HELLO
AND WELCOME TO 'BOOTSTRAPPING THE PLANET,' I'M YOUR HOST TUCKER AND
THIS IS A MONTHLY PODCAST WHERE I COVER TECHNOLOGIES BEING USED TO
IMPROVE LIVES IN THE DEVOPLING WORLD. FOR LINKS TO THE STORIES
MENTIONED ON THE PODCAST, YOU CAN GO TO
http://bootstrappingtheplanet.blogspot.com/
IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, I WILL TRY TO HAVE LINKS ACCOMPANING EACH STORY
THAT PROVIDE INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO DO SOMETHING SIMILAR. IF YOU
HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CRITICISMS, OR IF YOU'RE SOMEONE WHO
WORKS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD AND WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT YOUR WORK
THERE, THE EMAIL FOR THE SHOW IS BOOTSTRAPPLANET@GMAIL.COM
I'LL PUT THE EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE SHOWNOTES.
This
will be the first of what I hope, if the good Lord's willing and the
creek don't rise, of two episodes this month, to make up for the fact
that I missed putting out the second episode that I promised last
month. It all depens upon my work schedule, which is rather volitile
right now.
DESIGN
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THIS
IS A BIT OF A GRAB BAG SEGMENT WHERE I COVER ITEMS WHICH DON'T EASILY
FIT INTO THE OTHER SEGMENTS.
Need
a Mechanism for Your Design? Here's the Motherlode
Let's
say you're a designer trying to create something with moving parts: A
set of double doors that open in an unusual way, a console that
deploys a hidden flatscreen monitor, or a space-saving cabinet with
panels that slide sideways rather than swing out. Where do you start?
There
are companies that make hardware to achieve these things, but there's
no guarantee that hardware is sized to fit your application. If you
can understand how the mechanisms work, however, you can create
something to custom fit your design.
That's
where this retired mechanical engineer comes in: Nguyen Duc Thang has
made it his mission to illustrate mechanisms so people can understand
them. Using Autodesk Inventor, he creates succinct 3D animations of
various mechanical mechanisms, and staggeringly, he's created 1,700
videos of them to date.
This
is a huge boon for anyone wanting to build something. The videos
clearly show how the mechanisms work, and he doesn't concentrate
simply on complex designs, but also shows fairly simple ones as well.
Nor do they necessarily require complex tools to make. Many of them
can be made with ordinary hand tools.
SANITATION
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These
Floating Islands Aren't Real—But They Are Cleaning Up Rivers
While
intensive farming has delivered a lot of cheap food to America, it's
also delivered a lot of pollution. The nation's 330 million acres of
agricultural land are filled with enormous quantities of phosphorus
and nitrogen fertilizer, some of which ends up in nearby waterways.
The Environmental Protection Agency says
more than half the
nation's rivers and streams are now in "poor biological
condition" as a result.
Bruce
Kania's
solution: recreate natural wetlands that can help purify the water
and bring it back to life. Over the last decade, his Montana
company Floating
Islands Internationalhas
built more than 6,000 "biohavens" that are now quietly
rejuvenating waterways across the country. And that's just the start.
Some of his floating clean-up platforms now approach the size of
football fields, and he's working on structures that could bobble in
the ocean one day as well.
"We
try and bio-mimic the patterns that nature employs," he says.
The
islands are designed to grow "biofilms"—collections of
microbes that consume the excessive nutrients in the water. Each
platform is made up of a matrix of fibers derived from post-consumer
plastic bottles, then infused with a buoyant marine foam. The plants
on top, mostly perennials, grow in a peat layer. The biofilms
congregate on the bottom of the structure, while roots from the
plants peep through, offering additional pollution control.
The
article doesn't say how many of the islands he's built, but mentions
that 24 of them are nearly 2,000 square meters in size, with one
being over 4,000 square meters. And while he seems to be only
interested in building them in America, they could easily be
constructed in any place in the world to help improve water quality.
They could also be used for growing some types of food crops, which
would aid in sustainable farming efforts. In places where there was
high fertilizer run off in the ater supply, there'd be no need to
fertilize the crops at all. Additionally, such islands can increase
habitats for fish in the river, so that adds to the potential food
available to people. Finally, they can lower the temperature of the
water in the river. This is important, as global warming is causing
rivers to warm up, which can harm fish, but cause problems for power
generating plants that use the water for cooling. If the water's too
hot, then they have to shut the plant down, or run at reduced
capacity.
Blue
Diversion toilet is flushed with success
Two
years ago, an off-grid closed-system toilet known as the Diversion
won an award at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's
"Reinventing
the Toilet"
fair. Created by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and
Technology (Eawag) and now called the Blue Diversion, it recently
also won the title of Most Innovative Project (Europe/West Asia), as
bestowed by the International Water Association. So, what makes it so
special? Well, for one thing, the same water that flushes it is
subsequently used in its hand-washing sink.
Here's
how the Blue Diversion works ...
Feces,
urine, and flush water are separated right below the toilet bowl. The
first two items are then stored in sealed compartments, for
subsequent use as fertilizer. The water, because it's used more to
rinse out the bowl than to actually transport the waste, isn't as
contaminated as what goes down a regular toilet's pipes. It's still
pretty disgusting, though, so it's pumped into a filtration system in
the back wall of the setup.
There,
it passes through a bioreactor that neutralizes organic matter and
ammonia, along with an ultrafiltration membrane that blocks
pathogenic organisms such as bacteria and viruses. Any remaining
trace amounts of organic matter and ammonia are then neutralized by
an electrolysis unit, which also produces chlorine to disinfect the
water.
From
there, gravity carries the water down to be used in the sink, in a
bidet-style shower head, or to rinse out the bowl once again.
According to Eawag, the same water is good for about 50 uses per day.
Power for the pumps, electrolysis unit and electronics are provided
by a top-mounted photovoltaic panel.
Personally,
I'm not a huge fan of these high tech designs, since they can
breakdown, or require filters which have to be periodically changed
or replaced. Still, for $500, its more economical than some of the
other designs I've seen.
AGRICULTURE
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LEARN
HOW THIS FAMILY GROWS 6,000 LBS OF FOOD ON JUST 1/10TH ACRE
The Dervaes family live
on 1/10th of an acre 15 minutes from downtown L.A.. In itself that’s
not strange. What’s crazy is that they manage to maintain a
sustainable and independent urban farm. Complete with animals!
In a year they produce around 4,300 pounds of veggies, 900 chicken
, 1000 duck eggs, 25 lbs honey, and pounds of seasonal fruit. There
are over 400 species of plants. What?! They have everything they need
to ‘live off the land.’ From beets to bees. Chickens to
chickpeas.
What the family doesn’t eat they sell from their porch, making
around $20,000 a year. Local organic food is so popular that they
don’t have any problems finding customs. Even chefs from
restaurants seek them out.
The
article title is a bit of a misnomer, since you don't really get any
more details than that, but based on the video at the link, I think
its fairly easy to figure out what they're doing. They're obviously
using the square foot gardening method pioneered by Mel Bartholomew
http://squarefootgardening.org/ and Will Allen's Growing Power
method. http://www.growingpower.org/
Both of which are designed to be able to grow large amounts of food
in a very small space. There's a video at the site which gives a bit
more information about the family's methods, and the $20K figure for
their income is a bit of a red herring. They're able to make that
much money from what they grow, due to the fact that locally grown
organic food is a big fad in Los Angeles and commands premium prices.
Were they to be located in say, some place like Iowa or Nebraska,
they probably couldn't make nearly as much money, as the demand for
organic food isn't as great there. Additionally, the family's
lacto-ovo vegetarians, and if they were to expand their diet to
include things like fish, they could produce even more food on their
small lot using a farm fountain, which is a hydroponic system that
circulates water through a fish tank filled with tilapia or similar
fish before using it to water the plants. http://farmfountain.com/
It
might seem as if this isn't applicable to people in developing
nations, but the methods do grow a large amount of food in a small
amount of space, with no need for tractors, combines, and the like.
It should be fairly easy to adapt them to local conditions in the
developing world and provide greater food security for the people in
those areas.
Dew
Collector: Greenhouse for food growth, water
In
Ethiopia, the University of Gondar's Faculty of Agriculture is
actively involved in real-life problems that are familiar to many
farmers on the continent. The university is pursuing research as well
as development efforts and toward that end has entered links with an
organization called Roots Up. The latter says it will build a
workshop on the campus for farmers living nearby and facing tough
issues and harsh living conditions. The organization said the center
will be made out of "Earthbags."
They
call the structure the "Ecodome," and the workshops will
focus on such topics as water management and soil conservation. At
the end of the day, Roots Up wants to accomplish a mission of helping
to make the University of Gondar an "innovation hub for low-tech
and low-cost solutions that can be developed on a larger scale in the
rural areas of North Gondar." One project on the agenda is a
"green" shelter for dew harvest. On Friday, Discovery
News reported
on a Roots Up-University of Gondar initiative called the Dew
Collector greenhouse. This is a low-cost, low-tech greenhouse
wherevegetables can
grow despite drought conditions.
It
works at collecting dew by capturing evaporation in bio-plastic
sheeting at the top of the dome.
Inhabitat said
that in using this collector, farmers can
raise protected plants and yield clean water both for both irrigation
and drinking. Instead of just performing as a greenhouse, the
structure also serves as rainwater collector, ensuring that raindrops
are stored.
Inhabitat said
the organization plans to launch the Dew Collector greenhouses in
Northern Ethiopia, in conjunction with the university. "The Dew
Collector is just one part of the company's mission to help create a
self-reliant farming community
in Northern Ethiopia."
Essentially,
its an 8-sided pyramid, which acts as a combination air well and
greenhouse. The illustrations which accompany the article, don't
really give an indication of the size of a Dew Collector. It might
be that they're planning on building them in several different sizes.
One thing that they could do, which I think would be a huge boon for
them is to have a program where not only do they train locals in how
to make the Dew Collectors, but offer them for sale to Westerners,
since with the drought worries in California and the explosion of the
local food movement there, they'd probably find a number of eager
customers. This would not only help boost the economy in Ethiopia,
but also give locavores a warm fuzzy feeling that they were doing
something good.
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
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iShack
delivers power (and television) to the people
In
2011, the National Research Foundation funded the research and
training of postgraduate students, through Stellenbosch University’s
TsamaHUB (Transdisciplinary Sustainability Analysis, Modelling and
Assessment Hub). A cash injection of $250?000 from the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation allowed the Sustainability Institute to
develop the technological and funding model and upgrade about 100
shacks. In 2013, the iShack project received 17-million Rand from the
government’s Green Fund, with a target to supply electricity to
1?500 households.
Now
many shacks in Enkanini have solar panels on their roofs. Inside each
of these shacks is a distribution box, the length of an outstretched
arm, with wire casings leading out of it to two lights, an external
security light, a cellphone charger and a television set.
All
of this is provided by Specialized Solar Solutions in George, using
its DC micro-grid technologies. The company produces “small,
stand-alone, off-grid solar home systems that can provide a scalable
amount of electricity”, Conway says.
Swilling, who is also head of sustainable development at
Stellenbosch University’s School of Public Leadership, emphasises
that the equipment does not belong to the shack dweller: “We don’t
want to sell equipment. Users treat it as infrastructure … the
solar panel … is part of the [township’s infrastructure], like
your road, pylons, cables. They don’t belong to you, but without
them you wouldn’t get services.”
And
for 150 Rand a month, the user has access to electricity. A SIM card
in the distribution box allows the project to control the energy
access remotely, and switch it off if a user does not pay or defaults
on his or her monthly payments.
Conway
reiterates that the iShack is “not a house or product, or even just
an energy service”. “It is an attempt to develop a sustainable
social enterprise model for delivering affordable, incremental
services to residents of informal settlements.”
For
those of you wondering, 150 Rand, works out to about $12.50 US, at
present exchange rates. The article has a really indepth discussion
about the program, why they chose to include a TV, along with a pair
of lights, how they're planning on expanding the project, and more.
I,
personally, don't like the idea that the people who have the systems
installed in their shacks never own the systems, but are perpetually
renting them from the company. The argument for them doing this is
that it pays for the expansion of the project to other places, and
covers the cost of mainence and repair, all of which may be true, but
I grew up in America at a time when you didn't own the phone in your
house, you rented it from the phone company. Their argument was much
the same, this allowed them to make improvements to the phone system,
ensured the quality of phone calls, and so on. Yet, we didn't really
see a proliferation of phone technology in the US until after the
phone company was broken up. Then we bagan to see improvements and
lower costs. I realize that the two situations aren't really
comparable, but I worry that this could be enslaving people to pay
for something which they don't need to.
A
Crowdfunding Site Lets You Bring Energy Efficiency To Poor
Neighborhoods
Donnel
Baird and
his team have put together BlocPower,
a social business that gathers together inefficient buildings into
more attractive packages. It then finds the money from impact
investors who get a decent return, though not a spectacular one.
"Because
the buildings are older and the owners don't have access to capital
to maintain them, they spend more on energy per square foot than
other similar sized buildings in more affluent areas," says
Baird. "A lot of people look at our business and say, 'Oh, you
should be a charity case.' But, because our clients spend so much
more money on energy, there is actually more savings to be made and
more profit to be shared."
BlocPower
looks for projects where it's possible to save at least 20% on a
client's energy bills by installing solar panels, boilers, doors,
windows, and lighting. Those kinds of projects aren't uncommon. The
business saved one church in Brooklyn 30%, or $3,000 a month. Another
community center in Staten Island saved 70%. BlocPower subsidizes the
work, then owners pay back the money over a five year term. BlocPower
then shares the savings—or profit—between the client, the
investors and itself.
Now,
this program is obviously designed for people in the US, but I'd
think that it should be easy enough to adapt it to helping people in
the developing world. Not only would it bring electricity to people
who presently don't have access to it, but with a crew made up of
local villagers, it could give people skills they need to get a
better job.
Electricity-free
Groundfridge lets you store perishables without traditional
refrigeration
It’s
easy to forget how much energy it takes to keep our food fresh. So
imagine taking advantage of the earth’s natural underground
insulation to store and keep your vegetables. Weltevree, a Dutch
design company created by Floris Schoonderbeek, specializes in
products made to encourage people to take advantage of natural and
outdoor living. Their Groundfridge is a modern take on the familiar
root cellar concept, allowing you to keep your produce fresh without
traditional refrigeration.
The
Groundfridge is similar to a traditional root cellar, and it is part
of a concept meant to encourage the modern homeowner to grow and
store their own produce for a modern self-sufficient existence. The
Groundfridge uses the insulating effect of soil and the cooling
effect of groundwater. The temperature in the fridge remains stable
year-round between 10 and 12° C (50 to 54° F), which is the ideal
temperature for storing fruits, vegetables, wine and cheese.
This
is a somewhat high tech idea, and there's no mention of the price.
Basically, its a large fiberglass tube with a ball on the lower end.
There's steps cut into the tube to make it easy to go in and out of
it, and the door appears to seal tightly.
A
more compact, and less expensive design, which works under similar
principles is the zeer pot.
This
is simply two large clay pots, with one nestled inside the other, and
a thick layer of sand between them. You saturate the sand with
water, and as the water evaporates, it cools the pots down to help
preserve food.
I'll
have links in the shownotes to sites dealing with making your own
zeer pots, and for a group supplying them to people in the developing
world.
GoSol
could be the key to no-cost solar heat around the world
Imagine
a world where everybody could harness free and powerful energy from
the sun with local materials. Solar
Fire Concentration Ltd (SFCO)
hopes to help supply solar thermal energy to alleviate energy poverty
around the world, with a little help from crowdfunding. The
Finnish company has launched the Free
The Sun campaign,
which will help to build their GoSol solar
concentrators around
the world. Rather than creating solar energy for electricity, the
concentrators will power solar thermal devices, giving usable
heat energy to
anyone in off-the-grid areas, without using pollution-causing
charcoal and wood.
Although using photovoltaic
panels to
generate solar energy is a great sustainable source, SFCO recognizes
that most rural and poverty-stricken areas around the world are not
even equipped to utilize the electricity the panels can produce. What
is more useful is solar thermal energy, which can be used for
cooking, heating, distilling water or powering steam engines. That
realization led to the development of the GoSol
concentrator.
They're attempting to raise $68,000, and so far,
they've only manage to raise about 10% of that. It is a really
interesting idea, and I like that they mention it could be used to
power steam engines. We tend to look down on steam engines, because
we've switched to gasoline, diesel, and electric motors, but a steam
engine has one big advantage over them, in that it doesn't care what
you use to heat the water. As long as you get the water hot enough,
it'll run. So if a source of fuel becomes cheaper than the one
you're presently using becomes cheaper, you can easily switch over to
the cheaper fuel. Additionally, a steam engine can run cleaner than
a conventional gas or diesel engine without pollution controls. Jay
Leno had the emissions tested on one of his steam powered cars, and
it easily passed California's emission laws, which are the strictest
in the US. Article on Leno's steam car: http://tinyurl.com/kpotv76
The
one downside to what they're doing is that it doesn't look like
they're going to actually make and distribute the devices, merely
design them, and give away the plans. Which is nice, but they're
talking about parts for it being made on CNC machines and 3D
printers, items which aren't exactly common in many parts of the
world. Still, they mention building the machines using locally
sourced materials, so it might be that they're going to be providing
two different designs, one which can be made out of items commonly
found in developing nations, and one which can be built using factory
made parts, that aid agencies could bring in and set up.
Help
kickstart this little SolarPuff lantern that could save the world
the SolarPuff is
an ingenious origami lantern with the power to revolutionize our
world. The portable, solar-powered light delivers instant
illumination where there is no electricity, coming to the rescue in
emergency situations and serving as an economical off-grid lighting
solution for the developing world. A staggering 1.6
billion people around the world lack access to electricity,
many of whom use kerosene for lighting, which leads to fires and poor
indoor air quality. The SolarPuff co-founders want to shift this
reliance on dirty fuels to light the homes of people living off the
grid with a cleaner, greener alternative. Read on to find out how you
can help this important
product reach
its crowdfunding goal!
The
ingenious creation was originally developed in the Columbia
University Architecture Lab by Solight co-founder
Alice Min Soo Chun after a aiding an earthquake emergency relief in
Haiti. The ‘light bulb’ went on when Alice realized that a more
sustainable lighting solution for disaster relief was needed. The
SolarPuff’s modern flat packed design created “a critical
distinction for transforming poverty into dignity.”
At
just 2.5 ounces, this cute little
lantern is
designed with a sustainable and high-performance fabric made
especially for durability, flexibility, adaptability and
recyclability. The SolarPuff is able to float, with water resistant
capabilities to withstand complete underwater immersion. It will
produce light for an equal amount of time that it takes to charge in
the sun. Its utility is so immense not only for the developing world
and disaster zones, but for anyone traveling, camping, hiking, or
needing a flashlight.
The
unit looks like a collapsable white plastic bag and is about the size
of your hand. They were asking for $25K on Kickstarter, and at the
time of this recording, they'd managed to raise nearly $300K. They
have a “Buy One Give One” donation level, where you give them
$50, they'll send you a lantern, and donate one to either a school in
Haiti or send one to Nepal. Given the photos I've seen of the
destruction in Nepal, they could certainly use as many of these as
they can possibly get.
HIGH TECH
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In A
Disaster, This Device Lets People Communicate Without A Cell Signal,
Wi-Fi, Or Power
In
the wake of the massive earthquake in Nepal, as power went out, cell
towers crumbled, and internet connections disappeared, a few people
turned to ham radio to send messages about missing victims.
A
team of Danish designers argue that they have a better solution for
communication in disasters: A simple solar-powered device that uses a
mesh network to send signals person to person even if phone lines and
power are cut.
"Nepal
is another tragic example of how natural disasters often damage the
regular communication lines and power lines, affecting the response
and relief coordination," say designers Pernille Skjødt and Ida
Stougaard, whose device, called Reachi, was a finalist in this year's
Global Social Venture Competition. "Once the regular
communication lines and power lines are damaged, it is difficult to
establish an overview of a disaster. Early information can improve
the planning and prioritization of relief for a more effective
response, and potentially save lives."
"Each
volunteer will own and carry his or her own device," the
designers explain. "As each device creates a link, the
volunteers are able to communicate through each other. This way, a
signal is guaranteed, without the need of vulnerable, physical
structures."
A
simple interface on Reachi asks volunteers to enter basic
information, like how many families need food, or how many injured
victims need medical care. All of that data is instantly sent to a
central headquarters, where it's displayed visually on a map and
planners can make better decisions about where to send aid first.
The
device is roughly the same size and shape as the original Apple iPod,
and is rugged enough to survive being submurged in water or dropped.
Information in a disaster situation is often the most important thing
in helping people to survive, and this looks to be a great way to
help get information out of a disaster area. They're planning on
testing the device in the Phillipines this year, due to the fact that
the country is struck by an average of 30 natural disasters each
year.
I
really wish that more people would promote the growth of MESH
networks, as they offer an economical way of expanding communication
access without the kind of infrastructure used in the developed
nations. I know in parts of India they have a MESH network that's
connected to the bus system, so that as a bus pulls into a village it
connects to all the devices in range, and downloads information to
them that it picked up when it was in an area with internet access.
Even
in a developed nation like the US, MESH networks would be handy to
have. Because there's a derth of internet providers where I live,
I'm forced to use a provider which has spotty service, meanwhile,
less than a mile down the road, the town square has open internet
access, with an inexpenisve MESH network, I could tap into the open
wifi on the square and use that while I was waiting for my ISP to
come out and fix my problem. Assuming they can be bothered to show
up at all. http://www.brck.com/
TRANSPORTATION
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jessica
fulford-dobson tells the story of skate girls of kabul
for
the series ‘skate girls of kabul’, british photographer jessica
fulford-dobson tells the remarkable story of afghan girls who have
taken up skateboarding, shot on location in afghanistan’s capital.
here, young girls from poor and displaced families are being taught
and encouraged to skateboard by skateistan, an afghan NGO charity
that provides skate parks as an incentive to get children from
disadvantaged families back into school.
Not
mentioned in this story, and I can't find the one which discussed it,
but the girls have taken to skateboards because they're prohibited
from riding bicycles under Afghanistan law. Not only do they ride
them at the skate park, but they use them to get around town. And
while skateboards aren't as versitile as a bicycle, it strikes me
that it isn't a bad way to get around faster than walking.
Skateboards could also be a cheaper means of transportation than a
bicycle, and they do make versions which are designed to work in
unpaved areas, so the lack of roads needn't limit their use.
THAT'S
IT FOR THIS EPISODE OF BOOTSTRAPPING THE PLANET. FOR LINKS TO THE
STORIES COVERED IN THIS, OR ANY OTHER EPISODE, ALONG WITH A LINK TO
THE EMAIL ADDRESS, YOU CAN GO TO
http://bootstrappingtheplanet.blogspot.com/
THE EMAIL FOR THE SHOW IS BOOTSTRAPPLANET@GMAIL.COM
THE ITUNES COVER ART FOR THE PODCAST IS BY STEVE AT HUDSON MEDIA IN
COLUMBUS, OH. NOW, LET'S ALL GO MAKE THIS PLANET A BETTER PLACE.
