIY-Climate-Change:Aint-Nobody-Else

* Appropedia http://www.appropedia.org/Welcome_to_Appropedia
Globalswadeshi http://globalswadeshi.ning.com/
Coalition of the Willing http://cotw.cc/wiki/Coalition_of_the_Willing
Global System for Sustainable Development http://gssd.mit.edu/GSSD/GSSDen.nsf

Personal Power Production: Solar from Civil Defense to Swadeshi

US and NATO forces have distributed more than 700,000 solar/dynamo am/fm/sw radios in Afghanistan since before our invasion of 2001 and that a simple modification to that solar/dynamo adds battery charging capabilities to each of them (circuit diagram at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/12/195518/177 ).

US AID is distributing 250,000 solar/dynamo radios in Sudan over the next few years. Again, those solar/dynamos can not now charge extra AA or other size batteries although with a connection to a battery bay from the cell phone charger output they certainly could. The combination of a few square inches of solar electric, photovoltaic, PV power with a hand-crank or pedal power generator provides a modicum of electric power day or night, by sunlight or muscle power. It also allows battery switching, charging one set of batteries while using another. This is practical personal power production and the technology is deployed in the field in Afghanistan and Sudan or available off the shelf right now for $30 from LL Bean and many others, if you are willing to do a little tinkering.

The same technology is also a Solar Civil Defense.

Flashlight, cell phone, radio, and extra set of batteries all can be powered with a couple of square inches of solar electricity (PV) panel. It is also what we are supposed to have on hand in case of a blizzard or hurricane, emergency or disaster. Add a hand crank or pedal power generator and you have reliable production of AA and larger battery electrical power.

This level of survival solar power is a significant rise in the standard of living for the 1.6 to 1.8 billion people in the world who do not now have access to electricity, too. Civil defense preparedness here in the US could be linked to providing services to the poorest of the global poor. I am talking with a Cambridge, MA group which includes city officers and officials about the possibility of promoting Solar IS Civil Defense locally through a buy one, give one exchange with a sister city in the developing world, possibly with Bogolight (http://www.bogolight.com) or Light Haiti Project ( http://lighthaiti.org/donations.html ).

In addition, this combination of small scale solar and human power is an example of swadeshi, local production or self production, a core principle of Gandhian economics:
"Swadeshi is that spirit in us which restricts us to the use and service of our immediate surroundings to the exclusion of the more remote."
Speeches and Writings of M. K. Gandhi, 1919 ( http://members.tripod.com/~anusandhan/articles/article1.html )

Gandhi would spin thread for an hour each day, usually producing a hundred yards for weaving into cloth, and helped develop a simple spinning wheel (charkha) that allowed many to do the same. He believed that spinning was the foundation of non-violence and that khadi cloth was a means to the local production of economic independence. Gandhi was a middle-aged man when he first asked his wife Kasturba to teach him to use the spinning wheel. Once he had mastered the wheel, he practiced spinning every day for the rest of his life. Home-spinning became a symbol for independence and self-reliance throughout India under his encouragement and direction and a market began in cottage industry and home produced cloth, khadi.

Gandhi used the charkha, the spinning wheel. Today there is an e-charkha available, developed by RS Hiremath ( http://www.flexitron.diytrade.com/sdp/194986/4/pd-699352/5454575-0/e-charkha.html ):

"...spinning on the two-spindle e-charkha for two hours will produce 2,400 meters of yarn and provide a light output for 7.5 hours. According to the innovator, the LED light is of the latest type and has an extremely long life of at least 35 years. The generator in the e-charkha is also custom designed for this application and is of the three-phase AC version with no brushes, which makes it last for over three and a half decades. Hiremath has sold over 1,800 e-charkhas till date, the biggest consumer lot residing in Rajasthan and Gujarat. He says, “The response till now has been overwhelming. Most users are delighted with the prospect of a charkha generating them money and electricity.... The e-charkha, which weighs around 10 to 12 kgs, has two models—a two-spindle one and an eight-spindle one. The universal retrofit kit that can be easily attached to the shaft of any charkha is priced at Rs 1,500, while the two-spindle e-charkha costs Rs 4,500 and the eight-spindle one Rs 11,000. The innovator has applied for a patent for the retrofit kit, which consists of a three-phase AC generator, lead acid battery and intermediate control circuits for charge and discharge. It is currently manufactured at a facility in Bangalore and is mostly produced by disabled employees. The product is currently being marketed by Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), Mumbai."
http://www.dare.co.in/people/featured-innovation/e-charkha.htm

One humanpower is about one sixth horsepower. A healthy person can produce 100 watts of power for hours on end and 300 watts in a sprint.

Returning to Afghanistan, there is the example of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Badshah Khan, who practiced Gandhian non-violence and raised the world's first non-violent army, over 100,000 strong, of Pashtun and other peoples, Muslim, Sikh, and HIndu, in the very areas where the Taliban is now active in Pakistan. They were the Khudai Khidmatgar, the Servants of God, the Red Shirts, who based their non-violence on the Islamic principle of sadr, patience, and the Pashtun custom of melmastia, hospitality. Badshah Khan was educated in a madrassa as well as a missionary school. He began building his own schools in 1910, educating both boys and girls, and formed the Khudai Khidmatgar a decade or so later. That group lasted until 1947 when it was disbanded, forcibly, by the new nation of Pakistan. I wonder if the Taliban learned anything from him.

Could we do with electricity what Gandhi did with cloth, at least for emergencies and disasters? Can hand-made electricity, 21st century khadi cloth, provide real electrical power to the people and a survival level of energy independence and autonomy?

Solar IS Civil Defense, Illustrated http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/12/195518/177
Solar Swadeshi http://solarray.blogspot.com/2005/05/solar-swadeshi-hand-made-electricity.html
Afghanistan Solar http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/27/0353/85056
Solar Tactics in Afghanistan http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/26/01854/3246
Low Level Leverage Points in Afghanistan http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/4/810944/-Low-Level-Leverage-Points-in-Afghanistan
Solar Insurgency http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/8/0317/01605
Solar IS Civil Defense http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/30/142018/700
Islamic Satyagraha Army http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/27/23370/2751

Climate Collaboration Contest

To members of the Climate CoLab community,

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new Climate CoLab contest, as well as a major upgrade of our software platform.

The contest will address the question: What international climate agreements should the world community make?

The first round runs through October 31 and the final round through November 26.

In early December, the United Nations and U.S. Congress will be briefed on the winning entries.

We are raising funds in the hope of being able to pay travel expenses for one representative from each winning team to attend one or both of these briefings.

We invite you to form teams and enter the contest--learn more at http://climatecolab.org.

We also encourage you to fill out your profiles and add a picture, so that members of the community can get to know each other.

And please inform anyone you believe might be interested about the contest.

I voted for the 350 alternative, the closest this simulation can get to zero emissions, and entered a zero emissions scenario in the last iteration of Climate Collab. The new program is more detailed than the last but there is still a lot of work to do. Your participation can help make this tool more useful.

cross posted to http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/11/909327/-Climate-Collaboration-Contest