[Peripherals] Alternitive Power for Developing Countries
info at olpc-peru.info
info at olpc-peru.info
Sat May 10 01:56:31 EDT 2008
Wind? No problem: you store the produced energy in batteries that will
feed your devices during the whole day.
Some rules for wind powered projects:
a) You need more than 8 miles per hour to produce energy for a home.
b) You will need a tower. Don't trust the mills at the top of the house
or similar designs. You need a tower 2.5 times bigger than the nearest
building or tree. Normally you need a 10 meters tower (30 feet aprox).
c) Ask the people that lives in the area.
d) Check some of the trees... if they are growing with some evident
tendency (right sided, left sided) then you can be sure that there is
some useful winds in the area.
e) Wind mills use low RPM alternators if they want to be very efficient.
f) It is more efficient to set up the rotor/alternator/generator in a
direct connection to the "turning wheel" at the top of the tower.
Setting up a pulley system at the top and the rotor/alternator/generator
at the bottom of the tower is not so efficient (there is lack of energy).
g) Winds are not constant, they change according to the hours of the day
and the months of the year.
h) In some areas of Peru there is huge resistance to introduce any wind
mill to extract water from the soil because they see like a weird
behavior to take the "blood" from the soil when mother nature doesn't
want to provide it in a natural way (like a river). In old times
(around 20 years ago) there was a group of Dutch engineers that was
killed in Puno area (the peasants warned... don't suck the "blood" from
the soil... they smile and they were confident that when the population
see the water running they will be more than happy... nope. They were
killed and buried.). Cultural things matter. Ask local people, get the
approval of the community BEFORE you start any study. Mining areas are
the most difficult because the past role that have develop the mines in
those areas during more than 500 years).
i) There are many NGOs in Peru that have studied the issue (about
alternative source energy). But the problem keeps the same: all those
areas are without energy. I think is due to the size of the problem
(80,000 villages, 5 million people). There is not budget that can
provide enough help. If this is right (I am not sure) then we need to
think in lowering and lowering costs for wind mills and let that the
people of the village buy the plans and spare parts to assembly its own
solution (if that is a wind mill then fine, if it is a "energy" pedaling
device... is fine too!). If we provide spare parts, plans and it is a
easy and understandable design then they (the people) can appropriate
the idea and getting bigger and bigger results by themselves. One
village past the voice to other one (mouth radio).
Best regards,
Javier Rodriguez
Lima, Peru
Caryl Bigenho wrote:
> Hi PowerPeople!
>
> Javier and I are really "singing the same song". His spinning wheel
> parts are very similar to my proposed sewing machine treadle. The
> principle is the same. His wonderful table design is just about what I
> had in mind for my used sewing machine mechanism.
>
> I don't see any problem having children use them at home. every child
> could have their own and simply pedal as he/she uses the laptop. It
> would be fun, like a learning toy, and that is just how they make it
> work. Not child labor at all...just part of a learning game!
>
> There is, however, value in using something else at school for a more
> centralized power source. That is where a large solar power,
> windmill, water wheel or animal driven generator would be practical.
>
> We need to try some of these ideas with working prototypes and see how
> practical they would be. I hope to find an old sewing machine when I
> get to Montana in a few weeks.
>
> I may also have a chance to try something with a windmill. What
> exactly is the problem with windmills at higher elevations? Why won't
> they work? If I can get a small one, I might have a chance to test it
> at about 3350 meters, 2000 meters for sure.
>
> Caryl in Southern California...soon to be Montana for a while.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 9 May 2008 23:47:22 -0400
> From: info at olpc-peru.info
> To: josh at laptop.org
> CC: arjunsarwal at gmail.com; carla at laptop.org;
> peripherals at lists.laptop.org; hbonwit at alumni.nd.edu
> Subject: Re: [Peripherals] Alternitive Power for Developing Countries
>
> Hello Josh and all,
>
>
> >Personally, I think the power requirements for the XO is too high
> for children to charge them. Yes, I'm sure something can be
> created that children could operate - but is this scalable and
> long term? Do we think that children are going to want to do this
> everyday throughout their entire education?
>
>
> Getting enough energy for a standard laptop from the pedaling in a
> bicycle is possible (check YouTube.com... there are many working
> examples). Even the most optimistic calculation or test that has
> been done shows that is possible to do a fast pedaling for a short
> period of time, then you are done and need some rest. That is due
> that you are moving the whole leg to produce the rotation. And
> that kind of high "torque" is needed because you are moving and
> object AND you are moving a heavy weight (yourself). Not just
> moving a rotor against a "perfect" rolling surface (pulley and
> internal parts of the alternator).
>
>
> Then you have the other side of the coin: with spinning wheels
> (that have been used by centuries) you move JUST your foot (right
> or left) not the whole leg. People has been able to do this
> hours and hours without showing any sight of damage or getting
> tired in the effort (I know this from first hand because I have
> develop groups of spinners and knitters in the high andes for
> projects developed in mining zones, all of them using spinning
> wheels moved by the foot).
>
>
> Our kids, peruvians, andean kids, are used to very hard working
> conditions (most of them know very well how to wake up at 5:00 am
> and push the sheep herd to the field, that coould be walking
> around 3 to 5 miles each day... then coming back to the house
> around 5 p.m. They do this when there is no school or when the
> school just work 1 week in the month or when they have to walk
> more than 2 hours to go to the school (everyday) or when the
> teacher is out in the bigger nearest village). That happens in
> the towns and villages over the 3,500 meters altitude (80,000 tows
> and villages with a total of 5 million people there), not in the
> small villages located at 2,500 meters altitude (this are the ones
> that you can reach easily and have schools and teachers and kids
> that look at your eyes like very poor children but are the not the
> ones that are in the worst conditions). Any peruvian kid that
> lives in the high andes, at 2,500 or at 3,500 meters altitude,
> will look at the "pedaling" device in a spinning wheel like a toy,
> like at totally integrated part of the "cost/benefit" system, and
> only the spoiled ones will refuse to do it (there are "spoiled"
> children in any culture, time and economic condition).
>
>
> If that is too hard to accept (seeing as "children work" or any
> form of "slavery") then we have to think that the ones that will
> use the "spinning wheels" will be the teacher, fathers, bigger
> brothers that can understand that they will benefit from
> generating its own energy and that is depending on them and not in
> the force of the nature (wind, water).
>
>
> >I think what is most important is to determine the sources of
> potential energy in areas that need it, then design technology to
> utilize that.
>
> >Javier I think you have mentioned that both water, wind and sun
> are too variable to design a cost effective system around. Can you
> think of energy sources that are readily available in these areas
> that could be utilized?
>
>
> Some person have talk about energy from potatoes. Yes, why not.
> And from corn and soy and many other vegetables too. It is named
> as "eco-oil" or "bio-oils"... but... there is huge controversy
> about how much "conventional energy sources" are spend to produce
> this "bio-oils". Furthermore, there is huge movement against
> using what the people eats in poor countries to produce
> "sustainable oils" for use in the first world. Example: in my
> country, Peru, the government has said that the rise on the price
> of some food products is due to the rise of the corn and soy in
> U.S. and Brazil. I have talk about this too much with my own
> government but without success (politic stuff is not always
> related to the law of the economy and sometimes is due to personal
> conditions in managing some issues).
>
>
> Some kind of a more integral aproach could be used: generating
> energy from the gas that comes from composting the rest of the
> agricultural production and the lefts of the animals. But that
> involves much more money than getting, modifying, and installing
> some number of spinning wheels.
>
>
>
> >You don't happen to have an abundance of zinc ore in Peru do you?
>
>
> Zinc? Sure. Lots. I don't have information about producing
> energy from Zinc. But... that is a work for a mining company,
> zinc is not in the form of small rocks that you can pick up in the
> surface. You need to dig, melt, separate and refine. Then you
> are a huge mining company.
>
>
> Best regards and thanks for your interest in the issue.
>
>
> Javier Rodriguez
> Lima, Peru
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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