funky fuels .. weird sources of alternative energy

Alternative energy sources—from algae to cow manure—that are really out there.
By Christopher Flavelle

Cassava Energy

Full post at The Big Money.

wind turbine water tower

wind turbine water tower .. say that three times in one breath
But seriously…
This setup lets 4 turbines supply power to 15 houses in the Cleveland area. Given the power requirements of homes in the US, this could translate to a much higher number of homes in rural Nepal.
The beauty of it is the ability to use existing free standing towers, like water towers etc..

Full article at http://www.portofentry.com/site/root/resources/technology/8015.html
Business week article at
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_27/c4138greenbusi149054.htm
Realneo.us image:

Green Projects

via Wired

Forgotton Warriors

History can be forgotten if not preserved well. Recently I came across an image of african slaves’ reunion followed by some historical insights. I then asked to myself whether anyone is building a collection of historical archives related to Nepal. and I came across The Digital Himalaya Project. The goal of the project, according to its website is

Slave reunion

“to develop digital collection, storage,
and distribution strategies for multimedia anthropological
information from the Himalayan region”.

This is fantastic, I thought. Then another thought that crossed my mind was that it would be fabulous to have a digital collection of Nepalis who were awarded with the Victoria Cross. I did find the link for the Victoria Cross winners and The Paramvir Chakra winners, which is the highest decoration in the Indian Army. However, I learned that the whereabouts of the medals and the families of these decorated brave men is now unknown.

It is really sad that these men who represented Nepal in many battles of the past are now forgotten. May be the families of these brave men need to found and honored like they do in the USA on the Veteran’s day.

How is climate change affecting plants in Nepal?

According to the French and the Germans, 20% of plants in Germany are threatened by global warming because of species distribution is changed by changes in climate and temperature.

Nepali Flora

“Many plant species could lose their niches in habitats such as mountains or moors,“ Sven Pompe from UFZ explains. Migrating species from southern Europe could not compensate for these losses in the models. The marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), for example, is one of the losers to climate change. The changes in the environmental conditions in the scenarios will result in this species disappearing locally from the low-lying areas of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony. In contrast, the common walnut (Juglans regia), originally introduced north of the Alps by the Romans, would find more areas with suitable conditions and could extend into eastern Germany.

Nepal too has various degrees of changes in temperature and altitude from North to South. How is climate change affecting the flora of Nepal? Hope it is not too late when we find out the answer.

Teach kids Nepali Online

An online site, Wondernepal has been created to teach children Nepali. This site has videos that teach Nepali Barnamala and to help in pronouncing the alphabets. It also features interactive games for the computer savvy kids of the current generation.

Nepali Barnamala

The need for assistance to the widows in Nepal

As published in Nepal Abroad Saturday January 3, 2009 1st Edtion

RAJBIRAJ December 30: At the age of 11 Purni Shah was forced by her family to marry a 25-year-old man. Four years into the marriage, her husband died leaving her a child widow. Her fate is not uncommon in Nepal, which has one of world’s highest levels of child marriage, according to Nepal’s Demographic Health Survey. Over 63 percent of girls marry before 18, and 7 percent marry before reaching 10, the survey said. But for those who become widows, the stigma can be overwhelming: They are often looked upon with disdain and suspicion, and even blamed for their husband’s death. “It’s a cursed life. There’s too much pain and hardship,” 30-year-old Purni told IRIN in the town of Rajbiraj in Saptari District, 400km southeast of Kathmandu in the Terai region, where child marriage is particularly common. “I don’t want to live like this any more,” she said. Fifteen years after her husband died, people refer to her as ‘bekalya’ (child widow) and she is denied even the most basic rights. Child widows fare much worse than other widows, often finding themselves marginalised, according to rights activists. In Saptari District alone, there are an estimated 1,000 such women or girls. However, there is little awareness of the issue. Only one NGO – Women For Human Rights-Single Women’s Group (WHR) – is currently working on the problem.

Bad luck

“The `bekalayas’ suffer terribly in this conservative society which stigmatises them and sets too many rigid rules to control them,” Madhvi Shah, a WHR activist, told IRIN. Banned from wearing new or colourful clothes (white clothes or a sari are socially compulsory for widows), child widows are barred from eating fish or meat, remarrying, and even showing their faces in the early mornings to “prevent bad luck”. They are also forbidden to attend weddings or other social functions, in case they bring bad luck.

Citizenship

“We are treated worse than animals,” Shradha Mandal, who married when she was eight and widowed before her 16th birthday, said. To make matters worse, Shradha has no citizenship, making her a virtual refugee in her own country: In male-dominated Nepal, citizenship is acquired only after reaching 18 and on the recommendation of a father, brother or husband. A new law in 2008 allows citizenship recommendations to come from females, but it has not yet been implemented in practice, according to activists. Mandal has no proof of her marriage, and therefore no rights to her husband’s land or property. Instead, she has to survive on food provided by her mother.

Defiance

However, thanks to WHR empowerment training, some ‘bekalayas’ in Saptari District are starting to speak out and demand a voice. “I have not lost all hope of starting a new life,” 20-year-old Rekha Chaudhary said, explaining that she had started defying the strict Hindu rules in her village, Bisariya. It’s my life and I am not afraid any more. “The first step is to make them more self-confident and aware of their legal and human rights,” said WHR’s Shah, explaining that the training was already having an impact. Kumar Deo, whose husband died when she was only 16, recalled how she started to break the taboo by wearing colourful clothes, put on red bangles and started to walk around freely whenever and wherever she wanted. “In the beginning, I was very scared but as the news about our defiance came out in the local media, that gave me strength,” Deo said with a smile, adding that she was now encouraging others like her to stand up for their rights. Backed by WHR, dozens of widows like Deo are now forming their own self-help groups. “It’s my life and I am not afraid any more,” said 17-year-old child widow Shanti Devi Mandap, married when she was 12 and now looking for a job. (IRIN News Service)

Cataracts and Nepal

cataract

While the rest of the world is combating novel infectious agents such as HIV, Nepal unfortunately is still battling with ancient diseases such as cholera. In addition, due to lack of biomedical research many diseases and their causative agents are not being diagnosed. A recent study conducted in Nepal has confirmed that use of solid fuel (daura) in inadequately ventilated kitchens increases the risk of cataract. Furthermore, since women do most of the cooking in Nepal, women but not men may be at risk in acquiring cataract and thus may become blind at a young age.

This may have serious sociological implications, especially in a country like Nepal. Environment and health are probably the two hottest topics today. Life style in rural Nepal and its impact in the environment as well as in the health of Nepali women thus needs to be seriously considered when thinking about a new Nepal. Innovations to ameliorate the tough life style in Nepal will probably be really appreciated.

rocket stove

Boing Boing has a post about the rocket stove.

The rocket stove was invented about 10 years ago by Dr. Larry Winiarski at the Aprovecho Research Center in Oregon. It consists of an elbow-shaped combustion chamber (usually made from metal cans) surrounded by insulating material (often a large can filled with sand). It uses twigs for fuel, so it’s ideal for areas where the trees have been depleted.

It maximizes the efficiency of heat conversion of the burning fuel and reduces the amount of particulate matter and carbon monoxide seen in traditional open wood stoves.

They have an instructional video about it up on their site.

The 10 Rocket Stove Priniciples as written by Dr. Larry Winiarski:

1.) Insulate, particularly the combustion chamber, with low mass, heat

resistant materials in order to keep the fire as hot as possible and not to

heat the higher mass of the stove body.

2.) Within the stove body, above the combustion chamber, use an insulated,

upright chimney of a height that is about two or three times the diameter

before extracting heat to any surface (griddle, pots, etc.).

3.) Heat only the fuel that is burning (and not too much). Burn the tips of

sticks as they enter the combustion chamber, for example. The object is NOT

to produce more gasses or charcoal than can be cleanly burned at the power

level desired.

4.) Maintain a good air velocity through the fuel. The primary Rocket stove

principle and feature is using a hot, insulated, vertical chimney within the

stove body that increases draft.

5.) Do not allow too much or too little air to enter the combustion chamber.

We strive to have stoichiometric (chemically ideal) combustion: in practice

there should be the minimum excess of air supporting clean burning.

6.) The cross sectional area (perpendicular to the flow) of the combustion

chamber should be sized within the range of power level of the stove.

Experience has shown that roughly twenty-five square inches will suffice for

home use (four inches in diameter or five inches square). Commercial size is

larger and depends on usage.

7.) Elevate the fuel and distribute airflow around the fuel surfaces. When

burning sticks of wood, it is best to have several sticks close together,

not touching, leaving air spaces between them. Particle fuels should be

arranged on a grate.

8.) Arrange the fuel so that air largely flows through the glowing coals.

Too much air passing above the coals cools the flames and condenses oil

vapors.

9.) Throughout the stove, any place where hot gases flow, insulate from the

higher mass of the stove body, only exposing pots, etc. to direct heat.

10.) Transfer the heat efficiently by making the gaps as narrow as possible

between the insulation covering the stove body and surfaces to be heated but

do this without choking the fire. Estimate the size of the gap by keeping

the cross sectional area of the flow of hot flue gases constant. EXCEPTION:

When using a external chimney or fan the gaps can be substantially reduced

as long as adequate space has been left at the top of the internal short

chimney for the gasses to turn smoothly and distribute evenly. This is

tapering of the manifold. In a common domestic griddle stove with external

chimney, the gap under the griddle can be reduced to about one half inch for

optimum heat transfer.

junk fuel

This weeks’s Cringely post is about creating fuel out of trash without carbon side-effects, one of the holy grails for today’s civilization. Sounds too good to be true?

The company he talks about in the post aims to produce hydrogen, bio-diesel, oxygen, fertilizer and some electricity using a modified plasma burning process.
Here’s what they claim to be able to produce from one ton of municipal waste:
112 pounds of hydrogen
55 gallons of biodiesel
a little electricity
926 pounds of oxygen

May not be for all of nepal yet, but would certainly fit the bill to clear out all the trash clogging up Kathmandu’s rivers.

CWT thermal conversion process