[Peripherals] Alternitive Power for Developing Countries

Sat May 10 18:26:43 EDT 2008

Hi Javier,

Yes, I  definitely agree that the folks using the technology should be able to choose what they want and to participate in its construction.  If they  can just be given simple plans for devices they can construct at a modest cost, and that will work for them, it would be wonderful.  

This would also take away some of the suspicion the folks have of outsiders who want to get them to do something new and different.  Your tale about the water wells was interesting and a good illustration of this suspicion.   I could tell similar tales of folks in Bolivia who won't accept health care, from a medical doctor from the Catholic church who has lived among them for decades, when a child becomes ill with a potentially fatal but easily cured disease. They say it is God's will whether the child lives or dies and they don't want to interfere. Many children die needlessly.

There is also a political concern.  If the small villages of Peru are anything like the ones in Bolivia (they probably are), there is a lot of difficulty getting cooperation among the villagers to unite behind a community project.  Customs are ancient and really shouldn't be messed with by outsiders.  If individuals want to do something, that is their business, but outsiders should not try to force things on a community because it would be "good for them" (unfortunately things like potable water, sanitation, power, communications, and the like fall into these categories). Maybe when groups of children involved in the OLPC project finish their educations and come back as doctors, nurses, engineers, and the like, it will change.  If, and it is a big if,  they can be convinced to come back.

OK...enough of my rambling and ranting...here is what I really wanted to write about...

What do you know about vertical axis wind turbines like the Savonius wind turbines?  Here is a link to a wikipedia article about them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savonius_wind_turbine

There are lots of sites about them on the web...some with plans for ones you can build.  One even uses an old 55 gal oil drum cut in half.  Would these need a tower to work?

Caryl

Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 01:56:31 -0400
From: info at olpc-peru.info
To: cbigenho at hotmail.com
CC: josh at laptop.org; 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

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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