Sunday, May 10, 2015

Episode 0003: Bright Lights, Big Donations

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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This story comes from fastcoexist.com and is similar to the floating toilet story I mentioned last month. http://www.fastcoexist.com/3044491/these-floating-islands-arent-real-but-they-are-cleaning-up-rivers

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.

From gizmag.com we have this toilet design. http://www.gizmag.com/blue-diversion-closed-system-toilet/31198/

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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From fastcoexist.com we have this story about helping people to communicate during a disaster situation: http://www.fastcoexist.com/3045723/in-a-disaster-this-device-lets-people-communicate-without-a-cell-signal-wi-fi-or-power

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.


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