A group of people from the Occupy Wall Street movement is collaborating with the climate change advocacy group 350.org and a new online toolkit for disaster recovery, recovers.org, to organize a grassroots relief effort in New York City.
The combination of the jobs and economic focus of Occupy with the climate change and energy transition ideas of 350.org along with the disaster recovery systems of Recovers.org is a model that can build resilience and preparedness quickly if continued. Add Solar IS Civil Defense, set the Maker Culture loose, and it just might shade over into Solar Swadeshi, Gandhian economics, a non-violent and restorative open source peer-to-peer economic system where we plan for 100% success for all humanity, to paraphrase R Buckminster Fuller.
First encountered Recovers.org in April, 2012 when Caitria O'Neill, one of the founders, spoke at Harvard. Morgan O'Neil, Caitria's sister and another of the founders, was working on a PhD in atmospheric science before her hometown of Monson, MA was hit by a tornado and she began disaster recovery work.
Here are my rough notes from that presentation:
4/17/12
Harvard
Recovers.org
Common misconceptions - Red Cross and FEMA organize volunteers, assess needs and donations, or canvass neighborhoods. They do not do any of these things.
Common problems - Spontaneous volunteers and unsolicited donations (almost never a need for clothes)
[accommodating surges of volunteers, donations, and interest is a problem not confined to natural disasters]
Town/ngo/community responses do not interface optimally now
No centralized info hub
Short window of interest - 50% of web searches on a disaster are in the first 7 days but needs are beginning to be reported only after that first week
Recover.org databases the initial interest information for use later
Use community organizations for long-term recovery
[build resilience, especially for most common emergencies and disasters - flood, fire, blizzard, drought]
Internet communication more organized and prioritized than facebook
Centralized info clearinghouse
Tools: needs reporting, canvassing, volunteer management, donation databases
Fema pays for 75%, state pays for 15%, town pays for 10% - and volunteer hours can be counted if accounted for.
Recovers.org has a database service that can be deployed online immediately along with a package of tools to take advantage of that initial interest
Post-disaster assistance free
License subscriptions to preparing towns - first sale to five towns in Illinois in response to periodic flooding
Solar Cookers International needs new designs for a more durable solar cooker. For years, people in refugee camps have been using the CooKit, a cardboard and aluminum foil solar reflector with a plastic bag as a "greenhouse" around a blackened pot, to cook food and reduce the need for cooking fuel and the consequent necessity for women and children to leave the relative safety of the camps to look for fuel, exposing themselves to injury, rape, and murder by the very people they've been trying to escape. The Touloum camp in eastern Chad for refugees from Darfur is one place where these solar cookers have made a real impact.
The design criteria are
the reflector must be waterproof and UV resistant, cost less than US $25 and last for at least five years;
it must hold one or more three to five liter cooking pots;
the greenhouse replacement for the plastic bag should last for at least one but preferable two years or longer;
the reflector and greenhouse must allow the cooking pot to reach temperatures between 250 F/121C and 300F/149C;
both the reflector and the greenhouse must be lightweight, unbreakable and fold flat for shipping;
both must be easy to open and close, easy to clean and easy to store indoors;
the cost of the greenhouse should not exceed $10
Please spread the word as there are 10 million displaced persons and refugees in the world today, many in desert regions where solar cooking could be used, and more than 2 billion people are still cooking every day over open fires. If solar cookers can reduce a portion of the need for combustible fuels and the resulting black carbon, it would be a great help to the people using them and help reduce local deforestation and climate change almost immediately.
More information at
http://www.solarcookers.org/index.html
http://solarcooking.wikia.com
You can support solar cookers in African refugee camps today through
http://www.solarcookerproject.org/
http://www.jewishworldwatch.org/
One of my favorite solar oven designs was Dr Charles Greeley Abbott's from the early 20th century. It was a parabolic trough that heated oil as its working fluid. He built it on Mount Palomar in CA when that area was remote and used a clock and counterweight system to track the sun during the day. The oven got hot enough to bake bread: http://www.motherearthnews.com/do-it-yourself/how-to-build-a-solar-cooker-zmaz77mjzbon.aspx
David Gordon Wilson of MIT has been working on another stored heat solar oven using a Fresnel lens to concentrate sunlight on lithium nitrate which can store heat up to 25 hours and produce temperatures of 450ยบ F over that period of time. They say they'll have a production model available soon.
http://inhabitat.com/wilson-solar-grill-stores-the-suns-energy-for-nighttime-fuel-free-grilling/
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/39261/173660389.pdf
A few days ago, I remarked to a friend that the annual local solar cooker picnic, usually around summer solstice, hadn't happened this year. Then I got this notice:
12th Annual Solar Picnic
Saturday, July 28th
11:00 to 3:00 (Solar Noon will be 12:51 PM)
Somerville Community Growing Center, 22 Vinal Ave. Somerville, MA (near Union Square)
See map: http://www.thegrowingcenter.org/find_us.html
12th Annual Solar Picnic at the Somerville Community Growing Center
Celebrate the sun and another year's growth in the garden. Come and join us for a solar picnic - no gas, wood or charcoal grills, just solar cookers using the energy of the sun!
This event is a simple, traditional pot-luck picnic. No fire, just solar ovens/cookers. We will have a few solar cookers and some space available for you to bring your own. If you want to learn how to build one or see how they work, this is your golden opportunity! For more information see:
http://solarcooking.org
There will also be other solar devices demonstrated (of course, feel free to bring your own) and a good chance to see old friends and meet new ones. A great place for a picnic, the Somerville Community Growing Center is an urban oasis that was designed and built by local residents and is maintained by volunteers. http://www.thegrowingcenter.org
It's a recipe for a fine midsummer's day: friends, fun, food and the sun! Relax, chat, learn and explore the gardens. And when the delicious aroma of solar-cooked cuisine fills the air, come to the table and feast!
Sponsors: The Boston Area Solar Energy Association: http://www.BASEA.org (a chapter of NESEA).
Previously:
My Solar Christmas
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-solar-christmas.html
Short Term Climate Forces: Black Carbon, Methane, and Tropospheric Ozone
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/06/1088365/-Short-Term-Climate-Forces-Black-Carbon-Methane-and-Tropospheric-Ozone
Solar as a Cottage Industry
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/15/1055035/-Solar-as-a-Cottage-Industry
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Solar IS Civil Defense - what we are all supposed to have on hand in case of emergency - flashlight, cell phone, radio, extra set of batteries - can be powered by a few square inches of solar electric panel. Add a hand crank or bicycle generator and you have a reliable source of survival level electricity, day or night, by sunlight or muscle power. This is also entry level electrical power for the 1.5 billion people around the world who do not yet have access to electricity. Civil defense at home and economic development abroad can be combined in a "buy one, give one" program like the Bogolight (http://www.bogolight.com) which is a solar LED light and AA battery charger. Solar IS Civil Defense and could be much more. ------------------------- I wish the mainline environmental groups had been broadcasting practical material like this for the last twenty years or so instead of devoting almost all their advertising to scaring us about climate change.
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.
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).
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.
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.'"
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.
