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I’ve had water on my mind since the torrential downpours began a couple weeks ago here in northern California, thus a recent update over at UC Berkeley’s Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) piqued my interest. An article titled Assessment of a low-cost, point-of-use, ultraviolet water disinfection technology published in 2008 by RAEL fellows and other collaborators shows how water disinfection can be made accessible almost anywhere by using cheap, locally produced materials. The study included tests conducted in Berkeley as well as communities in Baja California Sur in which Fundación Cántaro Azul, an organization promoting innovative water and sanitation solutions for poor communities, has a presence.
The article claims that disinfecting tubes can be constructed for less than $50, a considerable discount from current portable UV disinfection systems which currently start at around $80. Better yet, the article focuses on making the systems from materials that can be found at any local ferretería or hardware store. Check out the video below to see an iteration of a solar powered UV water purifier:
This brief video produced by the Climate Works Foundation provides a fascinating glimpse into the belly of the Chinese Manufacturing Behemoth. We will refrain from commenting here on the recent cyberattacks on western IT and software firms operating in country, suffice to say that these events are outside the purview of our expertise. Click below to peer into the present:
Interesting notes from Dr. Wang Wanxing:
- China produces 35-45% of global photovoltaic products, exporting 95% of them
- Solar needs economies of scale and reduced costs, as well as realistic pricing of fossil fuels (as opposed to current externality-laden subsidization) in order to become a serious source of global energy generation
- Current solar PV pricing estimates of 1 yuan ($0.14-15 cents) per kW/hr
Here we have to ponder the wisdom of the current bias toward large-scale installations in the global market. The ongoing financial crisis has had a deep impact on the finance and demand side of photovoltaic installations, as expounded upon last year in a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which concluded that:
The financial crisis has had a significant impact on the PV industry, primarily through increasing the cost and reducing the availability of investment into the sector. These effects have been more immediately experienced by PV installations than by production facilities, due to the different types and duration of investments, and thus PV demand has been reduced by a greater proportion than PV production. More expensive financing is also directly reflected in PV module and system price declines, as other constituent costs have had to decline to maintain necessary rates of return for PV installations.
It seems, however, that it is only a matter of time before James Mill’s corollary to Say’s Law comes into effect:
Production of commodities creates, and is the one and universal cause which creates a market for the commodities produced.
As we have mentioned in recent posts India and China are already beginning to move to provide appropriate policy incentives to absorb and install the current PV glut. Nevertheless, it seems that even massive installation of produced capacity is unlikely to prevent continued downward cost trends as the sector is still undergoing rapid technological evolution. We expect to see a proliferation of PV distributors as the market races to sop up extraordinarily cheap products.
We apologize for our delay in posting on the utterly heartbreaking tragedy that has ensued after a series of earthquakes essentially destroyed the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, and the surrounding areas. We would like to ask for your help in supporting organizations that are on the ground providing relief services, as well as for the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG), an organization with which Quetsol has a special relationship. The AIDG will be providing longer term aid in rebuilding the country. Please see the updates and videos below, reposted from the AIDG’s blog:
Dear AIDG Supporters,
At approximately 4:55 pm Eastern on Tuesday Port Au Prince experienced a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, with aftershocks of 5.9 and 5.7. There is widespread damage to infrastructure with numerous collapsed buildings. It is anticipated there will be a high casualty rate
Additional photos can be found here: twitter.com/photomorel
Here is what we have learned:
The National Palace has collapsed (eyewitness photo)
The UN headquarters has been seriously damaged (source: UN)
The Hotel Montana has sustained collapse with 200 missing (source: associated press france)
A Hospital has collapsed (source:NYtimes)We will provide more information by twitter. www.twitter.com/aidg and our blog www.aidg.org/blog as it becomes available.
We are currently developing opportunities for AIDG to aid in reconstruction with the help of partners. We will make another announcement on this shortly.
As you all know we are a small organization. We require some basic additional budget resources immediately to help run an assessment that will determine this longer term response aimed at infrastructure and reconstruction. If possible mail checks to:
AIDG
P.O. Box 104
Weston, MA 02493We will actually receive these funds faster than online donations. We will be running a larger campaign in concert with our reconstruction announcement.
For those wishing to have an immediate direct impact on populations in Port Au Prince we are recommending supporting the medical response teams of Partners In Health. www.pih.org They are working with a field hospital set up by the UNDP that immediately needs pain meds, bandages and other medical supplies.
We ask you all to hold Haiti in your hearts and prayers as this tragedy unfolds.
Sincerely,
Peter Haas
Executive Director, AIDG
Please also see this interview with AIDG’s Deputy Director, Catherine Lainé who has been in Haiti for the past couple weeks running AIDG’s operations there:
See the original post on BoingBoing here: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/15/haiti-earthquake-upd.html
Other organizations to whom you can donate to help in immediate relief include:
http://www.foodforthepoor.org/
Our thoughts and prayers are constantly with the people of Haiti.
Spot on the local TV station/corto de televisión local:
Reposted from the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group’s blog:
http://www.aidg.org/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,34/p,1561/
Quetsol is a new business that will provide high efficiency, low cost solar technologies that aim to increase access to basic illumination, electricity generation, and water pumping in Guatemala. Their mission is to help their clients save money and improve their quality of life through the use of appropriate technology.
Hoy tratamos sobre un informe producido por la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe acerca del papel que la energía desempeña en el cumplimiento de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio. El documento calcula que en todo América Latina hay unas 30 millones de personas que caracen de acceso a energía eléctrica, basado en datos de las Naciones Unidas, representando un 5.5% de la población total. De igual manera, el documento resalta la ineficiencia de los servicios existentes de energía eléctrica, los cuales cuentan con un servicio intermitente y con tarifas exorbitantes. Los gastos en energía son aún más sesgados para familías de escasos recursos económicos, como acota el informe:
…Dentro del grupo de países analizados, el gasto energético para el quintil de ingreso más bajo oscila entre 5 a 18% de su ingreso mensual medio; mientras que para el quintil más alto sólo representa entre 0.5 al 3% del ingreso mensual. Al interior de los países se registraron grandes diferencias entre el mayor consumo y gasto energético del quintil superior, respecto del inferior. Llegando a ser el primero entre 3 a 21 veces mayor que este último, todo lo cual refleja y acentúa la inequidad social en la región.
Además, nota que la tendencia de aumento de la tasa de urbanización y del índice de desarrollo humano corresponden fuertemente a una significativa disminución en el consumo de leña; sin embargo, estos métricos también corresponden a un aumento en el consumo de combustibles fósiles como el gas natural y el petróleo, y un aumento en la cantidad de emisiones de dióxido de carbono.
Marta Ortega de Wing en su terreno natal, cortesía del New York Times
Aún no se sabe si la tendencia a la urbanización sea mejor para el medio ambiente ya que los cambios en el uso de terrenos y los cambios en nivel de vida traen una matriz de factores que complican el cálculo del impacto ambiental. Por ejemplo, gente que vive en la ciudad tiende a consumir más y producir menos en términos de recursos naturales por integrarse en la economía de sector servicios y dejar de trabajar en fincas; no obstante, tienden a tener familias más pequeñas y cuando salen del campo suelen dejar sus terrenos desatendidos y muchas veces los terrenos vuelven a ser selvas con significativos aumentos en biodiversidad como se nota en este articulo del New York Times.
De cualquier manera, el interés en la sostenibilidad y la reducción de pobreza se muestra por la proliferación de organizaciones y compañías con metas ambientales y sociales. Según muestra el informe del CEPAL, hay un creciente interés académico e institucional en los paises latinoamericanos hacia la sostenibilidad, liderado por una organización llamada Latinoamérica Posible. A ver que tan pronto la retórica se vuelve realidad.
An (already outdated) article published in the Journal of Light and Visual Environment tracks the rapid advances made over the past 6 years in LED technology, predicting even greater efficiency in the lighting sector for the future. The article, written by George Craford of Philips Lumileds Lighting Company, outlines some of the more notable trends and accomplishments in LED lighting in recent years, including:
- Luminaire efficacy of 80 lumens/watt in commercial applications as of 2007 (up from 30 in 2004)
- A move toward combining red, blue, green, and amber LEDs in order to produce white light, as opposed to using white phosphor
- Projected luminaire efficacy of 150 lumens/watt
Also noted are some of the barriers to LED penetration of the lighting market, including its high cost (LEDs currently cost about 10x more than compact fluorescent or incandescents) and the “cold” or bluish quality of the light they emit. Nevertheless, as mentioned in a report submitted to the Department of Energy, LEDs are likely to compose up to one third of the lighting market by 2027. This conclusion seems plausible in light of the passage of stringent new energy efficiency rules for televisions sold in California, a timely mandate as TV makers are already implementing LEDs in their products, as well as a broader increase in the demand for LED lights which have witnessed compound annual growth rates exceeding 37% in recent years with a projected total market of $12 billion in 2012.
There has been some chatter lately about India’s ambitious plan to install 20 gigawatts of photovoltaic capacity by 2020, as well as achieving a manufacturing capacity of 20 gigawatts annually by the same year and installed capacity of 100 gigawatts by 2030 and 200 gigawatts by 2050. The plan is outlined in a government report from April 2009 published in its entirety on the Greenpeace International website, and notably calls for the establishment of a national Solar Energy Authority, microfinance initiatives to deliver household and village scale electrical generation, heating, and lighting systems to 20 million individuals, grid parity with rural diesel generators and coal thermal power plants by 2020 and 2030 respectively, a feed-in tariff, and mandates for the integration of solar photovoltaic and thermal power generation to fossil fuel power plants.
The plan won’t be cheap, as noted in a post on the New York Times’ Green Inc.:
Total costs would be 85,000 and 105,000 crores ($18.5 billion to $22.8 billion) over a 30-year period. To help finance the project, the plan foresees a significant tax on gasoline and diesel — fuels the government currently subsidizes.
Despite these costs the plan would be a smart investment in the long run as a hedge against rising coal, natural gas, and diesel fuel costs, while also markedly reducing environmental and health externalities and increasing productivity and employment. Ultimately photovoltaics could become a considerable export-driven industry for India, much as it has in China which currently manufactures between 1/5th and 1/2 of the world’s photovoltaic cells and panels and announced its own goal of 20 gigawatts of installed capacity by 2020. This would go a long way toward easing China’s current energy constraints caused by a cold snap that has slowed transportation of coal and led to a government ration on fossil fuels used for electricity generation in order to ensure adequate supplies for heating purposes. This competition is sure to benefit ancillary developing nations as costs continue to fall and supply increases.
In a high-profile spectacle exposing the deplorable working conditions that are at the base of Brazil’s sugar and bioethanol industry, the largest conglomerate in the sector was placed on a government black list of companies whose employees work in slave-like conditions. BNDES, the state development bank, froze all accounts (amounting to some $411 million dollars) with Cosan after the Labor Ministry added them to a black list of approximately 163 companies in the country whose conditions are likened to that of slavery. A BusinessWeek article notes that the Labor Ministry “liberated” 42 workers from their debt-based servitude to the company, and an article from Yahoo!News Brazil mentions that the company is facing 13 labor law infractions including use of laborers under the age of 18, lack of adequate housing for employees, lack of potable water at work sites, and finally, a commercial relationship between Cosan and its employees in which employees were issued credit which ultimately led to them becoming indebted and forced to work in order to service those debts.
Cosan alone is responsible for roughly 5% of global sugar production as well as 4% of global ethanol production and as a result of the Labor Ministry’s actions Petroleo Brasileiro (better known as PetroBras) has announced plans to review its purchase of ethanol from the company. The developments come in the face of a polemic trend toward mechanization of sugarcane harvests, with states like São Paulo now rendering 50% of the crop with heavy machinery instead of manual labor. Only two decades ago nearly 100% of the crop was harvested principally by migrant laborers from the country’s poverty stricken northeastern states.
Biofuels have become one of the largest nightmares for Brazilian and international environmentalists who find themselves caught between government policies which have resulted in the country becoming essentially self-sufficient in energy production (see page 30 of report, >10% of total energy consumed is from external sources), and the myriad NGOs and community based organizations who are crying foul of the destruction of pristine forests in the Atlantic rainforest, cerrado, and Amazon basin to make way for more sugarcane, African palm, and soybean plantations. The United States has recently surpassed Brazil in ethanol production in a political boondoggle of its own, producing some 9 billion gallons of ethanol this year almost entirely from corn based feedstocks (total annual US consumption of gasoline is approximately 135-140 billion gallons annually) despite mounting evidence that the net environmental impact of combusting corn ethanol is null to negative, as noted by Harvard professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Michael McElroy:
The balance in terms of emission of greenhouse gases is close to a wash for the United States: the reduction in net emissions of carbon dioxide obtained by using corn rather than petroleum as a “feedstock” for motor fuel is largely offset by additional emissions of the several hundredfold more potent greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, formed as a byproduct of the nitrogen fertilizer used to grow the corn.
Not to mention a report by the National Taxpayer’s Union which estimates that “every dollar of ethanol profit costs taxpayers $30.” And so the recent news from Brazil will add fuel to the raging debate over the social, economic, and environmental costs of biofuels.
Thanks to a grant from Stanford’s Environmental Venture Projects (an initiative of the Woods Institute for the Environment) a collaboration between Stanford faculty, the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), and villagers in Kalalé, Benin, there has been a successful implementation of solar powered drip irrigation systems which extend the growing season during a seasonal drought in western Africa.
By installing 3 of these systems the team managed to achieve some incredible results, as noted on the Kalalé Solar Electrification Project homepage:
As measured in the baseline survey undertaken in November 2007, the median per capita daily consumption expenditure in pilot and control villages is just around $1 (PPP, 1993 US dollar), and over $0.60 of that amount is spent on food, confirming that Kalalé’s population is among the poorest on the planet. (These values vary slightly between villages; however, across both treatment and control villages, the households of women participating in the women’s groups are slightly poorer than average.) Furthermore, while virtually all of the households in Kalalé are engaged in agricultural and/or livestock production as a primary activity, most are net consumers of food, particularly of non-staples (proteins, vegetables, fats: See Figure 1). These households either rely on sales of cotton (grown across northern Benin) or draw down assets (usually livestock) to supplement poor production. Against this food- and nutrition- insecure backdrop, the Solar Market Garden’s impact has been striking. Not only have households, on average, earned $3.82 per week by selling produce over the first 6 months of operation, they have also consumed, on average, 1-2 kg of their own production (including tomatoes, amaranth, okra, and carrots) per week. This represents a substantial improvement in both food and nutrition security for the participants, as this amount is, in almost all cases, more than they reported purchasing and/or producing before project implementation. [It has been determined that the average earnings ($3.82) represented a significant under-reporting; the actual number is most likely between $7-$8.] Additionally, these early data suggest that the payback time of a half-hectare Solar Market Garden is 2-3 years (this estimate is closer to 2 years for a surface system, closer to 3 for a submersible system, and will be refined over the second year of operation).
Also check out a video made by the SELF covering the project (they get to the Kalalé project at 1:02):
We’d like to return to the topic of water today by bringing a new tool to your attention. The Oakland, California based Pacific Institute has developed a map of chronological global water conflicts, just a gentle reminder from MacArthur grant recipient Peter Gleick that energy resources are not the only powder kegs of transnational animus. Having lived in rural and urban areas in many countries in the developing world where water was either far away, contaminated, or could be shut off for days at a time, I have a profound gratitude for the ease of access to quality water that we often take for granted in richer nations. However, we mustn’t be complacent with what we have as the New York Times recently reported that some 49 million people in the United States drink water that has unacceptable levels of contaminants ranging from arsenic to uranium!
In light of reports like this the natural question is to ask, “What can I, a single individual do to help mollify such a gargantuan problem?” Well, thankfully we aren’t the only ones with water on the tips of our tongues as there are many people dedicated entirely to combating water scarcity with innovative harvesting, efficiency, and recycling techniques such as drip irrigation, rainwater harvesting, and implementation of greywater systems – I’m sure they’d be happy to help us all take a step in the right direction.
Un artículo en El País (España) prevee que dentro de cuatro años unos 112 millones de televisores utilizarán diodos emisores de luz (LED) en vez de pantallas LCD. Esta tendencia será impulsada por la demanda de televisores con alta calidad de imágen y bajo consumo energético y por políticas gubernamentales como las del estado de California que estipulan que en 2013 los televisores con pantallas de 42 pulgadas deben consumir menos de 115 vatios.
This article is about a company in India called NEST Ltd. based in Hyderabad, India, reposted from Cleantechnica.com. NEST produces a line of small solar powered compact fluorescent lights and cell phone chargers and has sold more than 65,000 units to date. The video below shows the impact that the products have on the lives of the end users who report a tremendous change.
The video cites some 100 million individuals in India (about 8.33% of the population) who lack access to the electrical grid compared to between 40 and 100 million in Latin America (between 7% and 20% of the population, depending on the source). However, it seems that Asian countries are rapidly gaining access to leapfrog technologies like the Aishwarya light produced by NEST Ltd., likely due to their privileged position as emerging economic powers granting them access to capital for technological industry and manufacturing, while Latin America remains highly dependent on exports of raw materials, agricultural products, and tourism. Quetsol is driven by a desire to even out this granularity in the adoption of distributed energy technologies that empower those who have been left on the sidelines of the economic booms in many countries or who reside in those countries who missed out on the past two decades of economic growth (see ALBA).
It’s also worth noting that even those countries which ostensibly have reliable electricity generation and transmission infrastructure, such as Brazil, structural cracks are beginning to show as demonstrated by the massive blackouts caused by the failure of transmission lines and a 14 gigawatt hydroelectric generating facility in São Paulo last November. This Wall Street Journal article cites some $47 billion dollars of investments in generating stations and transmission systems, with plans for 4 new nuclear reactors and a new $7.7 billion dam on the Madeira river in the Amazon. We wonder if a small-is-beautiful approach incorporating micro-scale renewable generating units wouldn’t create both a more resilient and stable source of power for economic activity while preventing the ecological havoc wreaked by damming rivers and mining uranium and copper.
La permacultura es un sistema de diseño ambiental que trata de armonizar la relación entre los seres humanos y el medio ambiente, creando una cultura que pueda durar indefinidamente – una cultura permanente en contraste con la que tenemos ahora, una cultura basada en el consumerismo de recursos limitados y no renovables (como el petróleo y el carbón). El interés en los métodos de permacultura ha ido creciendo en los últimos años, especialmente tras el éxito en aumentar la producción de alimentos que han tenido en Cuba tras el Período Especial. En 1991 se acabaron las importaciones de petróleo, comida, y máquinas industriales de la Unión Soviética y Cuba tuvo que regresar a métodos casi completamente orgánicos para alimentar a su población. Poco después un equipo de Australianos, liderados por Bill Mollison, vino a enseñarles a los Cubanos cómo adoptar métodos de policulturas, micro-huertas urbanas, pesticidas y abonos orgánicos. El éxito ha tenido resultados profundos para todos con el promedio de calorías consumidas por persona subiendo un 50% desde el comienzo del programa, y ahora la gran mayoría de las verduras y frutas en el país se cosechan dentro de 25 kilómetros de los consumidores finales.
Los fundamentos de la permacultura forman una guía apta para individuos, comunidades, y compañías que buscan operar y vivir en una manera más sostenible. Son 12 principios en total y los listamos abajo (para leer más sobre ellos vea el libro digital de Davíd Holmgren – La Esencia de la Permacultura, y para os nossos amigos brasileiros veja Os Fundamentos da Permacultura)
- Observa e interactúa
- Capturar y almacenar energía
- Obtén un rendimiento
- Aplicar la autoregulación y aceptar la retroalimentación
- Usar y valorar los servicios y recursos renovables
- Deja de producir residuos
- Diseño de los patrones a los detalles
- Integrar más que segregar
- Usa soluciones lentas y pequeñas
- Usa y valora la diversidad
- Usa los bordes y valora lo marginal
- Usa y responde creativamente al cambio
Quetsol toma estos principios como una guía para la visión de la compañía y nuestros productos ayudan a individuos y comunidades integrar recursos renovables como paneles fotovoltaicos en su entorno. Para aprender más sobre la permacultura, vea también el sitio de Permaculture TV (español y portugués).
I have been blessed with opportunities to see talks and lectures from truly revolutionary thought leaders of our time, from Amory Lovins to Vinod Khosla. I am further blessed to live in an area of the world where a good idea can emerge from a garage and evolve into a 20,000 person company that reinvents everything from maps to communication. It was, then, a true honor to be in attendance at an event called the Clean Tech Open at the end of November where I got to see some of the most innovative clean tech start-ups compete for incredible prizes of cash and in-kind services, and more importantly, for the attention of venture captalists and philanthropists.
The entrants ranged from social enterprises like Drip Tech which aims to commercialize low-cost drip irrigation systems in the developing world, to HydroVolts, a company designing and installing small scale hydroelectric generators for use in both developed and developing nations. Then there was the National Prize Winner EcoFactor, recipient of $100,000 in seed capital and $150,000 of in-kind services from Silicon Valley firms) which has developed a simple software program that parses data from your home thermostat and makes adjustments for optimal efficiency. Finally, I was impressed by Alphabet Energy, started by Matthew Scullin (PhD, Materials Science, Physics, and Energy Resource Analysis from UC Berkeley). Their product is a thermoelectric material that can transform waste heat from coal, natural gas, and other power generating facilities into electricity, and they have a claimed total addressable market of over $1 trillion (there are a lot of dirty and inefficient power plants out there). You can read more about the contest from the Clean Tech Open Blog. All in all the event was a tour de force exposé of myriad solutions to the structural problem of our profligate use of energy resources, and a real source of what Amory Lovins likes to call “applied hope”.
