Monday, January 06, 2014

Sustainable Development and Climate Change: 2 Free Online Courses

I'd like to participate in an ongoing on and off line brainstorm using Buckminster Fuller's World Game design criteria, "How can we make the world work for 100 percent of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone?" and one of Bill McDonough's Ecological Design Principles, "Use only available solar income."

Here are some free resources that are edging, gingerly, towards that possibility.
"Age of Sustainable Development (https://www.coursera.org/course/susdev ) gives students an understanding of the key challenges and pathways to sustainable development - that is, economic development that is also socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable."

free 14 week course taught by Jeffrey Sachs
starting January 21

Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided (https://www.coursera.org/course/warmerworld )
"It is now becoming clear that without necessary climate action, the world may become 4°C warmer by the end of this century. As this threatens to roll back decades of development progress, this is a ‘make or break’ point. This course presents the most recent scientific evidence as well as some of the opportunities for urgent action."


free World Bank MOOC [Massive Open Online Course] on climate change
starting January 27


e4Dev, Energy for Development, a student group at MIT is teaching a 4 day course this week (January 7-10, 2014) "Exploring the intersection of energy and human development, Racing Towards Universal Energy Access: Why the Next 2 Billion Users Matter (more than you think).  Eventually, they want to produce their own online course as well but their Fall lectures are already available as videos online:

Prospects for Grid-Connected PV in Kenya
http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/e4dev/videos/26727-amy-rose-esd_e4dev-9-26-13

Technical and Economic Analysis of PV DC Microgrids
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/26728-andrew-campanella-sdm-13-e4dev-10-3-13

Reliable Alternative Energy Options for Access:  Lessons from China's Countryside
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/26729-michael-davidson-tpp-e4dev-10-10-13

Power Africa
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/26730-power-africa-q-a-e4dev-10-17-13

Electrifying Rural India with Solar Microgrids:  Adoption and Impact
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/26731-professor-johannes-urpelainen-columbia-univ-e4dev-10-31-13

Water Desalination:  Prospects for Energy and Demand
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/26732-david-cohen-tanugi-ms-e-e4dev-11-7-13



Previously http://solarray.blogspot.com/2013/12/universal-energy-access-iap-at-mit-with.html



Sunday, January 05, 2014

Toilets, Stoves, and Solar

Susan Murcott, Bob Lange, and Richard Komp are three grassroots environmental activists who are changing lives all around the world.  Susan is a water researcher whose work on simple water filters has benefitted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people from Guatemala to Ghana.  Her latest project is building a block of toilets for a school in a village in Ghana, the second project of this kind she has been involved with.  Bob is a physics professor who has been doing science education in Africa for many years, an activity that morphed into installing small solar systems for villages in Tanzania and now into designing, building, and installing efficient cookstoves with the Maasai people. This year, his work is expanding into Uganda.  Richard is a solar expert who has worked on everything from the physics of solar electricity to building solar stoves from scrap.   He has been teaching people all around the world how to do solar as a cottage industry for about three decades now.  His latest idea is to outfit a sailboat as a floating solar workshop that can teach people throughout the Caribbean how to better their lives with simple solar technologies. You can read his reports on his international work at http://www.mainesolar.org/Komp.html

I consider myself immensely privileged to know all three of these remarkable and remarkably effective people.

Toilets
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/toilets-for-schools-improving-sanitation-in-ghana/x/5309964
"We are raising money to construct a toilet block for a school in the village of Gbalahi in Ghana."  They need about another $7000 in the next 40 days or so.

Roughly a billion people worldwide live without safe drinking water and each year millions are sickened by waterborne diseases, a condition CEE Senior Lecturer Susan Murcott hopes to improve through dissemination of household drinking water treatment and safe storage systems, a cluster of innovative technologies she has helped invent and promote: one used by about 800,000 people in Guatemala; another that removes pathogens and clarifies turbidity in Ghanaian drinking water used by over 100,000 people; and a third, a filter sold in Nepal to screen out arsenic and bacteria, which has so far reached 350,000 people. All three projects make use of locally available materials and the local workforce to create jobs in manufacturing and sales. Many CEE Masters of Engineering students, School of Engineering, DUSP and Sloan students have worked with Murcott on these projects, which were showcased at the Expo Bid Symposium in October in Dubai and will be honored during the World Expo 2020 in Dubai.Read a related story: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/long-haul-to-bring-clean-water-to-developing-nations-1210.htmlSee also: http://globalwater.mit.edu

Stoves 
http://internationalcollaborative.org
Read about our work, reducing indoor smoke in the homes of pastoral people in the developing world, caused by the use of indoor cooking fires.We replace the fires with our stove and chimney that produces ninety percent less smoke, benefitting families and the environment.

Solar
Floating Solar Workshop SailboatProject for the Miskito Coast in NicaraguaBy Richard Komp, Director - Skyheat Associates
In December I will be going to the Miskito Coast of Nicaragua for the third short solar course I will teach there. This time I will be taking a small sailboat on an overnight trip to get to the remote workshop site.
Our biggest concern is the pirates and drug smugglers in this part of the Caribbean but Nicaragua is currently pretty free of these marauders since the Sandinista government has taken control.
The Donated SailboatWhat I am looking for is a boat that is between 40 and 50 feet long that could be donated by somebody or a corporation. Skyheat Associates is a 501(c)(3) Public Charity and the donation would be tax deductible. We are not fussy about the condition or type of boat but our criteria are floating and able to be fixed up well enough to get from Florida to the Miskito Coast of Nicaragua, where it can be fixed up better and converted to the floating workshop center. It would be good if the boat had a draft of 4 feet or less since many of the places we will be visiting have shallow inlets or bays.
The Grupo Fenix http://grupofenix.org/ in Nicaragua already works in that part of the country and we have good contacts along the Miskito Coast to have this refurbishing work done properly.
Crowdsourcing to pay for the ProjectThis project will take quite a bit of money, both for outfitting the boat and for the cost of all this traveling around the Caribbean. People have suggested that we try raising the money on the Internet and I think I will ask the next person who suggests this to go ahead and do it. I will give that person or group all the information where they can send the check when they are successful.
We are looking to raise $30,000 in total for the project. Most of the places where the floating center will be giving workshops are occupied by 3rd World people who live on less than $2 a day and the workshops will be free for them; but the project will have quite a few expenses for living costs and workshop materials. Of course places like Akumal in Mexico have a lot of student volunteers from the 1st World who can pay for the workshop, so some of the boat’s expenses will be paid that way; but in general, the project will need donated funds to operate properly. Some of the volunteers who wish to take part in this project may also have money to pay their own way. 
I already have lots of people who have volunteered to help me sail around the Caribbean; but we will need volunteers to help raise money and work on the sailboat. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested. We are now setting up a Crowdsourcing website and will send more information when the donation system is running. The plan includes the opportunity to attend one of the solar workshops or sail on the boat as part of the bonus for a larger donation
Contact Information, For more information or help: Richard Komp, PhD, Director Skyheat Associates,PO Box 184, Harrington ME 04643 207-497-2204, 207- 356-0225 cell sunwatt@juno.comwww.mainesolar.org

Monday, December 23, 2013

Universal Energy Access: IAP at MIT with e4Dev

e4Dev, a student group at MIT interested in Energy for Development, is organizing a four day course on
"Exploring the intersection of energy and human development
Racing Towards Universal Energy Access:
Why the Next 2 Billion Users Matter (more than you think)"

I wonder if they'll use Buckminster Fuller's World Game design criteria, "How can we make the world work for 100 percent of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone?" or one of Bill McDonough's Ecological Design Principles, Use only available solar income.

e4Dev, if they wanted to, might be able to do all or part of the course as a webinar or a MOOC [Massive Open Online Course]. After all, they do have a Ustream channel (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/e4dev) and MIT is part of EdX (https://www.edx.org/school/mitx).

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

"More than 1.5 billion people lack access to basic energy services. This is not inherently problematic as access to energy is not in and of itself a goal of development. Energy access has, however, been identified as a potentially important component in enabling many essential quality of life improvements.

"In a four-day series of lectures, case studies, interactive activities, and the development of an energy access project evaluation strategy, students participating in this course will be exposed to the challenges and opportunities in energy access for the developing world with possibility of continuing work on projects into the Spring if they choose.

"Led and facilitated by Prof. Ignacio Pérez-Arriaga, MIT Energy Initiative Deputy Director Rob Stoner, and a variety of guest speakers, lectures will provide working knowledge of:
The current state of energy access (and what it means to provide access);
The connection between energy access and various aspects of human development work; and
Financing mechanisms and business models for energy projects in the developing world

"The course listing is now available on the the IAP 2014 site, and a more detailed description of each day can be found on the MIT Energy Initiative calendar (http://mitei.mit.edu/calendar).

"DETAILS
Date: Tuesday, January 7 – Friday, January 10
Time: 9:00am – 12:00pm
Location: Building E17, Room 128 (E17-128), 40 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA 02139"

More information at http://18.9.62.56/calendar/e4dev-introduction-energy-and-human-development-session-2-energy-and-human-development

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Solar Christmas Present

Wakawaka (http://us.waka-waka.com) makes a
super efficient, sustainable, lightweight, sturdy and compact solar phone charger and lamp. It enables you to charge virtually any type of (smart)phone or small electronic device within just a few hours and will provide you with up to 80 hours of safe light.


They are offering a buy one/give one program which provides their solar lights and chargers to Syrian refugees:
http://www.solarforsyria.org/en/#.UrN0iaWugcs

Perhaps a way to promote the Christmas spirit of peace on Earth and goodwill to all.  (Bah Humbug!)

hat tip to http://inhabitat.com

Here are some other solar Christmas ideas:
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-solar-christmas.html

Monday, October 28, 2013

Pattern Language for an Urban Agriculture System

A series of patterns from _A Pattern Language_ (Christopher Alexander et alia, NY:  Oxford University Press, 1977) for designing an urban agriculture system, from City Country Fingers to Paving With Cracks Between the Stones:

3.  City Country Fingers
4.  Agricultural Valleys
7.  The Countryside
8.  Mosaic of Subcultures
12.  Community of 7000
15.  Neighborhood Boundaries
19.  Web of Shopping
25.  Access to Water
32.  Shopping Street
41.  Work Community
46.  Market of Many Shops
51.  Green Streets
60.  Accessible Green
61.  Small Public Square
64.  Pools and Streams
67.  Common Land
69.  Public Outdoor Room
73.  Adventure Playground
80.  Self-Governing Workshops and Offices
88.  Street Cafe
89.  Corner Grocery
97.  Shielded Parking
100.  Pedestrian Street
105.  South Facing Outdoors
106.  Positive Outdoor Space
111.  Half-Hidden Garden
114.  Hierarchy of Open Space
118.  Roof Garden
119.  Arcades
127.  Intimacy Gradient
134.  Zen View
139.  Farmhouse Kitchen
161.  Sunny Place
163.  Outdoor Room
170.  Fruit Trees
171.  Tree Places
172.  Garden Growing Wild
173.  Garden Wall
174.  Trellised Walk
175.  Greenhouse
176.  Garden Seat
177.  Vegetable Garden
178.  Compost
236.  Windows Which Open Wide
242.  Front Door Bench
245.  Raised Flowers
246.  Climbing Plants
247.  Paving With Cracks Between the Stones

Sunday, September 01, 2013

Canal Restorer to River Restorer?




This greenhouse at the former historic Fisherville Mill in South Grafton, Massachusetts, sits on the banks of a canal by the Blackstone River.  It is cleaning stormwater runoff and water contaminated by #6 fuel oil, also known as Bunker C oil, which leaked from underground tanks.  At the end of the process, 95% of the hydrocarbons are removed without the application of chemicals, using only ecological design.

The Blackstone River can rightfully claim to be the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in the USA as in 1790, Samuel Slater built the first water-powered spinning mill in America for Moses Brown, a founder of Brown University, in Pawtucket, RI using the Blackstone River as a power source.  By October 7, 1828, the Blackstone Canal from Providence, RI to Worcester, MA was completed and became the original industrial corridor of the United States.  Some say the Blackstone was the hardest working river of 19th century America with its water powering factories all along its length.

Perhaps now it will become an example of 21st century American technology that uses ecological systems thinking to clean up the wastes industrial development has left in its wake.


500 to 1000 gallons of water is pumped each day from the bottom of the canal through a filter which was designed to trap particulates and has, over time, developed its own ecosystem that begins to process the pollutants.  Soon samples will be taken of the filter layers to see what organisms are present and thriving in the presence of such contaminants.


The water is then distributed to the black boxes you can see on the right of the greenhouse which contain mushrooms and other organisms.  These continue to filter the water and break down the hydrocarbons and other complex compounds as the mushroom cultures and other organisms feed.


From the mushroom boxes the water goes into a series of six 700 gallon tanks, each of which is a separate ecology with plants, animals and microbes that continue to break down pollutants and contaminants into their constituent parts.  The water gets cleaner and cleaner from one tank to the next until it can support fish and snails and other more complex lifeforms.


The plants floating on top of the tanks are also part of the process with the roots serving as habitat for many different organisms, increasing enormously the active surface area for biological activity, breaking down more compounds into nutrients that feed the leaves, flowers, and fruits.


After passing through the greenhouse, the water is then returned to the canal through an artificial marsh, a floating canal restorer, that continues the process of biological digestion of hydrocarbon pollutants.  The marsh also takes water directly from the bottom filter in a separate cycle, cleaning it as it recirculates back into the canal.


it is the belief of the designer of this system, John Todd, that not only does this system clean the water it filters but that it also distributes micro-organisms that can help clean water downstream.  He suspects that if such a system were to operate over years, it would begin restoring the waters of the canal and the Blackstone River, a result of this experiment which began last year that he will be testing for soon.


John envisions a canal with a continuous band of floating restorers cleaning the contamination and pollution of over two centuries of industrial waste, returning the canal and the Blackstone River to pristine condition.  

John has completed projects similar to this before.  You can read about his Urban Municipal Canal Restorer in Fuzhou, China here [pdf alert]:
http://toddecological.com/clients/PDFs/100623.casestudy.baima.pdf

These are the ecological design principles John Todd uses in building his systems.  Every time I read them, I learn something new.

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 for the plants.
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 the 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.

from _A Safe and Sustainable World:  The Promise of Ecological Design_ by Nancy Jack Todd
Washington:  Island Press, 2005
ISBN 1-55963-778-1

More information at
Todd Ecological  http://www.toddecological.com
Clark University Living Systems Laboratory  https://wordpress.clarku.edu/fisherville/
CTI Micro-Reduction Technologies, LLC  http://ctigreenpower.com/

By working with Nature, we can create miracles.

The pictures of the Fisherville Canal Restorer and Greenhouse were taken on a tour with the Ecological Landscaping Association (http://www.ecolandscaping.org) on Tuesday, August 6. 2013.

Previously
The Next Industrial Revolution Is Ecological
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/02/1165557/-The-Next-Industrial-Revolution-Is-Ecological
Ecological Restoration:  Cleaning the Fisherville Mill Canal
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/21/1112491/-Ecological-Restoration-Cleaning-the-Fisherville-Mill-Canal
Providential Experimentation
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/26/1190128/-Providential-Experimentation
The Challenge of Appalachia:  Comprehensive Design for a Carbon Neutral World
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/05/14/515882/-The-Challenge-of-Appalachia-Comprehensive-Design-for-a-Carbon-Neutral-World
From Coal to a Carbon Neutral World:  Ecological Design for Appalachia
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/07/01/543978/-From-Coal-to-a-Carbon-Neutral-World-160-Ecological-Design-for-Appalachia

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Sixpack of Solar: How Many Solar Devices Can You Make from a Plastic Bottle?

How Many Solar Devices Can You Make from a Plastic Bottle?
A clear PET plastic bottle can help disinfect water.
6 hours of sunlight's UV-radiation kills diarrhoea-causing pathogens in water making it safer to drink.
A clear bottle full of water and a little bleach can become a solar skylight, providing the equivalent of a 50w incandescent light to a windowless shack.
Cut the bottom off a clear plastic bottle to make a mini-greenhouse, a hot cap, to protect seedlings from frost.
Surround that bottle hot cap with a circle of other bottles full of water for solar heat storage to extend the growing season.
Here's a bottle inside a bottle inside a bottle to heat water in the innermost bottle
and a variation of this design using a clear bottle, a dark can full of water, and a set of reflectors.
They illustrate the essentials of solar thermal energy:
light reflects
dark gets hot
clear keeps the wind out
With that knowledge you can move, concentrate, and store energy.
This clear plastic water heater is much larger and more practical for household use.  It is made almost entirely from recycled packaging waste.
You can make a window out of plastic bottles, too,
and a south-facing window is already a solar collector.

But that's another story.





Friday, May 17, 2013

Simple Solar Principles




Simple solar principles
dark gets hot
light reflects
clear keeps the wind out
insulation keeps heat in
heat can be stored and moved
and any window that sees sunlight
is already
a solar
collector

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Free Energy: Solar and Dynamo LED Keychain Lights




Last year, one of the vendors at NESEA's Building Energy conference (http://www.nesea.org/buildingenergy/) gave away a keychain fob, a little two LED hand crank light.  This year, another vendor gave away three LED solar keychain lights.  A few weeks later, I got another solar LED light as a giveaway from the MIT Energy Initiative.

A little searching found where these promotional gifts are available in bulk:
1.61 @ per 5000 solar keychain lights
http://promotionalproductsonline.com/products/Colored-Solar-Powered-LED-Keylights.html

1.32@ per 5000 hand crank keychain lights
http://www.dhgate.com/top-50-pcs-lot-brand-new-2-led-mini-dynamo/p-ff80808133cfdac80134165da92c2e25.html#s1-1-1

I wonder what happens when these cheap sweatshop trinkets meet the necessary invention of the bottom billion and a third, billion and a half people who do not yet have access to reliable electricity.




In 1988 I visited China.
One evening, I walked out of the White Swan Hotel
on Shamian Island and crossed the bridge
into the city of Guangzhou.
There I saw a line of men
standing behind small folding tables
in closed shop doorways.

Coming closer, I saw that they were rebuilding and
reselling
plastic "disposable" lighters.

I want a solar rechargeable reading light
just as cheap, adaptable, and readily available
as a disposable cigarette lighter.
We need to make it possible
for every child around the world
to read in bed
and dream.

That's one way we could transition to a more renewable economy.

Richard Komp has been practicing another, seeding solar cottage industry systems around the world for the last few decades.  He teaches people how to assemble their own panels, from  AA battery to household, school, or hospital scale, out of raw solar cells.  You can read more about cottage industry solar at
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/25/1196968/-Solar-as-a-Cottage-Industry

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Boston Solar House Tour, 1990



A tour of suburban homes and urban apartment houses using solar energy around the Boston area from 1990 or so. Some of these houses were built as early as the 1960s.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Energy Critical Elements


"Energy Critical Elements"

Wednesday, January 16, 2013
1:30p–2:30p
MIT, Building 6-120, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Robert Jaffe - Morningstar Professor of Science, Department of Physics
I will then turn to our recent report on "Energy Critical Elements: Securing Materials for Emerging Technologies", describing rare elements' roles in emerging technologies, constraints on availability, and government actions to avoid disruptive shortages.

Web site: http://student.mit.edu/searchiap/iap-9289af8f3b3c7818013b3d15ee340001.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Physics IAP
For more information, contact:  Denise Wahkor
617-253-4855
DENISEW@MIT.EDU


American Physical Society (APS) and Materials Research Society Energy (MRS) Critical Elements report:
http://www.aps.org/policy/reports/popa-reports/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=236337

Since the Chinese have recently monopolized rare earths production, energy critical elements have become a serious economic and policy concern.  The US has responded by engaging in rare earths mining and now produces 20% of some of them.  Australia is also beginning rare earths mining.  If the usual model of capitalistic boom and bust, which we've experienced with the silicon market over the last decade, is any indication, there will be an over-investment in rare earths elements (REE) and then a subsequent bust as the market settles.  However, the fact remains that the US is 90% dependent on imports for critical energy materials.

Some of these energy critical elements include:
Gallium, germanium, indium, selenium, silver, and tellurium, all employed in advanced photovoltaic solar cells, especially thin-film photovoltaics.

Dysprosium, neodymium, praseodymium, samarium (all REEs), and cobalt, used in high-strength permanent magnets for many energy-related applications, such as wind turbines and hybrid automobiles.
Most REEs, valued for their unusual magnetic and/or optical properties. Examples include gadolinium for its unusual paramagnetic qualities and europium and terbium for their role in managing the color of fluorescent lighting. Yttrium, another REE, is an important ingredient in energy-efficient solid-state lighting.
Lithium and lanthanum, used in high performance batteries.
Helium, required in cryogenics, energy research, advanced nuclear reactor designs,
and manufacturing in the energy sector.
Platinum, palladium, and other PGEs, used as catalysts in fuel cells that may find wide applications in transportation. Cerium, a REE, is also used as an auto-emissions catalyst.
Rhenium, used in high performance alloys for advanced turbines.

Tellurium is one fourth as abundant as gold.  It takes 80 tons of Te to get a gW of peak power in thin film pv solar according to Jaffe.  (However, thin film pv is not the most efficient pv currently available and I doubt that anyone would consider deploying large-scale thin film pv installations.)  The estimated world production of tellurium is 500 tons per year.

Neodymium and praseodymium are used in wind turbines and are about one tenth of world rare earth production.

Terbium production is about 450 tons per year.

Rhenium is perhaps the rarest material with an annual world production between 40 and 50 tons per year.

In the next few years the US will sell off its helium stockpile. Helium is a by-product of natural gas, at 4 parts per billion, but only some natural gas deposits include it and those have not been adequately mapped.

10% of world's silver production now goes into silicon pv contacts.

Almost all of these materials are by-products of other materials and their prices are artificial because of that:
Rhenium with molybdenum
Tellurium with copper (also zinc and lead)
Indium and germanium with zinc
Gallium with aluminum

Thorium is frequently present in rare earth deposits as well but usually disposed of because it is not economic to capture it. As are many other useful materials.  Witness the flaring of gas from the fracking operations in North Dakota.

In addition, as by-materials, they depend upon the main ores and the processes used to produce them.  For instance, copper can be processed in such a way that tellurium is lost.

The report recommends some changes in policy:
a "coordinated response" which is beginning as the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has established a task force on critical and strategic mineral supply chains led by Cyrus Wadia;  the US DOE has selected the Ames Laboratory to house the Critical Materials Institute;  and, although the Bingaman-Murkowski amendment of the energy critical materials bill died in the last Congress, it will be re-introduced in the next Congress with the sponsorship of Ron Wyden and Barbara Murkowski since Jeff Bingaman has retired from the Senate;

"comprehensive, reliable, and up-to-date information on all aspects of the life cycle of ECEs as present information on many of these materials is very uneven";

"research and development to both expand availability and reduce dependency" on such materials and to train scientists and technologists in the field especially since it takes 5-10 years for research and develop substitutes and another 5-15 years to bring new sources online;

and "recycling" as many of these materials are not yet recycled or even tracked through the materials flows of our industrial and commercial systems.

Thomas Graedl of Yale is one scientist working on recycling and materials flows:
"The historical reservoir for the materials used by our technological society has been virgin stocks (ore bodies, mineral deposits, and the like). For a variety of reasons, those stocks may become inadequate or unavailable at some times or places in the future, and the loss of resources by dissipation or discard is often problematic from an environmental standpoint. These issues can be addressed by developing cycles for the stocks and flows of materials of interest, particularly if the cycles are temporally and spatially resolved.


"I, along with my colleagues, have characterized regional and global cycles, current and historic, for copper and zinc, determining the stocks available in different types of reservoirs and the flows among the reservoirs. GIS techniques are used to display some of the results in spatially-gridded form. The work provides a new basis for assessments of resources sustainability, environmental impacts over time, and related policy initiatives."
source:  http://environment.yale.edu/profile/graedel/research

Europe is actually doing some recycling now.  EU Rare Earths Recycling study:  http://reinhardbuetikofer.eu/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Rare-earths-study_Oeko-Institut_Jan-2011.pdf

One company is Solvay
http://www.solvay.com/EN/NewsPress/20120927_Coleopterre.aspx

Of course, there is an industrial association and lobbying group, RARE, the Association for Rare Earth (http://www.rareearthassociation.org/)
RARE is the premier international advocate and opinion leader for rare earth industry suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers dedicated to improving the future through rare earth innovation.


One interesting parallel track Robert Jaffe didn't mention is the Center for Inverse Design
(http://www.centerforinversedesign.org/) which is doing a systematic examination of the periodic table for new and more efficient properties, in some cases using genetic algorithms. Carla Gomes of Cornell is also doing some interesting work on the computational analysis of new materials.  After hearing talks on the Center and then, a few weeks later, Dr Gomes, I alerted her to the Center's work.  I have emailed Dr Jaffe about both and hope that something useful can come from making such connections.

In addition, there's the currently outlandish possibility of nuclear transmutation of elements.  Here is a presentation by Yasuhiro Iwamura of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on transmutation reactions delivered at the American Nuclear Society on November 12, 2012:
http://youtu.be/VefCEaLAkRw

It is always good to remember
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy

But I wouldn't hold my breath in anticipation of such (scientific) miracles.

Friday, November 02, 2012

Occupy Sandy



http://techpresident.com/news/23062/hurricane-sandy-moves-occupy-wall-street-protest-people-powered-recovery

A group of people from the Occupy Wall Street movement is collaborating with the climate change advocacy group 350.org and a new online toolkit for disaster recovery, recovers.org, to organize a grassroots relief effort in New York City.


Occupy Sandy:  http://occupywallst.org/article/occupy-sandy/

Boston TEDX talk by Recovers.org http://www.ted.com/talks/caitria_and_morgan_o_neill_how_to_step_up_in_the_face_of_disaster.html



The combination of the jobs and economic focus of Occupy with the climate change and energy transition ideas of 350.org along with the disaster recovery systems of Recovers.org is a model that can build resilience and preparedness quickly if continued.  Add Solar IS Civil Defense, set the Maker Culture loose, and it just might shade over into Solar Swadeshi, Gandhian economics, a non-violent and restorative open source peer-to-peer economic system where we plan for 100% success for all humanity, to paraphrase R Buckminster Fuller.


First encountered Recovers.org in April, 2012 when Caitria O'Neill, one of the founders, spoke at Harvard.  Morgan O'Neil, Caitria's sister and another of the founders, was working on a PhD in atmospheric science before her hometown of Monson, MA was hit by a tornado and she began disaster recovery work.

Here are my rough notes from that presentation:
4/17/12
Harvard
Recovers.org
Common misconceptions - Red Cross and FEMA organize volunteers, assess needs and donations, or canvass neighborhoods.  They do not do any of these things.
Common problems - Spontaneous volunteers and unsolicited donations (almost never a need for clothes)
[accommodating surges of volunteers, donations, and interest is a problem not confined to natural disasters]
Town/ngo/community responses do not interface optimally now
No centralized info hub
Short window of interest - 50% of web searches on a disaster are in the first 7 days but needs are beginning to be reported only after that first week
Recover.org databases the initial interest information for use later
Use community organizations for long-term recovery
[build resilience, especially for most common emergencies and disasters - flood, fire, blizzard, drought]
Internet communication more organized and prioritized than facebook
Centralized info clearinghouse
Tools:  needs reporting, canvassing, volunteer management, donation databases
Fema pays for 75%, state pays for 15%, town pays for 10% - and volunteer hours can be counted if accounted for.
Recovers.org has a database service that can be deployed online immediately along with a package of tools to take advantage of that initial interest
Post-disaster assistance free
License subscriptions to preparing towns - first sale to five towns in Illinois in response to periodic flooding

Previously:
Planning for After the Storm Emergency and Before the Next One
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/28/1151415/-Planning-for-After-the-Storm-Emergency-and-Before-the-Next-One
Building Resilient Communities:  John Robb at NYC Maker Faire
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/14/1144458/-Building-Resilient-Communities-John-Robb-at-NYC-Maker-Faire
Eating the City and Town:  Todmorden and Beyond
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/05/1125342/-Eating-the-City-and-Town-Todmorden-and-Beyond
My Solutions to Climate Change
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/26/1136484/-My-Solutions-to-Climate-Change
Occupy Green
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/16/1037270/-Occupy-Green

Monday, August 06, 2012

Solar Stove Design Challenge




Solar Cookers International needs new designs for a more durable solar cooker.  For years, people in refugee camps have been using the CooKit, a cardboard and aluminum foil solar reflector with a plastic bag as a "greenhouse" around a blackened pot, to cook food and reduce the need for cooking fuel and the consequent necessity for women and children to leave the relative safety of the camps to look for fuel, exposing themselves to injury, rape, and murder by the very people they've been trying to escape.  The Touloum camp in eastern Chad for refugees from Darfur is one place where these solar cookers have made a real impact.

The design criteria are
the reflector must be waterproof and UV resistant, cost less than US $25 and last for at least five years;
it must hold one or more three to five liter cooking pots;
the greenhouse replacement for the plastic bag should last for at least one but preferable two years or longer;
the reflector and greenhouse must allow the cooking pot to reach temperatures between 250 F/121C and 300F/149C;
both the reflector and the greenhouse must be lightweight, unbreakable and fold flat for shipping;
both must be easy to open and close, easy to clean and easy to store indoors;
the cost of the greenhouse should not exceed $10

Please spread the word as there are 10 million displaced persons and refugees in the world today, many in desert regions where solar cooking could be used, and more than 2 billion people are still cooking every day over open fires.  If solar cookers can reduce a portion of the need for combustible fuels and the resulting black carbon, it would be a great help to the people using them and help reduce local deforestation and climate change almost immediately.

More information at
http://www.solarcookers.org/index.html
http://solarcooking.wikia.com

You can support solar cookers in African refugee camps today through
http://www.solarcookerproject.org/
http://www.jewishworldwatch.org/

One of my favorite solar oven designs was Dr Charles Greeley Abbott's from the early 20th century.  It was a parabolic trough that heated oil as its working fluid.  He built it on Mount Palomar in CA when that area was remote and used a clock and counterweight system to track the sun during the day.  The oven got hot enough to bake bread:  http://www.motherearthnews.com/do-it-yourself/how-to-build-a-solar-cooker-zmaz77mjzbon.aspx

David Gordon Wilson of MIT has been working on another stored heat solar oven using a Fresnel lens to concentrate sunlight on lithium nitrate which can store heat up to 25 hours and produce temperatures of 450Âş F over that period of time.  They say they'll have a production model available soon.
http://inhabitat.com/wilson-solar-grill-stores-the-suns-energy-for-nighttime-fuel-free-grilling/
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/39261/173660389.pdf


A few days ago, I remarked to a friend that the annual local solar cooker picnic, usually around summer solstice, hadn't happened this year.  Then I got this notice:

12th Annual Solar Picnic

Saturday, July 28th
11:00 to 3:00 (Solar Noon will be 12:51 PM)
Somerville Community Growing Center, 22 Vinal Ave. Somerville, MA  (near Union Square)
See map: http://www.thegrowingcenter.org/find_us.html

12th Annual Solar Picnic at the Somerville Community Growing Center

Celebrate the sun and another year's growth in the garden. Come and join us for a solar picnic - no gas, wood or charcoal grills, just solar cookers using the energy of the sun!

This event is a simple, traditional pot-luck picnic. No fire, just solar ovens/cookers. We will have a few solar cookers and some space available for you to bring your own. If you want to learn how to build one or see how they work, this is your golden opportunity! For more information see:
http://solarcooking.org

There will also be other solar devices demonstrated (of course, feel free to bring your own) and a good chance to see old friends and meet new ones. A great place for a picnic, the Somerville Community Growing Center is an urban oasis that was designed and built by local residents and is maintained by volunteers. http://www.thegrowingcenter.org

It's a recipe for a fine midsummer's day: friends, fun, food and the sun! Relax, chat, learn and explore the gardens. And when the delicious aroma of solar-cooked cuisine fills the air, come to the table and feast!

Sponsors:   The Boston Area Solar Energy Association: http://www.BASEA.org (a chapter of NESEA).

Somerville Climate Action: http://somervilleclimateaction.org

Previously:
My Solar Christmas
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-solar-christmas.html
Short Term Climate Forces:  Black Carbon, Methane, and Tropospheric Ozone
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/06/1088365/-Short-Term-Climate-Forces-Black-Carbon-Methane-and-Tropospheric-Ozone
Solar as a Cottage Industry
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/15/1055035/-Solar-as-a-Cottage-Industry




Wednesday, April 25, 2012



Solar IS Civil Defense - what we are all supposed to have on hand in case of emergency - flashlight, cell phone, radio, extra set of batteries - can be powered by a few square inches of solar electric panel.  Add a hand crank or bicycle generator and you have a reliable source of survival level electricity, day or night, by sunlight or muscle power.

This is also entry level electrical power for the 1.5 billion people around the world who do not yet have access to electricity.  Civil defense at home and economic development abroad can be combined in a "buy one, give one" program like the Bogolight (http://www.bogolight.com) which is a solar LED light and AA battery charger.

Solar IS Civil Defense and could be much more.

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

I wish the mainline environmental groups had been broadcasting practical material like this for the last twenty years or so instead of devoting almost all their advertising to scaring us about climate change.




Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Simply Questions



Simply Questions about the ecological footprint for children (because adults are too crazy to understand it).

Monday, January 16, 2012

Solar as a Cottage Industry

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

Here's a video of his 2009 Pakistan project


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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Occupy Green

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

These ideas are only a beginning of what is possible.

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

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

Trash Technology and Recycled Solar: Plastic Bottles

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Trash Technology and Recycled Solar: Plastic Bottles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2011/0822/Used-soda-bottles-light-up-the-world-for-free
The invention is something that is so simple, cheap, and sustainable that anyone can create and maintain it themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Friday, July 29, 2011

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

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


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


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

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




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



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



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





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

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

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