Monday, September 04, 2006
Solar Boston - Boston Harbor Islands
I like to visit the Boston Harbor Islands at least once every summer. Last year, I noticed all the wind and solar in use out there. The Hull wind turbines dominate one section of the horizon and the skyline of Boston rises like some science fiction Oz from another. On the islands there is quiet and distance, a magic place only a ferry ride away.
This year my friend Werner and Julie of Videosphere joined me to island hop and produce a video about what we've seen. There are solar assisted composting toilets, solar electric panels, solar hot water heaters, small and large wind turbines, and even solar vehicles. The future is already here. All we have to do is recognize it.
Monday, July 31, 2006
It's All One War That Never Ends
Al Gore was in town to sign his book, An Inconvenient Truth at Harvard Book Store, a great independent bookstore. The line was around the block and down the street. The store said he signed over 600 books in the hour he was there.
I went to give him a selection of WWII posters that have special resonance for today and my basic game plan for doing public education on practical renewable energy and resource conservation at such local events as the over 3700 farmers markets that happen every week during the growing season all around the USA (see http://solarray.blogspot.com/2004/12/three-solar-projects.html for further details).
You can see me hand him my paper on video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5oiZLNF0QQ&search=Videosphere
I'm the guy in the maroon shirt.
Here are copies of the four posters I gave Mr Gore. He said he liked the first image. I hope he saw the other images, too, and maybe even read my proposals about direct action on energy education. I'd like to see him train 1000 people to do practical solar as well as the 1000 people he plans to train to do his presentation.
For those of you who want more Gore, here's a 20 minute video of him at the TED conference in winter 2006 where he digs a little deeper on solutions to climate change
http://tedblog.typepad.com/tedblog/2006/06/al_gore_on_tedt.html#
You can find these and many more WWII posters at http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govinfo/collections/wwii-posters/
The Project for an Old American Century
(http://www.oldamericancentury.org) and the Propaganda Remix Project (http://homepage.mac.com/leperous/PhotoAlbum1.html) are reworking some of these posters for 21st century purposes but I tend to be a purist and prefer the originals for their jarring resonances across the decades.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Solar Survival Show: Solar Fountain
Take a look at Ambrose Spencer's SunToys and you will see why I say that if you are going to do only one public solar demo, you should do a solar fountain.
click for movie
Ambrose Spencer and SunToys at AltWheels 2005
Video courtesy of http://energyvison.blogspot.com
A floating solar fountain can be bought for $60 or less. It will be less impressive than Ambrose's larger model but add a basin and some water and you still have a great display that kids love to turn on and off with their shadows.
It already is a solar wishing well.
Floating and other solar fountains available from
http://www.siliconsolar.com/shop/catalog/Floating-Solar-Water-Fountain-p-9.htm
http://www.improvementscatalog.com/product.asp?product=217612zz&dept%5Fid=12130&cm_ven=NexTag&cm_ite=12130&code=macs=MP6NEXTAG
and
eBay
Buy one and set it up at the local farmers market or public square. Raise a little consciousness and make a few rainbows.
Cross-posted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/26/233752/597
click for movieAmbrose Spencer and SunToys at AltWheels 2005
Video courtesy of http://energyvison.blogspot.com
A floating solar fountain can be bought for $60 or less. It will be less impressive than Ambrose's larger model but add a basin and some water and you still have a great display that kids love to turn on and off with their shadows.
It already is a solar wishing well.
Floating and other solar fountains available from
http://www.siliconsolar.com/shop/catalog/Floating-Solar-Water-Fountain-p-9.htm
http://www.improvementscatalog.com/product.asp?product=217612zz&dept%5Fid=12130&cm_ven=NexTag&cm_ite=12130&code=macs=MP6NEXTAG
and
eBay
Buy one and set it up at the local farmers market or public square. Raise a little consciousness and make a few rainbows.
Cross-posted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/26/233752/597
Sunday, June 18, 2006
No Solar Energy
My friend M. Preston Burns drew the cartoon and I wrote the caption.
Too bad it cuts so close to reality.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Solar Video
I did some video of my solar projects with Werner Grundl of VideoSphere and http://energyvision.blogspot.com. He's is adding to his video blog (vlog) all the time, most recently with some important statements from the NE Sustainable Energy Association's "Building Energy" conference.
This video is about my solar reading lights which I wrote about in My Solar Bedroom in December, 2005.
This video is about my solar bike lights and back pack.
Click on picture This is a video of a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio modified to charge AA batteries thus becoming the flashlight, radio, and extra set of batteries recommended to have on hand in case of emergency as well as a permanent source of low voltage DC power day or night.
Solar is civil defense.
Update 3/21/07:
Here is the schematic that Richard Komp of Maine Solar Energy Association and Grupo Fenix drew for me when he modified one of my solar/dynamo flashlight/radios to charge AA batteries.
Solar is civil defense.
This video is about my solar reading lights which I wrote about in My Solar Bedroom in December, 2005.
This video is about my solar bike lights and back pack.
Click on picture This is a video of a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio modified to charge AA batteries thus becoming the flashlight, radio, and extra set of batteries recommended to have on hand in case of emergency as well as a permanent source of low voltage DC power day or night.Solar is civil defense.
Update 3/21/07:
Here is the schematic that Richard Komp of Maine Solar Energy Association and Grupo Fenix drew for me when he modified one of my solar/dynamo flashlight/radios to charge AA batteries.
Solar is civil defense.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Science Fiction Fairy Tales
Global Pendant
Once upon a time...
She was wearing a very interesting pendant. It first appeared to be a cloudy blue bead about an inch and a half in diameter hanging from a delicately linked chain around her neck. But it changed. On closer observation, the cloudiness moved slowly and steadily across the surface of the bead and the within the swirls of white and blue that could be water was the outline of the continents in green and shades of gray. It was a real-time composite satellite image of the Earth from space projected onto the surface of the pendant. You could see the latest hurricane developing in the South Atlantic that very evening.
She explained that her body network linked wirelessly to the Net through the PDA in her purse and then loaded the images into the bead. The Earth from space was only one of the programs available.
"Where's the dashboard for Spaceship Earth?" he asked.
"I don't know if there is one," she replied.
...and they all lived happily ever after.
But that's another story...
Earth from Space
World Cloud Cover
North American Jet Stream
Astronomy Picture of the Day
If anybody has seen something like a dashboard for Spaceship Earth, please let me know.
Nanobot Road
Once upon a time...
It started with self-repairing nanobots. These were devices that worked on the cellular level, on a biological model rebuilding damaged tissue cell by cell, protein by protein. It soon went beyond any previous DNA limits as these miraculous machines amplified our own, human repair systems. They were indefatigable and virtually immortal and remade us in their own image.
Now some of us have replaced fallible flesh with metal and plastic. We have optimized our abilities to see into the infra-red and ultraviolet, hear sounds dogs and whales are deaf to, made our skins resistant to heat or cold, the vacuum of space and the depth of the ocean. Our brains are faster than quantum computers. We can blush quicksilver and shine like mirrors if we wish.
We are immortal, self-remade clone cyborg replicants of our old human selves. Death is just a memory now and we go on forever rebuilding ourselves cell by cell every day, performing miracles each moment. History means nothing to us anymore, "humanity" even less.
And they lived happily ever after, ever after, ever after, ever....
The National Center for Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors has announced the development of nano-sized batteries which can be implanted into the body to power various devices, starting with an artificial retina (http://www.primidi.com/2006/01/16.html#a1415). The Center will design and build "nanomedical devices based on natural and synthetic ion transporters -- proteins that control ion motion across the membranes of every living cell."
Once upon a time...
She was wearing a very interesting pendant. It first appeared to be a cloudy blue bead about an inch and a half in diameter hanging from a delicately linked chain around her neck. But it changed. On closer observation, the cloudiness moved slowly and steadily across the surface of the bead and the within the swirls of white and blue that could be water was the outline of the continents in green and shades of gray. It was a real-time composite satellite image of the Earth from space projected onto the surface of the pendant. You could see the latest hurricane developing in the South Atlantic that very evening.
She explained that her body network linked wirelessly to the Net through the PDA in her purse and then loaded the images into the bead. The Earth from space was only one of the programs available.
"Where's the dashboard for Spaceship Earth?" he asked.
"I don't know if there is one," she replied.
...and they all lived happily ever after.
But that's another story...
Earth from Space
World Cloud Cover
North American Jet Stream
Astronomy Picture of the Day
If anybody has seen something like a dashboard for Spaceship Earth, please let me know.
Nanobot Road
Once upon a time...
It started with self-repairing nanobots. These were devices that worked on the cellular level, on a biological model rebuilding damaged tissue cell by cell, protein by protein. It soon went beyond any previous DNA limits as these miraculous machines amplified our own, human repair systems. They were indefatigable and virtually immortal and remade us in their own image.
Now some of us have replaced fallible flesh with metal and plastic. We have optimized our abilities to see into the infra-red and ultraviolet, hear sounds dogs and whales are deaf to, made our skins resistant to heat or cold, the vacuum of space and the depth of the ocean. Our brains are faster than quantum computers. We can blush quicksilver and shine like mirrors if we wish.
We are immortal, self-remade clone cyborg replicants of our old human selves. Death is just a memory now and we go on forever rebuilding ourselves cell by cell every day, performing miracles each moment. History means nothing to us anymore, "humanity" even less.
And they lived happily ever after, ever after, ever after, ever....
The National Center for Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors has announced the development of nano-sized batteries which can be implanted into the body to power various devices, starting with an artificial retina (http://www.primidi.com/2006/01/16.html#a1415). The Center will design and build "nanomedical devices based on natural and synthetic ion transporters -- proteins that control ion motion across the membranes of every living cell."
Monday, January 09, 2006
Werner Grundl Is Video Blogging
Werner Grundl is video blogging (http://energyvision.blogspot.com/).
The clips online so far are about the peace economy from Japan, the newest Hull, MA wind turbine, and Jerzy, a kid, performing "I Want to Be a Kid."
Werner is just beginning to play with online distribution onto the Web and the Net and is transferring the Videosphere archives from VHS to .mov, from tape to DVD, the Internet and beyond. In digital format, through the video blog, Werner Grundl and Julie O'Neil, Videosphere (WJulesvern@aol.com), can make thirty years of events and performances, debates and speeches, lectures and street corner and coffee table discussions about politics, arts, science, spirit and life around the world available to the world. In theory, at least.
Thirty years ago, we used to sit around in some of those coffee table discussions and talk about a technology that would allow us to record something on the street or the studio and distribute it to all those interested in real time as it's happening. Now we can do just about that with our cell phones, when all the connections work, when we can figure out how to make all the connections work. Or so I am told.
In theory, at least.
The clips online so far are about the peace economy from Japan, the newest Hull, MA wind turbine, and Jerzy, a kid, performing "I Want to Be a Kid."
Werner is just beginning to play with online distribution onto the Web and the Net and is transferring the Videosphere archives from VHS to .mov, from tape to DVD, the Internet and beyond. In digital format, through the video blog, Werner Grundl and Julie O'Neil, Videosphere (WJulesvern@aol.com), can make thirty years of events and performances, debates and speeches, lectures and street corner and coffee table discussions about politics, arts, science, spirit and life around the world available to the world. In theory, at least.
Thirty years ago, we used to sit around in some of those coffee table discussions and talk about a technology that would allow us to record something on the street or the studio and distribute it to all those interested in real time as it's happening. Now we can do just about that with our cell phones, when all the connections work, when we can figure out how to make all the connections work. Or so I am told.
In theory, at least.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
My Solar Bedroom
My bedroom is now basically off-grid.
For years my bedside radio has been a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio. This particular one has been modified to charge AA batteries besides the hard-wired internal battery it was designed to charge. It gives me about two months of radio for an hour or more a day before running down. Then I place it next to the window for two days and have the use of a radio for another two months. In a pinch, a minute of turning the crank gives me about ten minutes of radio.
Of course, since I have been experimenting with these things, I have a few solar/dynamo flashlight/radios so I always have one charging in front of the window. You can see an example of a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio at http://www.modernoutpost.com/gear/details/om_sdradio.html. It's not the one I'm using but it looks to be much the same, without the ability to charge AA batteries in the battery bay, and is close to half of what I paid.
Now I've installed two solar powered LED lights above my bed so that my reading light is off the grid as well. Came in handy just the other day when we had a black-out for a couple of hours. The lights are attached to solar electric panels I place in the window and have batteries in the base of the lamps that provide power for up to 24 hours on a full charge. You can see the specs and order them at http://www.kansaswindpower.net/portable_led_lights.htm
This system is still a work in progress but for about $150 I've got one room that is independent of the grid, that provides me with radio and reading light for the foreseeable future without the use of coal, oil, gas, or nuclear energy. I have one room running on sunlight.
Now on to the next.
Update: Take your spare room off-grid! (http://www.off-grid.net/index.php?p=294) describes a solar electric system that powers two lamps, TV, Stereo, satellite box, dvd, vcr, and XBox, and a battery charger for the rechargeables in the battery powered clock.
This 600 watt hour system includes solar panels, batteries, and inverter and prices out at $1300.
I think that's a little pricey. A few years ago I assembled the parts for a one window solar electric system. It consisted of a 2 foot by 2 foot Kyocera panel, peak wattage around 64 kw, a power controller, battery, and wiring. The cost for those pieces was around $500, but I have yet to built the frame, hang the panel, and connect the system. In fact, I've since given the pieces to a friend in the hopes that he can finish the project before I would probably get around to it.
For years my bedside radio has been a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio. This particular one has been modified to charge AA batteries besides the hard-wired internal battery it was designed to charge. It gives me about two months of radio for an hour or more a day before running down. Then I place it next to the window for two days and have the use of a radio for another two months. In a pinch, a minute of turning the crank gives me about ten minutes of radio.
Of course, since I have been experimenting with these things, I have a few solar/dynamo flashlight/radios so I always have one charging in front of the window. You can see an example of a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio at http://www.modernoutpost.com/gear/details/om_sdradio.html. It's not the one I'm using but it looks to be much the same, without the ability to charge AA batteries in the battery bay, and is close to half of what I paid.
Now I've installed two solar powered LED lights above my bed so that my reading light is off the grid as well. Came in handy just the other day when we had a black-out for a couple of hours. The lights are attached to solar electric panels I place in the window and have batteries in the base of the lamps that provide power for up to 24 hours on a full charge. You can see the specs and order them at http://www.kansaswindpower.net/portable_led_lights.htm
This system is still a work in progress but for about $150 I've got one room that is independent of the grid, that provides me with radio and reading light for the foreseeable future without the use of coal, oil, gas, or nuclear energy. I have one room running on sunlight.
Now on to the next.
Update: Take your spare room off-grid! (http://www.off-grid.net/index.php?p=294) describes a solar electric system that powers two lamps, TV, Stereo, satellite box, dvd, vcr, and XBox, and a battery charger for the rechargeables in the battery powered clock.
This 600 watt hour system includes solar panels, batteries, and inverter and prices out at $1300.
I think that's a little pricey. A few years ago I assembled the parts for a one window solar electric system. It consisted of a 2 foot by 2 foot Kyocera panel, peak wattage around 64 kw, a power controller, battery, and wiring. The cost for those pieces was around $500, but I have yet to built the frame, hang the panel, and connect the system. In fact, I've since given the pieces to a friend in the hopes that he can finish the project before I would probably get around to it.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Solar Triple Decker
Ambrose Spencer has been going over the figures for the current state of the art of PV electricity on for example, a Boston "triple decker," three family house. As Ambrose has been thinking about and working on these issues for decades now, I'd trust his numbers.
THREE FAMILY HOUSING
In Dorchester and other parts of Boston there are thousands of triple deckers. While some midatlantic cities are filled with attached row housing, aka terrace housing which has less surface area per unit available solar estate, the predominant housing in Boston is the triple decker. These have full basements which are starting to be converted into a fourth apartment. They have three flats one over another and their floor plate is 40 to 50 feet deep from the street and the width is 25 to 28 feet. The triple deckers are in all different orientations depending on the street. The narrow face is to the street. The separation runs from 20 feet to just three feet, and is usually large enough for a narrow driveway.
For a triple decker, long dimension east and west, on the roof you can erect a solar collector 10 to 12 feet high before you start to shade the solar estate next door. Having laid out solar thermal on a couple of these I know that you can put 400 to 500 square feet before the shading next door is too much of a problem .
EXISTING TRIPLE DECKER
SOLAR ELECTRIC SOURCE 10 Mwhrs.
Using your numbers: 500 square feet at about 16 percent, 8 kw
and using 3.5 hours per day annualized is 1266 hours of collection
and 10 megawatt hours.
LOADS
HEATING 17 Mwhrs
An insulated triple decker uses about 1500 gallons of oil for the three units. This is 210 mmbtu per year gross, or 50 Mwhrs net. Using a heat pump with fan coils and a cop of 3 the annual electric load for space heat is 17 Mwhrs; this does not include domestic hot water or air conditioning.
LIGHT, PLUG LOADS, APPLIANCES AND DRIVES 7.5 Mwhrs
I used 2 kw of pv allocated for a family of four. 1266 hours of collection is 2.5 Mwhrs per apartment times 3 is 7.5 Mwhrs
THREE AUTOMOBILES. 7.5 Mwhrs
I reduced my use to 10,000 miles per year at 250whrs /mile. This gives 2.5 Mwrhs times 3 is 7.5 Mwhrs. This is for battery electric vehicles.
EXISTING TRIPLE DECKER SUMMARY
On an annual basis 32 Megawatt hours is needed of which the on site solar electric, 10 Megawatt hours, can only supply one third.
IMPROVED TRIPLE DECKER
SOLAR ELECTRIC SOURCE 10 Mwhrs
The supply is the same 10 Mwhrs per year
HEATING 6.2 Mwhrs
Super insulation retrofit can cut the heat load in half, and radiant ceiling heat can raise the cop from 3 to 4. These two changes reduce the heating load to 6.2 Mwhrs.
LIGHT, PLUG LOADS, APPLIANCES AND DRIVES 5 Mwhrs
Using additional efficiency, task area illumination and higher efficiency appliances these electric loads can be cut by a third. to 5 Mwhrs.
THREE AUTOMOBILES. 7.5 Mwhrs
This load remains unchanged.
IMPROVED TRIPLE DECKER SUMMARY
The load has been reduced to 18.7 Mwhrs of which the solar electric can carry more than half
CONCLUSION
I have briefly explored a realistic application of solar electricity to the type of housing most common in Boston's older neighborhoods, in the context of a likely necessity of a 50 year schedule for accelerated climate change mitigation, although the schedule will likely be more demanding as a result of climate induced positive feedback.
I have found that to supply a typical triple decker on a Net Zero Energy basis the efficiency of the photovoltaic efficiency would need to be raised by 2 to 3 times. That is 32 percent efficiency for the superinsulated, radiant heated improved building and 48 percent efficiency needed for the unimproved building.
In a zero carbon future, all of the triple decker load not supplied on site will need to be supplied by Wind, Biofuels and other sustainable forms of renewables. Each of these carry attendant development problems like the siting of wind farms, bird kill, and the difficulties of achieving sustainable forestry on privately held lands.
Hybrid thermal electric collectors being developed by Shell in collaboration with the Dutch government and other partners can help reduce the heating load still further, but even another reduction in electric part of the heating load by one half will only affect the total electric load by 10 percent for the existing building case. .
THREE FAMILY HOUSING
In Dorchester and other parts of Boston there are thousands of triple deckers. While some midatlantic cities are filled with attached row housing, aka terrace housing which has less surface area per unit available solar estate, the predominant housing in Boston is the triple decker. These have full basements which are starting to be converted into a fourth apartment. They have three flats one over another and their floor plate is 40 to 50 feet deep from the street and the width is 25 to 28 feet. The triple deckers are in all different orientations depending on the street. The narrow face is to the street. The separation runs from 20 feet to just three feet, and is usually large enough for a narrow driveway.
For a triple decker, long dimension east and west, on the roof you can erect a solar collector 10 to 12 feet high before you start to shade the solar estate next door. Having laid out solar thermal on a couple of these I know that you can put 400 to 500 square feet before the shading next door is too much of a problem .
EXISTING TRIPLE DECKER
SOLAR ELECTRIC SOURCE 10 Mwhrs.
Using your numbers: 500 square feet at about 16 percent, 8 kw
and using 3.5 hours per day annualized is 1266 hours of collection
and 10 megawatt hours.
LOADS
HEATING 17 Mwhrs
An insulated triple decker uses about 1500 gallons of oil for the three units. This is 210 mmbtu per year gross, or 50 Mwhrs net. Using a heat pump with fan coils and a cop of 3 the annual electric load for space heat is 17 Mwhrs; this does not include domestic hot water or air conditioning.
LIGHT, PLUG LOADS, APPLIANCES AND DRIVES 7.5 Mwhrs
I used 2 kw of pv allocated for a family of four. 1266 hours of collection is 2.5 Mwhrs per apartment times 3 is 7.5 Mwhrs
THREE AUTOMOBILES. 7.5 Mwhrs
I reduced my use to 10,000 miles per year at 250whrs /mile. This gives 2.5 Mwrhs times 3 is 7.5 Mwhrs. This is for battery electric vehicles.
EXISTING TRIPLE DECKER SUMMARY
On an annual basis 32 Megawatt hours is needed of which the on site solar electric, 10 Megawatt hours, can only supply one third.
IMPROVED TRIPLE DECKER
SOLAR ELECTRIC SOURCE 10 Mwhrs
The supply is the same 10 Mwhrs per year
HEATING 6.2 Mwhrs
Super insulation retrofit can cut the heat load in half, and radiant ceiling heat can raise the cop from 3 to 4. These two changes reduce the heating load to 6.2 Mwhrs.
LIGHT, PLUG LOADS, APPLIANCES AND DRIVES 5 Mwhrs
Using additional efficiency, task area illumination and higher efficiency appliances these electric loads can be cut by a third. to 5 Mwhrs.
THREE AUTOMOBILES. 7.5 Mwhrs
This load remains unchanged.
IMPROVED TRIPLE DECKER SUMMARY
The load has been reduced to 18.7 Mwhrs of which the solar electric can carry more than half
CONCLUSION
I have briefly explored a realistic application of solar electricity to the type of housing most common in Boston's older neighborhoods, in the context of a likely necessity of a 50 year schedule for accelerated climate change mitigation, although the schedule will likely be more demanding as a result of climate induced positive feedback.
I have found that to supply a typical triple decker on a Net Zero Energy basis the efficiency of the photovoltaic efficiency would need to be raised by 2 to 3 times. That is 32 percent efficiency for the superinsulated, radiant heated improved building and 48 percent efficiency needed for the unimproved building.
In a zero carbon future, all of the triple decker load not supplied on site will need to be supplied by Wind, Biofuels and other sustainable forms of renewables. Each of these carry attendant development problems like the siting of wind farms, bird kill, and the difficulties of achieving sustainable forestry on privately held lands.
Hybrid thermal electric collectors being developed by Shell in collaboration with the Dutch government and other partners can help reduce the heating load still further, but even another reduction in electric part of the heating load by one half will only affect the total electric load by 10 percent for the existing building case. .
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Emergency Preparedness 101
The BASEA Forum
Renewable Energy Lecture Series
November 10 , 2005
Emergency Preparedness 101
What happens when the power goes out
and how to best get through the storm
David O'Connor
Director
Cambridge, MA Emergency Management Department
1st Parish Unitarian Church ,
#3 Church St., Harvard Square, Cambridge
Doors open at 7:00 p.m. , Presentation starts at 7:30 p.m.
Renewable Energy Lecture Series
November 10 , 2005
Emergency Preparedness 101
What happens when the power goes out
and how to best get through the storm
David O'Connor
Director
Cambridge, MA Emergency Management Department
1st Parish Unitarian Church ,
#3 Church St., Harvard Square, Cambridge
Doors open at 7:00 p.m. , Presentation starts at 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Homefront Advantage
I believe it is time to bring the oil war home, especially since fuel prices indicate it's coming this direction whether we like it or not. My gut has been telling me that the homefront attitude of WWII, with its emphasis on belt-tightening and conserving, may be an appropriate response to our current situation.
Doing a little research on WWII slogans I came across a great collection of posters at http://www.state.nh.us/ww2/. You should really look at the pictures but here are some of the words:
Do with less so they'll have enough!
Millions of troops are on the move... is YOUR trip necessary?
Have you really tried to save gas by getting into a car club?
All fuel is scarce. Plan for winter now!
1. Winterize your home!
2. Check your heating plant!
3. Order fuel at once!
Food is a weapon. Don't waste it!
Can all you can. It's a real war job!
Plant a victory garden. Our food is fighting.
Use it up - wear it out- make it do! Our labor and goods are fighting.
I wonder if reproductions of these posters would be useful at Camp Casey or in Washington DC on September 24.
PS: One slogan I'd add for the 21st century is
Solar Is Civil Defense
Doing a little research on WWII slogans I came across a great collection of posters at http://www.state.nh.us/ww2/. You should really look at the pictures but here are some of the words:
Do with less so they'll have enough!
Millions of troops are on the move... is YOUR trip necessary?
Have you really tried to save gas by getting into a car club?
All fuel is scarce. Plan for winter now!
1. Winterize your home!
2. Check your heating plant!
3. Order fuel at once!
Food is a weapon. Don't waste it!
Can all you can. It's a real war job!
Plant a victory garden. Our food is fighting.
Use it up - wear it out- make it do! Our labor and goods are fighting.
I wonder if reproductions of these posters would be useful at Camp Casey or in Washington DC on September 24.
PS: One slogan I'd add for the 21st century is
Solar Is Civil Defense
Monday, May 30, 2005
Solar Swadeshi, Hand-Made Electricity
After much thinking, I have arrived at a definition of "Swadeshi" that perhaps best illustrates my meaning. 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 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.
(http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1998/3/98.03.05.x.html)
Gandhi would spin for an hour each day, usually producing a hundred yards of thread, 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. I believe this type of practical labor has to be the core of any sustainable ecological action.
We need a solar swadeshi, an ecological practice on a daily basis that allows us to live within our solar income. Gandhi used the charkha, the spinning wheel. What would be an ecological charkha, a solar charkha? I suggest a hand cranked, pedalled, or treadled dynamo. Work it for 30 minutes a day and generate watts and watts of electrical power for your own use or to put back into the grid for the benefit of others. Solar swadeshi. Hand-made electricity. 21st century khadi cloth. Real electrical power to the people. True energy independence with minimum waste, at least in terms of generation. Doing what Gandhi did with cloth but now with electricity.
In this "deregulated environment" with oil used as a weapon and national security identical to energy security, direct ecological and economic action toward renewables and away from the nuclear, gas, coal, and oil that we presently use can be a primary political as well as economic act. A treadle/pedal/crank powered generator with a flywheel can be the solar swadeshi, an ecological and economical electrical charkha.
One humanpower is about one sixth horsepower. A healthy person can put out 100 watts of power for hours on end and 300 watts in a sprint. Let's not be batteries in the Matrix but generators in a net metered ecological Network.
The ultimate goal I envision is to meet all electrical non-space-heating and refrigeration needs within the space of one south-facing window (4-10 square feet of photovoltaics) and a half hour to an hour a day's human power. The realistic goal today is most of the electrical load with the exception of refrigeration and space-heating: lighting, TV, audio, computer, phones...
This isn't Edward G. Robinson in "Soylent Green" pedalling a broken down three speed to light one sickly incandescent bulb. This is more like Lance Armstrong powering his energy efficient Spanish villa with a morning workout on his state of the art Tour de France simulator stationary bike and power generator.
from http://www.swadeshi.org/philos.htm
The essential ingredients of the Swadeshi thought may be summarised as follows :
1. Swadeshi means that which is natural and native to a country and society, but allows scope for assimilation of wholesome and beneficial elements from the outside. This applies to economics as well as politics; culture as well as technology.
2. It is the principle of prefering the neighbourhood over the remote.
3. It commands need-based life, and rules out unlimited consumption as an end.
4. It renews and relies on family, community and society as socio-economic delivery systems. It does not substitute these traditional institutions by the State and the Market.
5. It is not autarky; but a global alternative which accepts only need-based transnationalism.
6. Swadeshi restores economics to its earlier definition which even now the dictionary meaning of economy indicates, namely, practical human needs, frugality, savings, thrift etc. and seeks to remove the latter-day distortion of defining economics as multiplication of wants and efforts to satisfy them, powered by greed.
Stated in simple terms, Swadeshi rejects materialistic and imperialistic homogenisation and aimless transnationalism of the Western assumption. Swadeshi is a multidimensional thought, embracing civilisational, political and economic aspects of human life and presenting an integrated vision of life in harmony with nature.
from http://www.mkgandhi.org/momgandhi/chap86.htm
The message of the spinning-wheel is much wider than its circumference. Its message is one of simplicity, service of mankind, living so as not to hurt others, creating an indissoluble bond between the rich and the poor, capital and labour, the prince and the peasant. That larger message is naturally for all...
The message of the spinning-wheel is, really, to replace the spirit of exploitation by the spirit of service...
There is no "playing with truth" in the charkha programme, for satyagraha is not predominantly civil disobedience but a quiet and irresistible pursuit of Truth.
NB: I've been thinking about these ideas for quite a few years now. It seems appropriate to be publishing them on Memorial Day. People laugh at Gandhi for his insistence on swadeshi, on "wasting" his time by drawing thread from a spinning wheel but he was doing something fundamental in terms of self-reliance and self-respect on a level so obvious and so deep that most people can not see it at all. This lesson is one we need now more than ever. This practice is something that can generate the beginnings of real economic freedom.
Speeches and Writings of M. K. Gandhi, 1919 (http://members.tripod.com/~anusandhan/articles/article1.html)
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.
(http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1998/3/98.03.05.x.html)
Gandhi would spin for an hour each day, usually producing a hundred yards of thread, 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. I believe this type of practical labor has to be the core of any sustainable ecological action.
We need a solar swadeshi, an ecological practice on a daily basis that allows us to live within our solar income. Gandhi used the charkha, the spinning wheel. What would be an ecological charkha, a solar charkha? I suggest a hand cranked, pedalled, or treadled dynamo. Work it for 30 minutes a day and generate watts and watts of electrical power for your own use or to put back into the grid for the benefit of others. Solar swadeshi. Hand-made electricity. 21st century khadi cloth. Real electrical power to the people. True energy independence with minimum waste, at least in terms of generation. Doing what Gandhi did with cloth but now with electricity.
In this "deregulated environment" with oil used as a weapon and national security identical to energy security, direct ecological and economic action toward renewables and away from the nuclear, gas, coal, and oil that we presently use can be a primary political as well as economic act. A treadle/pedal/crank powered generator with a flywheel can be the solar swadeshi, an ecological and economical electrical charkha.
One humanpower is about one sixth horsepower. A healthy person can put out 100 watts of power for hours on end and 300 watts in a sprint. Let's not be batteries in the Matrix but generators in a net metered ecological Network.
The ultimate goal I envision is to meet all electrical non-space-heating and refrigeration needs within the space of one south-facing window (4-10 square feet of photovoltaics) and a half hour to an hour a day's human power. The realistic goal today is most of the electrical load with the exception of refrigeration and space-heating: lighting, TV, audio, computer, phones...
This isn't Edward G. Robinson in "Soylent Green" pedalling a broken down three speed to light one sickly incandescent bulb. This is more like Lance Armstrong powering his energy efficient Spanish villa with a morning workout on his state of the art Tour de France simulator stationary bike and power generator.
from http://www.swadeshi.org/philos.htm
The essential ingredients of the Swadeshi thought may be summarised as follows :
1. Swadeshi means that which is natural and native to a country and society, but allows scope for assimilation of wholesome and beneficial elements from the outside. This applies to economics as well as politics; culture as well as technology.
2. It is the principle of prefering the neighbourhood over the remote.
3. It commands need-based life, and rules out unlimited consumption as an end.
4. It renews and relies on family, community and society as socio-economic delivery systems. It does not substitute these traditional institutions by the State and the Market.
5. It is not autarky; but a global alternative which accepts only need-based transnationalism.
6. Swadeshi restores economics to its earlier definition which even now the dictionary meaning of economy indicates, namely, practical human needs, frugality, savings, thrift etc. and seeks to remove the latter-day distortion of defining economics as multiplication of wants and efforts to satisfy them, powered by greed.
Stated in simple terms, Swadeshi rejects materialistic and imperialistic homogenisation and aimless transnationalism of the Western assumption. Swadeshi is a multidimensional thought, embracing civilisational, political and economic aspects of human life and presenting an integrated vision of life in harmony with nature.
from http://www.mkgandhi.org/momgandhi/chap86.htm
The message of the spinning-wheel is much wider than its circumference. Its message is one of simplicity, service of mankind, living so as not to hurt others, creating an indissoluble bond between the rich and the poor, capital and labour, the prince and the peasant. That larger message is naturally for all...
The message of the spinning-wheel is, really, to replace the spirit of exploitation by the spirit of service...
There is no "playing with truth" in the charkha programme, for satyagraha is not predominantly civil disobedience but a quiet and irresistible pursuit of Truth.
NB: I've been thinking about these ideas for quite a few years now. It seems appropriate to be publishing them on Memorial Day. People laugh at Gandhi for his insistence on swadeshi, on "wasting" his time by drawing thread from a spinning wheel but he was doing something fundamental in terms of self-reliance and self-respect on a level so obvious and so deep that most people can not see it at all. This lesson is one we need now more than ever. This practice is something that can generate the beginnings of real economic freedom.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Gaian Design of Ecological Alchemy
A history of New Alchemy Institute. Here is the core of their natural systems designs.
_A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise of Ecological Design_ by Nancy Jack Todd
Washington: Island Press, 2005
ISBN 1-55963-778-1
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=fz1mCrlAEn&isbn=1559637781&itm=1
(82-83) The living world remained our conceptual model for the architecture of the bioshelters. Evolution is continuous, dynamic, and highly adaptive. As John was wont to point out, the Laws of Thermodynamics determine that there is a progressive deterioration in the quality of energy, but living forms create spatial form and morphic order. In defiance of entropy, energy can be harnessed to work on the side of life - which is precisely what we were trying to do.
(190) A Gaian worldview holds all life to be a sacred ecology in which humankind serves as steward.
(155) Gaia knows what she is doing, and our best bet is to get better at playing junior partner in the overall scheme of things.
(142) We had, in our experiments in applied Gaia, decoded some of the elements for healing both people and the planet and had helped to give the world what Gregory Bateson had called a "paradigm with a future."
(162-163) Twelve principles fundamental to the practice of ecological design:
1. Geological and mineral diversity must be present to evolve the biological responsiveness of rich soils.
2. Nutrient reservoirs are essential to keep such essentials as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium available or the pants.
3. Steep gradients between subcomponents must be engineered into the system to enable the biological elements to evolve rapidly to assist in the breakdown of toxic materials.
4. High rates of exchange must be created by maximizing surface areas that house the bacteria that determine the metabolism of the system and facilitate treatment.
5. Periodic and random pulsed exchanges improve performance. Just as random perturbations foster resilience in nature. in living technologies altering water flow creates self-organization in the system.
6. Cellular design is the structural model as it is in nature where cells are the organizing unit. Expansion of system should also use a cellular model, as in increasing the number of tanks.
7. A law of the minimum must be incorporated. At least three ecosystems such as a marsh, a pond, and a terrestrial area are needed to perform the assigned function and maintain overall stability.
8. Microbial communities must be introduced periodically from the natural world to maintain diversity and facilitate evolutionary processes.
9. Photosynthetic foundations are essential as oxygen-producing plants foster ecosystems that require less energy, aeration, and chemical management.
10. Phylogenetic diversity must be encouraged as a range of aquatic animals from the unicellular to snails to fish are as essential to the evolution and self-maintenance of the system as the plants.
11. Sequenced and repeated seedings are part of maintenance as a self-contained system cannot be isolated but must be interlinked through gaseous, nutrient, mineral, and biological pathways to the external environment.
12. Ecological design should reflect the macrocosmos in the microcosmos, representing the natural world miniaturized and reflecting its proportions, as in terrestrial to oceanic and aquatic areas.
(183) This approach to watershed restoration involves the following:
1. Modifying hydrological cycles on a microscale.
2. Working first upstream then downstream in the watershed,
3. Developing many local points of intervention.
4. Allowing local topography, including buildings, parking lots, and roadways, to direct design.
5. Employing natural systems engineering.
6. Incorporating organisms such as fungi, mosses, and higher plants to sequester metals, bind phosphorus, and destroy pathogens or to break down organic compounds, including petroleum-based products.
_A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise of Ecological Design_ by Nancy Jack Todd
Washington: Island Press, 2005
ISBN 1-55963-778-1
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=fz1mCrlAEn&isbn=1559637781&itm=1
(82-83) The living world remained our conceptual model for the architecture of the bioshelters. Evolution is continuous, dynamic, and highly adaptive. As John was wont to point out, the Laws of Thermodynamics determine that there is a progressive deterioration in the quality of energy, but living forms create spatial form and morphic order. In defiance of entropy, energy can be harnessed to work on the side of life - which is precisely what we were trying to do.
(190) A Gaian worldview holds all life to be a sacred ecology in which humankind serves as steward.
(155) Gaia knows what she is doing, and our best bet is to get better at playing junior partner in the overall scheme of things.
(142) We had, in our experiments in applied Gaia, decoded some of the elements for healing both people and the planet and had helped to give the world what Gregory Bateson had called a "paradigm with a future."
(162-163) Twelve principles fundamental to the practice of ecological design:
1. Geological and mineral diversity must be present to evolve the biological responsiveness of rich soils.
2. Nutrient reservoirs are essential to keep such essentials as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium available or the pants.
3. Steep gradients between subcomponents must be engineered into the system to enable the biological elements to evolve rapidly to assist in the breakdown of toxic materials.
4. High rates of exchange must be created by maximizing surface areas that house the bacteria that determine the metabolism of the system and facilitate treatment.
5. Periodic and random pulsed exchanges improve performance. Just as random perturbations foster resilience in nature. in living technologies altering water flow creates self-organization in the system.
6. Cellular design is the structural model as it is in nature where cells are the organizing unit. Expansion of system should also use a cellular model, as in increasing the number of tanks.
7. A law of the minimum must be incorporated. At least three ecosystems such as a marsh, a pond, and a terrestrial area are needed to perform the assigned function and maintain overall stability.
8. Microbial communities must be introduced periodically from the natural world to maintain diversity and facilitate evolutionary processes.
9. Photosynthetic foundations are essential as oxygen-producing plants foster ecosystems that require less energy, aeration, and chemical management.
10. Phylogenetic diversity must be encouraged as a range of aquatic animals from the unicellular to snails to fish are as essential to the evolution and self-maintenance of the system as the plants.
11. Sequenced and repeated seedings are part of maintenance as a self-contained system cannot be isolated but must be interlinked through gaseous, nutrient, mineral, and biological pathways to the external environment.
12. Ecological design should reflect the macrocosmos in the microcosmos, representing the natural world miniaturized and reflecting its proportions, as in terrestrial to oceanic and aquatic areas.
(183) This approach to watershed restoration involves the following:
1. Modifying hydrological cycles on a microscale.
2. Working first upstream then downstream in the watershed,
3. Developing many local points of intervention.
4. Allowing local topography, including buildings, parking lots, and roadways, to direct design.
5. Employing natural systems engineering.
6. Incorporating organisms such as fungi, mosses, and higher plants to sequester metals, bind phosphorus, and destroy pathogens or to break down organic compounds, including petroleum-based products.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Recycled Solar Results
There were only two entries for the Recycled Solar Contest. First Prize went to Daanish Maqbool for a heat driven fan made from aluminum cans and Second Prize went to Jonathan Tejada for a wind generator made from plastic bottles.
Both were conceptual rather than working models. No Tim Harkness Prize for most imaginative design was awarded.
On a day with rain showers, Tim Harkness' small parabolic dish maxed out the oven thermometer at over 600 degrees Fahrenheit or 315 degrees Celsius.
Looking over my collection of single LED lights that are already on the market today, I could imagine a solar LED reading light that will allow every child around the world to read under the covers.
In 1988, I visited China and spent a few days in the city of Guangzhou. The first evening there I walked down the street and saw men in the doorways standing before small tables. They were repairing and selling disposable lighters.
Could a solar reading light become as relatively affordable and ubiquitous as a disposable lighter?
Both were conceptual rather than working models. No Tim Harkness Prize for most imaginative design was awarded.
On a day with rain showers, Tim Harkness' small parabolic dish maxed out the oven thermometer at over 600 degrees Fahrenheit or 315 degrees Celsius.
Looking over my collection of single LED lights that are already on the market today, I could imagine a solar LED reading light that will allow every child around the world to read under the covers.
In 1988, I visited China and spent a few days in the city of Guangzhou. The first evening there I walked down the street and saw men in the doorways standing before small tables. They were repairing and selling disposable lighters.
Could a solar reading light become as relatively affordable and ubiquitous as a disposable lighter?
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Recycled Solar
Recycled Solar
Recycled Solar
Take the label off a clear plastic 2 liter
soda/pop/tonic bottle.
Cut the bottom off the bottle.
Plant a seed.
Press the edge of the bottomless bottle
into the soil around it.
The bottomless bottle is now a cloche or hot cap,
allowing earlier planting.
Open the bottomless bottle's bottle top
for warm days and close
it
for cold nights.
Take the labels off a few more
clear plastic 2 liter soda/pop/tonic bottles.
Fill them with water
and surround the bottomless bottle cloche hot cap.
Tie a string around this circle
and pull it tight.
During the day, the bottles of water
get warm
and stay warmer longer at night.
This recycled solar cloche
can take a month off planting season.
If you have green
plastic 2 liter soda/pop/tonic bottles,
place them on the North side
of the solar circle.
The darker the bottle
the hotter the water gets
in the sunlight.
This is a two tone solar cloche.
Take some silver paint
and paint the backs of
the green bottles
to reflect
light back
into the system
and you have a
three tone tuned
solar
cloche.
I built one once
for Candide's garden.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Folding the Circle
A friend was just visiting and brought the book, _The Geometry of Wholemovement_ by Bradford Hansen-Smith (ISBN 1-887229-24-8)
Hansen-Smith folds complex polyhedra out of circles, specifically paper pie plates. He writes of his method: "There was no measurement, only the proportional movement of dividing into the circle. I could form a circle into a tetrahedron, truncate it, reform it into an octahedron, into a tetrahelix, transform it into a cube and a hundred other spatial configurations simply by an in-and-out moving of a pattern of folded lines."
The book is excellent. You can get it from the author:
Bradford Hansen-Smith
4606 N Elston #3
Chicago, IL 60630
bradhs@interaccess.com
www.wholemovement.com
773-794-9764
Hansen-Smith folds complex polyhedra out of circles, specifically paper pie plates. He writes of his method: "There was no measurement, only the proportional movement of dividing into the circle. I could form a circle into a tetrahedron, truncate it, reform it into an octahedron, into a tetrahelix, transform it into a cube and a hundred other spatial configurations simply by an in-and-out moving of a pattern of folded lines."
The book is excellent. You can get it from the author:
Bradford Hansen-Smith
4606 N Elston #3
Chicago, IL 60630
bradhs@interaccess.com
www.wholemovement.com
773-794-9764
Friday, February 11, 2005
Digging Infinity! with Lord Buckley
_Dig Infinity!: The Life and Art of Lord Buckley_ by Oliver Trager (NY: Welcome Rain Publishers, 2001 ISBN 1-56649-157-6) (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=fz1mCrlAEn&isbn=1566492920&itm=1)
I recently read a biography of Lord Buckley, the declaimer of "The Nazz," known as a comedian, because I knew "The Nazz" from the late 60s and early 70s and was interested in discovering what else Lord Buckley did. The book comes complete with CD of some of his proto-Beat, hipster raps like "Subconscious Mind" and "Black Cross," a little of "Knock Me Your Lobes," Shakespeare in jive, and, of course, "The Nazz," his hip Gospel.
Turns out Richard "Lord" Buckley was a traveling showman from California who worked Depression Era dance marathons and walk-athons as an emcee and comic and the nightclub and Vaudeville and burlesque circuit in Chicago, Las Vegas, NY, LA, and SF. A self-made aristocrat, he gave himself his own title and gathered a Royal Court around him filled with people he dubbed Prince, Princess, Count, Earl, Sir, Lady...
Lord Buckley believed, "We have to spread love. We've got to. People of this nation have got to learn to be kinder, more gracious. They must rehearse kindness and graciousness with other people. They must do that. They must be more generous. The people who have things who are living next to people who haven't got things should give them some of the things that they have. We have to learn to give more. We have to learn to tighten, to magnetize this nation by love in this coming fight that we're in. We've _got_ to do that. We must do it. We _absolutely_ must. The government cannot do everything. The people must help. And they can help it by rehearsing love for each other."
"Rehearsing love for each other" where "love is the international understanding that each and every one of us have exactly the same problems to fight," and where God is love, as well as people:
"I went out looking for God the other day and I couldn't pin him. So I figure if I couldn't find him I'd look for his stash: his Great Lake of Love that holds the whole world in gear. And when I finally found it I had the great pleasure of finding that people were the guardians of it. Dig that. So, with my two times two is four, I figured that if people were guarding the stash of love known as God then, when people swing in beauty, they become little Gods and Goddesses. And I know a couple of them myself personally and I know you do too."
Buckley not only spun the Gospel his own way but he also told other Bible stories like "Jonah and the Whale," some of Aesop's fables, and the biographies of such people as Einstein and Gandhi. He was a pioneer monologuist and helped develop the comedy record.
He also dramatized the memoirs of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, _The Power Within_. De Vaca was a Spanish explorer who was shipwrecked in Florida and walked through the plains of the Americas for eight years until finally reaching Mexico. De Vaca and his companions survived because of his reputation as a healer. De Vaca wrote, "There is a great power within that when used in beauty, in Immaculate Conception and complete purity can cure and heal and cause miracles.... When you use it, it spreads like a magic garden, and when you do not use it, it recedes from you." Reportedly, De Vaca healed by laying on hands.
Buckley believed that everybody had access to this ability - if they swung in beauty. "All over this world in the alleys and valleys, on the plains, on the mesa, and the mountain top on the plateaus to the sands to the Gulf through the whole scene of this world - black, green, blue, yellow, and pink - there's loaded with _beautiful_ people that we never hear a thing about. We only hear about the winners and the losers and the others. But they're there. And those people are the protectors and progressers of the vaults of love which is known as 'God.' And when you appeal, when you go up a ladder, you go up the ladder and you go up so that you may get your vibrational points spread out so they go round-wise, electronic-wise, and you contact these people and you see their beauty and you hear the voices of the children and you see the sweet swing and the mighty power that's going ahead for greater perfection - for greater individual protection, for greater individual understanding, for greater presentation of the powers of the Garden of Love and contact with these people and - thack! - you could feel burning right in your hand."
One of Lord Buckley's most powerful pieces was "Black Cross" a poem by Joseph Newman, uncle of Paul Newman, about Hezikiah Jones, a black subsistence farmer, who runs afoul of the white man's preacher. He is accused of believing in nothing and responds:
Ah be'lieve that a man should be beholding to his neighbah
Widout the hope of Heaven or de fear o' Hell's fiah."
"But you don't understand," said the white man's preacher,
"There's a lot of good ways for a man to be wicked!"
And they _hung_ Hezikiah as _high_ as a pigeon,
And the nice folks around said, "Well, he had it comin'...
'Cause the son-of-a-bitch didn't have no religion!"
Can you say son-of-a-bitch on primetime network TV these days?
Buckley thought that religion would be replaced because "the steeples of the churches are too high for holes in the pants of the poor. And the drunk, the sickest and squarest of all, lies too long outside the closed doors without the arms of love to give him or her or it or they surcease, as it is written in every page of The Book." He said, "according to the study of the science of the cycle of design, that there must have been, and is working now, a whole new movement in great public beauty and therapy to take over the delinquencies of the church at _just_ the propitious moment.
And I found that that is _music_, ladies and gentlemen... music."
Buckley advised fighting injustice with humor: "It is the duty of any given nation in time of high crisis to attack the catastrophe that faces it in such a manner as to cause the people to laugh at it in such a way that they do not die before they get killed." At the same time, "he dug that it made no difference who be in the driver's seat since, no matter who, he be bound to square up - since square be the shape of all driver's seats."
Swing in beauty, cats and kitties, treat each other as the Lords and Ladies we all are, our noblest natures, all "created level in front."
Richard, Lord Buckley always has the last word:
"Well, I would like to say that in my feelings for the people everywhere I've worked, that their wonderful attention, their divine concentration, their precious presence and their attitude to _each_ and _every_ performer on the stage only goes to prove more and more: that the flowers, the beautiful magical flowers are _not_ the flowers of life. That _people... people_ are the true and wonderful flowers of life and it is always a great honor and a great privilege and a rare pleasure to even temporarily stroll into the gardens of their attentions. God swing them and God love them."
Further information at http://www.lordbuckley.com
I recently read a biography of Lord Buckley, the declaimer of "The Nazz," known as a comedian, because I knew "The Nazz" from the late 60s and early 70s and was interested in discovering what else Lord Buckley did. The book comes complete with CD of some of his proto-Beat, hipster raps like "Subconscious Mind" and "Black Cross," a little of "Knock Me Your Lobes," Shakespeare in jive, and, of course, "The Nazz," his hip Gospel.
Turns out Richard "Lord" Buckley was a traveling showman from California who worked Depression Era dance marathons and walk-athons as an emcee and comic and the nightclub and Vaudeville and burlesque circuit in Chicago, Las Vegas, NY, LA, and SF. A self-made aristocrat, he gave himself his own title and gathered a Royal Court around him filled with people he dubbed Prince, Princess, Count, Earl, Sir, Lady...
Lord Buckley believed, "We have to spread love. We've got to. People of this nation have got to learn to be kinder, more gracious. They must rehearse kindness and graciousness with other people. They must do that. They must be more generous. The people who have things who are living next to people who haven't got things should give them some of the things that they have. We have to learn to give more. We have to learn to tighten, to magnetize this nation by love in this coming fight that we're in. We've _got_ to do that. We must do it. We _absolutely_ must. The government cannot do everything. The people must help. And they can help it by rehearsing love for each other."
"Rehearsing love for each other" where "love is the international understanding that each and every one of us have exactly the same problems to fight," and where God is love, as well as people:
"I went out looking for God the other day and I couldn't pin him. So I figure if I couldn't find him I'd look for his stash: his Great Lake of Love that holds the whole world in gear. And when I finally found it I had the great pleasure of finding that people were the guardians of it. Dig that. So, with my two times two is four, I figured that if people were guarding the stash of love known as God then, when people swing in beauty, they become little Gods and Goddesses. And I know a couple of them myself personally and I know you do too."
Buckley not only spun the Gospel his own way but he also told other Bible stories like "Jonah and the Whale," some of Aesop's fables, and the biographies of such people as Einstein and Gandhi. He was a pioneer monologuist and helped develop the comedy record.
He also dramatized the memoirs of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, _The Power Within_. De Vaca was a Spanish explorer who was shipwrecked in Florida and walked through the plains of the Americas for eight years until finally reaching Mexico. De Vaca and his companions survived because of his reputation as a healer. De Vaca wrote, "There is a great power within that when used in beauty, in Immaculate Conception and complete purity can cure and heal and cause miracles.... When you use it, it spreads like a magic garden, and when you do not use it, it recedes from you." Reportedly, De Vaca healed by laying on hands.
Buckley believed that everybody had access to this ability - if they swung in beauty. "All over this world in the alleys and valleys, on the plains, on the mesa, and the mountain top on the plateaus to the sands to the Gulf through the whole scene of this world - black, green, blue, yellow, and pink - there's loaded with _beautiful_ people that we never hear a thing about. We only hear about the winners and the losers and the others. But they're there. And those people are the protectors and progressers of the vaults of love which is known as 'God.' And when you appeal, when you go up a ladder, you go up the ladder and you go up so that you may get your vibrational points spread out so they go round-wise, electronic-wise, and you contact these people and you see their beauty and you hear the voices of the children and you see the sweet swing and the mighty power that's going ahead for greater perfection - for greater individual protection, for greater individual understanding, for greater presentation of the powers of the Garden of Love and contact with these people and - thack! - you could feel burning right in your hand."
One of Lord Buckley's most powerful pieces was "Black Cross" a poem by Joseph Newman, uncle of Paul Newman, about Hezikiah Jones, a black subsistence farmer, who runs afoul of the white man's preacher. He is accused of believing in nothing and responds:
Ah be'lieve that a man should be beholding to his neighbah
Widout the hope of Heaven or de fear o' Hell's fiah."
"But you don't understand," said the white man's preacher,
"There's a lot of good ways for a man to be wicked!"
And they _hung_ Hezikiah as _high_ as a pigeon,
And the nice folks around said, "Well, he had it comin'...
'Cause the son-of-a-bitch didn't have no religion!"
Can you say son-of-a-bitch on primetime network TV these days?
Buckley thought that religion would be replaced because "the steeples of the churches are too high for holes in the pants of the poor. And the drunk, the sickest and squarest of all, lies too long outside the closed doors without the arms of love to give him or her or it or they surcease, as it is written in every page of The Book." He said, "according to the study of the science of the cycle of design, that there must have been, and is working now, a whole new movement in great public beauty and therapy to take over the delinquencies of the church at _just_ the propitious moment.
And I found that that is _music_, ladies and gentlemen... music."
Buckley advised fighting injustice with humor: "It is the duty of any given nation in time of high crisis to attack the catastrophe that faces it in such a manner as to cause the people to laugh at it in such a way that they do not die before they get killed." At the same time, "he dug that it made no difference who be in the driver's seat since, no matter who, he be bound to square up - since square be the shape of all driver's seats."
Swing in beauty, cats and kitties, treat each other as the Lords and Ladies we all are, our noblest natures, all "created level in front."
Richard, Lord Buckley always has the last word:
"Well, I would like to say that in my feelings for the people everywhere I've worked, that their wonderful attention, their divine concentration, their precious presence and their attitude to _each_ and _every_ performer on the stage only goes to prove more and more: that the flowers, the beautiful magical flowers are _not_ the flowers of life. That _people... people_ are the true and wonderful flowers of life and it is always a great honor and a great privilege and a rare pleasure to even temporarily stroll into the gardens of their attentions. God swing them and God love them."
Further information at http://www.lordbuckley.com
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Project for a New Year: Free Secular Literacy for All
"Asked about the biggest threat to their groups' survival, a militant says that 'free secular education for all' leading to an 'increase in the literacy rate' is the gravest threat to the survival of the jihadi groups in Pakistan."
_Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill_ by Jessica Stern (NY: HarperCollins, 2003), page 230
"Free secular education for all."
Why not an ad hoc, all media, open source push to make literacy possible for everybody in the world? When Google can announce that it will digitize the NY Public Library, why not free secular education for all, teaching literacy in local languages available through cell phone, Web/Net, radio, video, hard copy, and word of mouth?
Why not universal availability of learning materials by every means possible, taking into account the varieties of learning intelligences and the concept of literacy beyond the written word, rune, and ideogram, beyond numeracy? What about providing universal global access to the world's libraries to balance those who teach only the the One Holy Book, be it Koran, Bible, or little red book, only by rote, and always subject to higher or Higher Authority?
We are already a couple of years into the UNESCO Literacy Decade scheduled to run from 2003-2012 (http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=5000&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html). The goals include achieving "50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women... ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality... eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 and achieving gender equality in education by 2015."
With some 800 million or more illiterate adults in the world, about two-thirds of whom are women, and 100 million children children with no access to school, total literacy is going to be a difficult process. Making the best methods and resources universally and freely available through as many different media as possible would be a great help.
Here is an example of what is already beginning to happen from Meskel Square, a blog about Ethiopia (http://www.meskelsquare.com):
"The shock of the new (http://www.meskelsquare.com/archives/2005/01/the_shock_of_th.html))
"Just returned from a three-day trip to Ethiopia's very beautiful Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR).
"The scenery was stunning and the rural development sites we visited (with the UN's World Food Programme) were fascinating. But, for me, they were topped by a visit to a remote high school, a day-and-a-half's trip on rocky, unmade roads south of Addis Ababa.
"Just returned from a three-day trip to Ethiopia's very beautiful Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR).
"The scenery was stunning and the rural development sites we visited (with the UN's World Food Programme) were fascinating. But, for me, they were topped by a visit to a remote high school, a day-and-a-half's trip on rocky, unmade roads south of Addis Ababa.
"As we walked up to one of the outdoor classrooms, we heard the voice of a Maths teacher going into great detail about the angles of a parallelogram. When we went in, we found the 60 or so students were all taking their lesson from a professor speaking through a state-of-the-art Samsung plasma video screen that would be way beyond the budget of many schools in the UK. The lesson was being beamed in from Addis via a huge satellite dish outside through a rack of Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) receivers.
"Headteacher Mohamed Nur Osman said there had been an initial adjustment period when the screen was first installed six months ago. Students had found it hard to keep up with the English used by the Addis-based teachers. But they soon got used to it and grades had improved by up to 45 per cent over the period.
"These days students at Mudula Senior Secondary School receive Maths, English, Civics, Chemistry, Biology and Physics lessons by satellite. They have a computer room stocked with 35 Acer PCs. And they also have a handful of Dells which they plan to use in two months time to access the internet, also by satellite.
"Apparently, every high school in Ethiopia has similar equipment (including the plasma screen), paid for by the Ministry of Education.
"The technology and its application were interesting enough. I also liked the sheer excess of it all. If someone is going to provide you with lots of gear, why settle for a boring old TV monitor. If in doubt, go for plasma."
Resources to begin the Project for a New Year: Free Secular Literacy for All
I've been playing with a list of 100 Basic Words I found someplace on the Net a few years ago. I think there's a poem in there someplace:
yes no hello goodbye good morning good night
please thank you you're welcome excuse me/I'm sorry
who what/what kind which where when why how how much/many (some languages have one word for both)
and but also maybe only too (as in "in excess")
a little
something someone anything anyone nothing no one
man woman child boy girl
mother father sister brother son daughter husband wife family friend
food water breakfast lunch dinner
day night/evening morning afternoon dawn sunset
chair table pen paper book newspaper magazine
money store restaurant car city town
language student teacher
east west north south right left
help
see hear think speak know (most languages have 2 verbs for to know; to know a fact and to know a person/place) understand
do, make (often the same)
ask
eat drink
want need
study/learn (often the same)
sit stand walk run
come go live (most languages differentiate between to live as in 'to be alive' and to live as in 'to inhabit' )
like/love (often the same)
buy sell work pay
look for, visit
good/well bad
beautiful/pretty ugly interesting
big small
sick well nice
hot cold
new old (many languages distinguish between an old person and an old thing)
near far
Some categories of useful words:
Food
Parts of the body
Clothing
Family
Occupations
Nationalities and language names
Days of the week and the months
Times of day
Your own occupation
Your own nationality
Your native language and others you speak
from http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000515.php
Open Here: The Art of Instructional Design
"I thought I was the only one in the world stealing the safety instruction cards from airline seats because of their terrific folk graphics. For radically clear thinking nothing can beat a really good set of wordless diagrams; hundreds of examples from around the world are paraded here. Designers of the world, please heed."
-- Kevin Kelly
Open Here: The Art of Instructional Design
Paul Mijksenaar and Piet Westendorp
1999, 144 pages
$6
Joost Elffers Books
The Literacy Site (http://www.theliteracysite.com/) will donate books to children around the world if you visit the site and click.
"Literacy in SIL (http://www.sil.org/literacy/) distinctively focuses on developing programs in lesser-known and endangered languages and emphasizes using the mother tongue as the gateway to basic literacy. SIL's vision for language programs is to see literacy become a sustainable community value with the ownership of literacy goals and activities in the hands of the people."
You should be aware that the World Literacy Crusade seems to be a Church of Scientology project.
_Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill_ by Jessica Stern (NY: HarperCollins, 2003), page 230
"Free secular education for all."
Why not an ad hoc, all media, open source push to make literacy possible for everybody in the world? When Google can announce that it will digitize the NY Public Library, why not free secular education for all, teaching literacy in local languages available through cell phone, Web/Net, radio, video, hard copy, and word of mouth?
Why not universal availability of learning materials by every means possible, taking into account the varieties of learning intelligences and the concept of literacy beyond the written word, rune, and ideogram, beyond numeracy? What about providing universal global access to the world's libraries to balance those who teach only the the One Holy Book, be it Koran, Bible, or little red book, only by rote, and always subject to higher or Higher Authority?
We are already a couple of years into the UNESCO Literacy Decade scheduled to run from 2003-2012 (http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=5000&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html). The goals include achieving "50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women... ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality... eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 and achieving gender equality in education by 2015."
With some 800 million or more illiterate adults in the world, about two-thirds of whom are women, and 100 million children children with no access to school, total literacy is going to be a difficult process. Making the best methods and resources universally and freely available through as many different media as possible would be a great help.
Here is an example of what is already beginning to happen from Meskel Square, a blog about Ethiopia (http://www.meskelsquare.com):
"The shock of the new (http://www.meskelsquare.com/archives/2005/01/the_shock_of_th.html))
"Just returned from a three-day trip to Ethiopia's very beautiful Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR).
"The scenery was stunning and the rural development sites we visited (with the UN's World Food Programme) were fascinating. But, for me, they were topped by a visit to a remote high school, a day-and-a-half's trip on rocky, unmade roads south of Addis Ababa.
"Just returned from a three-day trip to Ethiopia's very beautiful Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR).
"The scenery was stunning and the rural development sites we visited (with the UN's World Food Programme) were fascinating. But, for me, they were topped by a visit to a remote high school, a day-and-a-half's trip on rocky, unmade roads south of Addis Ababa.
"As we walked up to one of the outdoor classrooms, we heard the voice of a Maths teacher going into great detail about the angles of a parallelogram. When we went in, we found the 60 or so students were all taking their lesson from a professor speaking through a state-of-the-art Samsung plasma video screen that would be way beyond the budget of many schools in the UK. The lesson was being beamed in from Addis via a huge satellite dish outside through a rack of Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) receivers.
"Headteacher Mohamed Nur Osman said there had been an initial adjustment period when the screen was first installed six months ago. Students had found it hard to keep up with the English used by the Addis-based teachers. But they soon got used to it and grades had improved by up to 45 per cent over the period.
"These days students at Mudula Senior Secondary School receive Maths, English, Civics, Chemistry, Biology and Physics lessons by satellite. They have a computer room stocked with 35 Acer PCs. And they also have a handful of Dells which they plan to use in two months time to access the internet, also by satellite.
"Apparently, every high school in Ethiopia has similar equipment (including the plasma screen), paid for by the Ministry of Education.
"The technology and its application were interesting enough. I also liked the sheer excess of it all. If someone is going to provide you with lots of gear, why settle for a boring old TV monitor. If in doubt, go for plasma."
Resources to begin the Project for a New Year: Free Secular Literacy for All
I've been playing with a list of 100 Basic Words I found someplace on the Net a few years ago. I think there's a poem in there someplace:
yes no hello goodbye good morning good night
please thank you you're welcome excuse me/I'm sorry
who what/what kind which where when why how how much/many (some languages have one word for both)
and but also maybe only too (as in "in excess")
a little
something someone anything anyone nothing no one
man woman child boy girl
mother father sister brother son daughter husband wife family friend
food water breakfast lunch dinner
day night/evening morning afternoon dawn sunset
chair table pen paper book newspaper magazine
money store restaurant car city town
language student teacher
east west north south right left
help
see hear think speak know (most languages have 2 verbs for to know; to know a fact and to know a person/place) understand
do, make (often the same)
ask
eat drink
want need
study/learn (often the same)
sit stand walk run
come go live (most languages differentiate between to live as in 'to be alive' and to live as in 'to inhabit' )
like/love (often the same)
buy sell work pay
look for, visit
good/well bad
beautiful/pretty ugly interesting
big small
sick well nice
hot cold
new old (many languages distinguish between an old person and an old thing)
near far
Some categories of useful words:
Food
Parts of the body
Clothing
Family
Occupations
Nationalities and language names
Days of the week and the months
Times of day
Your own occupation
Your own nationality
Your native language and others you speak
from http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000515.php
Open Here: The Art of Instructional Design
"I thought I was the only one in the world stealing the safety instruction cards from airline seats because of their terrific folk graphics. For radically clear thinking nothing can beat a really good set of wordless diagrams; hundreds of examples from around the world are paraded here. Designers of the world, please heed."
-- Kevin Kelly
Open Here: The Art of Instructional Design
Paul Mijksenaar and Piet Westendorp
1999, 144 pages
$6
Joost Elffers Books
The Literacy Site (http://www.theliteracysite.com/) will donate books to children around the world if you visit the site and click.
"Literacy in SIL (http://www.sil.org/literacy/) distinctively focuses on developing programs in lesser-known and endangered languages and emphasizes using the mother tongue as the gateway to basic literacy. SIL's vision for language programs is to see literacy become a sustainable community value with the ownership of literacy goals and activities in the hands of the people."
You should be aware that the World Literacy Crusade seems to be a Church of Scientology project.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Human Power Stations
Here's a company that sells human power generators
http://www.windstreampower.com/humanpower/hpg.html
There's always Freeplay and they have a "FreeCharge Marine Power Pack" that's "available soon"
http://www.freeplayenergy.com/index.php?section=home
And this company, Dynosys, seems to have optimized the wheel-rim generator
http://www.dynosys-ag.ch/indexe.html
http://www.windstreampower.com/humanpower/hpg.html
There's always Freeplay and they have a "FreeCharge Marine Power Pack" that's "available soon"
http://www.freeplayenergy.com/index.php?section=home
And this company, Dynosys, seems to have optimized the wheel-rim generator
http://www.dynosys-ag.ch/indexe.html
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Three Solar Projects
1. Solar Product Chain
I want to make a series of steppingstone products to full solar electric power:
solar powered LED light - flashlight, keychain or backpack fob
solar jewelry - rings, bracelets, necklaces, with solar charging brooch and rechargeable battery pack
solar bicycle light (for visibility)
This set of products uses button batteries, CR2016 and CR2032 size and hearing aid batteries, for instance. The simplest system is a solar cell, with a blocking diode, a set or rechargeable batteries, and a single LED
solar/dynamo flashlight/radio and battery charger
The charger works on AA and other dry cell sizes, possibly up to 12 volts. A radio and flashlight are what is recommended in case of emergency and disaster. If the extra set of batteries is rechargeable, the solar/dynamo system can produce electricity day or night by sunlight or muscle power as long as the batteries can carry a charge.
solar car battery charger (one square foot)
12 volt (and multiples)
Every car can become a "hybrid vehicle" by installing an extra battery and a control system to charge from the alternator when the engine's battery is finished. Battery switching, with 12 volt or dry cell or even button batteries is a key concept in the solar transition.
one window solar electric system (four square feet)
12 volt, with AC inverter and possible grid connect
The one window system is 4 square feet of solar collector and should be almost as easy to install as an air conditioner. Open the window, erect the frame, aim it at the sun, attach collector, plug it in, and close the window.
There should be a consistent look and feel to all the products along the product chain and as much inter-operability as possible.
2. Your Southernmost Window
A series of half hour programs for TV, videotape, DVD and other digital media
What you can do with one south-facing window, or how to live within a solar budget, including designs viewers can replicate at home to provide heat, light, ventilation, and/or stimulate ecological growth.
Program 1. What You can See from a Window - one square foot of sunlight, orientation to the sun, design principles, window types, glazing, heat loss, infiltration, insulation, heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC), air purification, breathing
Program 2. Every Window in the House - window types take 2, radiation and convection, caulking and weatherstripping, drafts and infiltration, how to chart your airflows, how to use them, window insulation, whole house HVAC
Program 3. The Electric Window - solar electricity/photovoltaic/PV, small battery charger, solar/dynamo flashlight radio, one window systems, permanent emergency capacity, battery switching and your car
Program 4. Hot and Cold Windows - windowbox heaters, passive and active ventilators, advanced airflow usage, active and passive water heating, your northernmost window, a nod towards refrigerators and low heat differential heat pumps
Program 5. The Greenhouse Window - windowsill gardens, bubbling out/bubbling in, heat storage, aquaculture, vermiculture, and ecological housekeeping, the neighborhood
Program 6. Most Windows in Town -what if everybody did it?, the economics of sunlight, systems thinking from community to region to country to world, globalization of solar physics
3. Mister Franklin's Folks
Mister Franklin’s Folks began when a small group of people decided to bring a solar fountain to the local farmers markets, swap meets, and outdoor community events and began to generate public power. Each week, they’d float the solar electric panel and pump the water in a tub and the little fountain would splash and spray. The brighter the sunshine the higher the water would go. Children loved to turn it on and off with their shadows, jumping into and out of the sunlight, making the water dance and themselves laugh. Older kids asked questions and so did some of the adults. “What’s it for?" "How does it work?" "Why are you doing this?" "So what?”
The exhibit was labeled, “Solar Fountain/Wishing Well” and some coins lay at the bottom of the tub. There was a big can labeled “Donations” on the table under the shade of an awning or umbrella where one of Franklin’s Folk sat with a portable computer and a collection of books, pamphlets, leaflets, cards, and stickers. The car, van or truck parked behind them was full of working models and public experiments, product demos and testing equipment. The computer had a wireless connection to the Internet and could print out paper copy or otherwise transfer the information. For a donation.
Each week, from Memorial Day to the week before Thanksgiving, throughout the farmers market season, they’d be there. Each week, they’d set up the solar fountain and present a different demonstration of solar ingenuity and practical power. When they said "Power to the people," they meant it literally.
The Franklin Folk said “Your south-facing window is already a solar collector and we can show you how to use it.” They provided designs and projects that began by caulking and sealing a window and ended with a complete one room HVAC and electrical system for daily and/or emergency use.
They liked the little solar/dynamo radio/flashlights that were around then. “A solar/dynamo and a set of rechargeable batteries is a perpetual source of personal AA electrical power - at least until the batteries wear out. You should have power as long as the sun keeps shining, you can turn the hand crank, and the batteries hold a charge. And when the batteries die, all you have to do is go out and buy some new ones. That is, unless we’ve changed to fuel cells or flywheels by then.”
“If you have a bicycle or exercise equipment, you can probably install a generator device and provide another lifetime supply of AA power from that, too!” They had the plans so you could do it yourself and a bulk buying club so that people could save money on parts and supplies. “Let your kids make their own battery power from sunlight and a little exercise. Power your devices with a walk on the treadmill or while biking on errands.”
They did simple experiments like the one with three boxes of air - three small, sealed, transparent boxes all the same size, each with a thermometer. They set them out in the sun - one box totally transparent, one box's clear sides covered in white insulation board except for the side facing the sun, the third box covered with black insulation board and one side, also, clear to the sun. Two thermometers measured the temperature of the outdoor air, one in the sunlight and another in the shade. The Franklin Folk displayed the results of that day’s solar race with a running total on computer by their table and on the Internet with a mobile uplink.
They called themselves Mister Franklin’s Folks because, like Benjamin Franklin, they believed in ingenuity and thrift. They quoted Poor Richard:
A penny saved is two pence clear. A pin a-day is a groat a year. Save and have.
Every little makes a mickle.
A wise Man will desire no more than what he may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully and leave contentedly.
Spare and have is better than spend and crave.
Like Mr Franklin, they were experimenting with electricity but instead of kites and lightning, they were looking at the sun for energy independence and building the idea of a renewable economy use by use, appliance by appliance, socket by socket, room by room.
One day, one of Mr Franklin's Folk pointed back at their car and said, "This car is now a hybrid vehicle. We modified it to charge an extra battery and can switch that battery with one in the house to run another room or part of the household. Many of us Franklin Folk are reducing our electrical bills considerably. Eventually we want to use the the grid only for back-up and you can too. With the money we save, we'll be able to install enough solar electric panels so we can begin to run the meter backwards and the electric company will have to pay us."
Other days, they had information on how to keep a pantry and food storage. Not only did they teach people how to can and salt and dry foods but they also helped organize buying clubs and bulk purchases in season to save everybody money and help the farmers in the local agricultural system steady their income and cash flow. At the farmers market they displayed maps of all the agricultural resources in the state - farmers markets, pick-your-owns, farm stands, CSAs, community gardens and farms, coops, buying clubs, community kitchens, food pantries and feeding programs. They had composting and worm farming demonstrations, taught the local community, backyard and windowsill gardeners how to lengthen their growing seasons, and encouraged the public planting of fruit trees and berry bushes throughout the city and town.
“Spare and have is better than spend and crave.”
"A wise Man will desire no more than what he may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully and leave contentedly."
"Every little makes a mickle."
"A penny saved is two pence clear. A pin a-day is a groat a year. Save and have."
They quoted Poor Richard's old home truths but put them into an ecological survival context. Each week they offered practical lessons in real thrift or how to save a fortune while saving the environment, the community, and the world.
"Franklin established the oldest working cooperative in the United States, the Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss Against Fire in 1752. It was called the Hand-in-Hand, after the symbol of four hands grasping four wrists in a form commonly known as a Jacob's Chair. It was their fire mark, a sign they put on the houses they insured so that their volunteer fire department would know which houses it had responsibility for. A volunteer fire department not associated with the Hand-in-Hand would just let the building burn."
"How would Mister Franklin do business these days?" Mister Franklin's Folks asked. "Benjamin Franklin was one of the early researchers into the Gulf Stream. How would he deal with global warming and the ozone hole, let alone local pollution? He invented an odometer to set up postal routes and was the first postmaster general of the United States. What do you think he'd do with the Internet? He published the first political cartoon in North America and refused the job of writing the Declaration of Independence because he would not be edited by anyone but himself.
"Benjamin Franklin was a printer, writer, editor, newspaper, magazine, and book publisher. What do you think he would have done in the modern news environment?"
These were some of the things Mr. Franklin’s Folks brought to their table at the farmer’s market, church social, and neighborhood celebration week after week all that year.
I want to make a series of steppingstone products to full solar electric power:
solar powered LED light - flashlight, keychain or backpack fob
solar jewelry - rings, bracelets, necklaces, with solar charging brooch and rechargeable battery pack
solar bicycle light (for visibility)
This set of products uses button batteries, CR2016 and CR2032 size and hearing aid batteries, for instance. The simplest system is a solar cell, with a blocking diode, a set or rechargeable batteries, and a single LED
solar/dynamo flashlight/radio and battery charger
The charger works on AA and other dry cell sizes, possibly up to 12 volts. A radio and flashlight are what is recommended in case of emergency and disaster. If the extra set of batteries is rechargeable, the solar/dynamo system can produce electricity day or night by sunlight or muscle power as long as the batteries can carry a charge.
solar car battery charger (one square foot)
12 volt (and multiples)
Every car can become a "hybrid vehicle" by installing an extra battery and a control system to charge from the alternator when the engine's battery is finished. Battery switching, with 12 volt or dry cell or even button batteries is a key concept in the solar transition.
one window solar electric system (four square feet)
12 volt, with AC inverter and possible grid connect
The one window system is 4 square feet of solar collector and should be almost as easy to install as an air conditioner. Open the window, erect the frame, aim it at the sun, attach collector, plug it in, and close the window.
There should be a consistent look and feel to all the products along the product chain and as much inter-operability as possible.
2. Your Southernmost Window
A series of half hour programs for TV, videotape, DVD and other digital media
What you can do with one south-facing window, or how to live within a solar budget, including designs viewers can replicate at home to provide heat, light, ventilation, and/or stimulate ecological growth.
Program 1. What You can See from a Window - one square foot of sunlight, orientation to the sun, design principles, window types, glazing, heat loss, infiltration, insulation, heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC), air purification, breathing
Program 2. Every Window in the House - window types take 2, radiation and convection, caulking and weatherstripping, drafts and infiltration, how to chart your airflows, how to use them, window insulation, whole house HVAC
Program 3. The Electric Window - solar electricity/photovoltaic/PV, small battery charger, solar/dynamo flashlight radio, one window systems, permanent emergency capacity, battery switching and your car
Program 4. Hot and Cold Windows - windowbox heaters, passive and active ventilators, advanced airflow usage, active and passive water heating, your northernmost window, a nod towards refrigerators and low heat differential heat pumps
Program 5. The Greenhouse Window - windowsill gardens, bubbling out/bubbling in, heat storage, aquaculture, vermiculture, and ecological housekeeping, the neighborhood
Program 6. Most Windows in Town -what if everybody did it?, the economics of sunlight, systems thinking from community to region to country to world, globalization of solar physics
3. Mister Franklin's Folks
Mister Franklin’s Folks began when a small group of people decided to bring a solar fountain to the local farmers markets, swap meets, and outdoor community events and began to generate public power. Each week, they’d float the solar electric panel and pump the water in a tub and the little fountain would splash and spray. The brighter the sunshine the higher the water would go. Children loved to turn it on and off with their shadows, jumping into and out of the sunlight, making the water dance and themselves laugh. Older kids asked questions and so did some of the adults. “What’s it for?" "How does it work?" "Why are you doing this?" "So what?”
The exhibit was labeled, “Solar Fountain/Wishing Well” and some coins lay at the bottom of the tub. There was a big can labeled “Donations” on the table under the shade of an awning or umbrella where one of Franklin’s Folk sat with a portable computer and a collection of books, pamphlets, leaflets, cards, and stickers. The car, van or truck parked behind them was full of working models and public experiments, product demos and testing equipment. The computer had a wireless connection to the Internet and could print out paper copy or otherwise transfer the information. For a donation.
Each week, from Memorial Day to the week before Thanksgiving, throughout the farmers market season, they’d be there. Each week, they’d set up the solar fountain and present a different demonstration of solar ingenuity and practical power. When they said "Power to the people," they meant it literally.
The Franklin Folk said “Your south-facing window is already a solar collector and we can show you how to use it.” They provided designs and projects that began by caulking and sealing a window and ended with a complete one room HVAC and electrical system for daily and/or emergency use.
They liked the little solar/dynamo radio/flashlights that were around then. “A solar/dynamo and a set of rechargeable batteries is a perpetual source of personal AA electrical power - at least until the batteries wear out. You should have power as long as the sun keeps shining, you can turn the hand crank, and the batteries hold a charge. And when the batteries die, all you have to do is go out and buy some new ones. That is, unless we’ve changed to fuel cells or flywheels by then.”
“If you have a bicycle or exercise equipment, you can probably install a generator device and provide another lifetime supply of AA power from that, too!” They had the plans so you could do it yourself and a bulk buying club so that people could save money on parts and supplies. “Let your kids make their own battery power from sunlight and a little exercise. Power your devices with a walk on the treadmill or while biking on errands.”
They did simple experiments like the one with three boxes of air - three small, sealed, transparent boxes all the same size, each with a thermometer. They set them out in the sun - one box totally transparent, one box's clear sides covered in white insulation board except for the side facing the sun, the third box covered with black insulation board and one side, also, clear to the sun. Two thermometers measured the temperature of the outdoor air, one in the sunlight and another in the shade. The Franklin Folk displayed the results of that day’s solar race with a running total on computer by their table and on the Internet with a mobile uplink.
They called themselves Mister Franklin’s Folks because, like Benjamin Franklin, they believed in ingenuity and thrift. They quoted Poor Richard:
A penny saved is two pence clear. A pin a-day is a groat a year. Save and have.
Every little makes a mickle.
A wise Man will desire no more than what he may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully and leave contentedly.
Spare and have is better than spend and crave.
Like Mr Franklin, they were experimenting with electricity but instead of kites and lightning, they were looking at the sun for energy independence and building the idea of a renewable economy use by use, appliance by appliance, socket by socket, room by room.
One day, one of Mr Franklin's Folk pointed back at their car and said, "This car is now a hybrid vehicle. We modified it to charge an extra battery and can switch that battery with one in the house to run another room or part of the household. Many of us Franklin Folk are reducing our electrical bills considerably. Eventually we want to use the the grid only for back-up and you can too. With the money we save, we'll be able to install enough solar electric panels so we can begin to run the meter backwards and the electric company will have to pay us."
Other days, they had information on how to keep a pantry and food storage. Not only did they teach people how to can and salt and dry foods but they also helped organize buying clubs and bulk purchases in season to save everybody money and help the farmers in the local agricultural system steady their income and cash flow. At the farmers market they displayed maps of all the agricultural resources in the state - farmers markets, pick-your-owns, farm stands, CSAs, community gardens and farms, coops, buying clubs, community kitchens, food pantries and feeding programs. They had composting and worm farming demonstrations, taught the local community, backyard and windowsill gardeners how to lengthen their growing seasons, and encouraged the public planting of fruit trees and berry bushes throughout the city and town.
“Spare and have is better than spend and crave.”
"A wise Man will desire no more than what he may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully and leave contentedly."
"Every little makes a mickle."
"A penny saved is two pence clear. A pin a-day is a groat a year. Save and have."
They quoted Poor Richard's old home truths but put them into an ecological survival context. Each week they offered practical lessons in real thrift or how to save a fortune while saving the environment, the community, and the world.
"Franklin established the oldest working cooperative in the United States, the Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss Against Fire in 1752. It was called the Hand-in-Hand, after the symbol of four hands grasping four wrists in a form commonly known as a Jacob's Chair. It was their fire mark, a sign they put on the houses they insured so that their volunteer fire department would know which houses it had responsibility for. A volunteer fire department not associated with the Hand-in-Hand would just let the building burn."
"How would Mister Franklin do business these days?" Mister Franklin's Folks asked. "Benjamin Franklin was one of the early researchers into the Gulf Stream. How would he deal with global warming and the ozone hole, let alone local pollution? He invented an odometer to set up postal routes and was the first postmaster general of the United States. What do you think he'd do with the Internet? He published the first political cartoon in North America and refused the job of writing the Declaration of Independence because he would not be edited by anyone but himself.
"Benjamin Franklin was a printer, writer, editor, newspaper, magazine, and book publisher. What do you think he would have done in the modern news environment?"
These were some of the things Mr. Franklin’s Folks brought to their table at the farmer’s market, church social, and neighborhood celebration week after week all that year.
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