Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In my last post, “Expensive Energy Kills Poor People” , I spoke of the women of Lesotho. In the comments someone asked what I would recommend that they do regarding electricity.
For me, there are two separate questions about the provision of electricity. One is cities and the grid. The other, and for me, more important question regards the folks living in places the grid may not reach for decades. For example, Steven Mosher pointed me to a quote that says of Lesotho (emphasis mine):
The majority of the population (76%) lives in rural areas, but has strong links to urban centres in both Lesotho and neighbouring South Africa. The majority of these villages lack electricity and the probability of connecting them to grid electricity in the foreseeable future is very low. Grid electricity, being a commercial form of energy, requires users to have a regular income. The income levels in rural areas are generally lower than those in urban areas due to higher unemployment and underemployment levels.
Those are the kind of people who I’ve worked among in the developing world, people way off the grid, the type of people who I met when I was in Lesotho. What can we offer them in the way of electricity, the most adaptable and useful form of energy?
I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of hours running the numbers on the economics of renewable energy of various kinds in the village. I used to teach the subject to starry-eyed Peace Corps Volunteers. Heck, you know how they say “he wrote the manual” on something? Well … I actually did …
Figure 1. Peace Corp Training Manual T-25. The ERIC Metadata says: This document was prepared as a training manual for people interested in developing appropriate technological approaches to using wind power to pump water. The training program is divided into two basic formats, one in which a session focuses on the design process and participants are expected to do some design work in groups, and another which uses a preselected design and does not include the design process. Besides providing sets of training guidelines and objectives, the manual describes training sessions which deal with: (1) the history of wind systems;2) large projects and community analysis; (3) shop safety and tool care; (4) representative drawings for construction; (5) shafts and bearings; (6) strengths and testing; … etc. etc.
I bring this up to highlight that I’m not an armchair theoretician about these matters, and that I’ve worked extensively in the somewhat arcane field of village-level use of renewable energy. So as you might imagine, I’ve thought long and hard about how to provide inexpensive electricity to the poor.
And curiously, the answer presented itself when I was in Paraguay about thirty years ago. I was there to once again put on the wind-power training that is laid out in my manual above. I was out in the outback with a driver going to look at potential wind-power sites, when I saw someone come out of the selva, the local low forest. He was driving a mule hitched to a cart.
And in the cart were a half-dozen auto batteries. I asked the driver what that was about, and I was surprised by the reply.
He told me that the batteries would be owned by several homes and farms far away from the road. There were no power lines anywhere along the road, of course, we were a long ways from the grid. He said the driver would leave the car batteries there by the side of the road, and a truck going to a nearby sawmill would pick them up. At the sawmill, which also wasn’t on the grid, for a small fee the batteries would be charged from the generator powering the sawmill. Then they underwent the same process in reverse. The truck brought them to the mule track, and the mule man took them back to the farms and ranches. There, they used them for power until they were run down.
Brilliant!, I thought. These jokers aren’t letting a little hardship get in the way of having electricity in their homes.
Later, I was talking to a local schoolteacher in Spanish, she had no English. She said that she’d noticed that the kids from the houses with electricity did better than those from the other homes. I asked what the people used the electricity for. Lighting and television, she said. Television? I asked, mystified, thinking that could only stunt their minds.
Yes, she said, they are the only ones who ever hear about the outside world. They’re the only ones who have a bigger vision, of something beyond the selva.
Dang, I thought. That’s how we can power the hinterlands until the grid arrives.
And over the years, I refined that idea into what I call the PowerHouse School concept. I almost got the agreements and the money to do it in the Solomon Islands, but then the government changed, and the tide went against me. Ah, well, the idea still lives. Here’s the elevator speech:
The PowerHouse School is a ten-foot shipping container that is set up to recharge 12-volt automobile batteries and cell phones, using whatever renewable sources are available locally—solar, small-scale wind, micro-hydro, or some combination of all three. It would be run as a for-profit battery-charging business by a school, with the children being trained in the operation, care, and maintenance of the equipment and the charging and feeding of the batteries. It would also sell (by order only, no stock in hand) a variety of 12- and 24-volt lights, equipment and tools. The older students would also be taught the business side of the operation—keeping the books, maintaining the supplies, figuring the profits and losses. Any excess power would be used by the school itself, for lighting classrooms and powering electronics.
The advantages of the PowerHouse School concept are:
• The education about how to use (and more importantly how to maintain) the technology is provided along with the technology.
• The homeowner is not expected to purchase ($$$) the charging system (solar panels, etc.).
• More importantly, the homeowner is not expected to maintain the charging system.
• Students will be trained to do the business side as well as the technical side , supporting entrepreneurship.
• There is no monthly cost to the homeowner. It’s purely pay-as-you-go. This allows participation by those without regular income.
• It uses existing technology.
• It can be sized appropriately, and increased incrementally (one additional solar panel or storage battery at a time).
Finally, it fulfills my own First Law of Rural Development, which states:
If it doesn’t pay … it doesn’t stay.
In other words, if someone can’t make a profit implementing your whiz-bang idea for improving the lives of the poor, your scheme will go to an early grave.
So that was the plan. Never implemented. The numbers sort of worked in the Solomon Islands, it could have turned a profit … if you were creative about the funding of the capital costs. The problem is that you’re looking at some thousands of US$ to set one up, and that would take a while to pay off. Should be doable, solar panels have a long lifetime, as do schools, and the sun is free. But some combination of a bit of grant funds and perhaps a long-term loan might have to be provided.
Regarding the micro-hydro aspect, there are several designs for hydroelectric systems using heavy-duty truck alternators. These put out about a hundred amps at twelve volts, so that’s about a kilowatt. The only issue is moving that power at 14 volts is a problem because you need a big wire size at low voltage. But in fact, they put out three-phase AC, so all you need is to pop out the rectifier that converts the three-phase AC to DC. Then run the AC into a three-phase transformer, and jack it up as high-voltage as you need, depending on the distance. Run your wires from the transformer to the PowerHouse, where you transform it back down to 14 volts, and then run it through the rectifier you removed from the alternator …
Like I said, I’ve put some thought into the question. That’s the best answer that I’ve come up with about how to provide the benefits of electricity to the hinterlands where the grid won’t arrive for many, many years.
Your comment, suggestions, and criticisms welcome,
w.
The comments about just replacing the electrolyte reminded me of the way they supplied electrical power to telegraph stations about 150 years ago. They used a battery called the gravity cell. It had an electrolyte of copper sulfate with zinc and copper electrodes. It wasn’t recharged with electricity but instead the zinc electrode and the copper sulfate were delivered (probably by some guy with a donkey cart). Copper sulfate is a commonly used agricultural chemical and the zinc electrodes can be cast in low-tech foundries. One advantage is that the cell creates a useful byproduct, a very pure form of copper.
tz2060: Can you put a price on fredom?
Can you even spell it? LOL
How about a Crispin Mongolian furnace, using wood, coal or biomass, heating water to lp steam.
Use the lp steam to drive a micro steam turbine, magnetic bearings, one moving part, to drive integral 1kw generator. Waste steam then heats water and condenses back to water heater. In summer the neat can fire up an evaporative cooler.
Kevin–this is so rational that it escapes most of us who want to help. I often wonder why more solar solutions are not found–I was forced to go to solar when the power company wanted $30,000 to hook my rural home to the grid for the privilaege of paying them every month. Putting in a solar system that runs my 2200 ft home was only $17,000. Gues which way I went? Small soalr setups are so very practical and low tech…People say they are not efficient or cost effective–I honestly haven’t found that to be the case. I had to learn more about electricity than I wanted to, but I’m sure the young people of Africa will be quicker than I was.
Yes–very practical.
This is the crux–will the solar be left to the villages and families that need it? In many cases not…why? Mike Wryley is asking the right question–not how can we help, but why at this point in time do they need help? Still?
You don’t have to even leave the US to find families without electricity. It’s estimated that there are 18,000 Navajo households that don’t have it.
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/empower-navajo/
http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/tribalenergy/pdfs/course_solar_begay1.pdf
Many also don’t have access to running water and must travel miles to fill containers. New solar projects are aimed at making water more accessible for these families.
http://ggjalliance.org/node/1027
One more – a portable solar and wind power solution that costs households $80/mo:
http://www.indiancountrynews.com/index.php/news/9-news-from-through-out-indian-country/2406-solar-project-brings-electricity-to-navajo-nation-homes
Mike Wryley says: September 28, 2013 at 9:02 pm
Unfortunately, most of you people are confusing the symptom for a cause.
Ever ask yourself why you’re trying to help people with a 4,000 year head start?
Answer:
Absence of rule of law is the cause.
But then why is there no rule of law?
All too often, people will find a justification – religion, racism, tribalism – to steal from their neighbours. Apparently for many, it beats working.
I see so many criticisms of Willis’ post that are based on entirely rational descriptions of what is more efficient, less expensive, more “sustainable”, etc. But I don’t think you’re taking into account one thing that has been a premier theme on this site. That observations trump theory. What Willis describes is something he has actually seen, observed. These are practical solutions for practical people using practical means. Is it optimal? No. Is it achievable? Yes.
How do you help people who don’t know how to help themselves? My BIL had a successful farm in Zimbabwe. No sign of the farm now. Even the buildings are gone. Yet he now has a successful farm in Australia. Similar things happening in South Africa. Farms being taken over and then collapsing. Once upon a time South Africa used to export a lot of food. Not much now.
I think you must deal with the mindset somehow.
Capital infusion should be from the members of the Bilderberg group who have been in cahoots with the UN for decades. These big businesses have been prospering at the expense of small and medium businesses for years, so this is fair penance. As for energy storage, how about electrolysis of water with storage of the hydrogen to be burned when ready. The by product is pure water.I had read many years ago about the notion of using metal to store hydrogen efficiently. This was before nanotechnology. Perhaps nano particles of appropriate alloy could negate the need for expensive compressors and tanks. This is where research funding should go, not to BS studies to scare us in to believing global warming lies.
A couple of points from a part of Eastern Indonesia where I have worked:
Rural people are in general there without electricity except for the occasional generator fuelled by diesel provided by funds made from selling agricultural products.
Where I worked, there was abundant sunshine for around 6-8 months of the year, with a distinct wet and dry season. It hardly rained at all in the dry season, yet there was no solar power I knew of, because there were no funds to put solar panels in place or provide any ongoing maintenance.
Hydroelectric dams were also been proposed for some areas (it rains heavily in the wet season), but nothing eventuated, due to lack of political will and lack of funds.
However the main problem, on the whole was political. Proposals have been made at times to improve energy availability and farming practices, as well as education, health and roads etc, but these have often been thwarted by corruption (i.e. stealing of funds) and a complicated political structure which doesn’t want change or development. This is worst where there are monarchies, the rulers here have near absolute power, and don’t want their subjects to develop and challenge such power.
What often happens goes like this: outside investors propose to introduce improvements to farming including growing corn, beef etc, the monarchies agree and take an upfront fee, after which they simply change their mind and deny further access. They can do this because they have absolute control over the land and the people, and are generally immune from prosecution. They simply take the upfront investors money and then change their mind-which has occurred so many times it has now become standard operating procedure. Investors are now simply deceived in putting upfront money forward, after which they are denied any further access.
Another example was with the proposed building of a highway. The local King couldn’t build a road, and would probably just steal the funds anyway, so a tender to build a highway was given to someone else, who brought in the heavy equipment, which was then burnt and destroyed on orders of the King, apparently because he didn’t get the tender. The company then left, because the government was not willing to prosecute the King because the King also decides how and who people vote for. The monarchies want to retain their hierarchy and power, and they also control how the majority of the population votes, so they constantly steal any funds for development, remain immune from prosecution, and nothing ever happens. Government officials don’t want to upset them, because they would then lose their veto over who votes for who, so nothing ever happens.
Another recent example was for the development of large scale cattle farming for the burgeoning meat market in Indonesia-parts of Eastern Indonesia are perfect for this-being dry grasslands-but the Kings said no, the government backed down, and the proposal was dead in the water. Indonesia is currently proposing instead to rent land in adjacent Australia for large cattle farms, rather than using its own land which it can’t develop because the local regional monarchies won’t let them.
This has happened multiple times, with proposals for beef, corn, dams, roads, mining, basically everything. Meanwhile, some of the monarchies no longer even live in the areas they control, most of the time they are in Singapore living it up, whilst their own people are amongst the poorest, underdeveloped, malnourished, malaria ridden, and unhealthy in Indonesia. Both the regional and central governments are not willing to take things further, because this would cause tension and political strife. Better let sleeping dogs lie, however under such an arrangement people are malnourished, extremely poor, and have high mortality rates and under-development. Locals in the know say that nothing will happen in such areas unless an old King dies, and someone replaces him who is not so bad, but this could take decades, if at all. But there doesn’t seem to be any real will or movement to challenge the monarchies themselves.
My point is this, unless the local and regional political situation remains conducive to change and development, nothing will improve, whether it be for energy, farming or anything else.
milodonharlani says:
September 28, 2013 at 1:54 pm
A problem I have experienced in the developing world is lack of money. I mean that literally. Coins & currency are often in short supply to non-existent.
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Milodon, I know this seems a little far-fetched – but what about coining one’s OWN local currency – coined in kW/h ?
All you’d need to achieve that, was a little book-keeping – whis in itself is a valuable lesson to learn for students – and something representing a kW/h for peoples’ daily trade.
This way, ANYTHING would go for currency – even kauri-shells, or something – if people agreed to use it as money among themselves. And they would, because, at the end of the day, they could trade their Kauris for a battery-charge at the power-station.
That way, the power-station would serve as a bank, too, while providing people with cheap, affordable energy.
I like your idea a lot, Willis! Maybe you should give it a try and contact one of the big donoring foundations to get it running, like the Bill-Gates-Foundation, or you may give it a try on Kickstarter.
Micro-banking, berhaps? Also, there are banks around which profess in fair trade and ecological investments – at least over here in over-ecologized Germany.
You rock, Willis! Go for it!
kadaka cited: “This has been up for about a decade, AC motor driving Jeep alternator for DC Welder, clear wiring diagram. It still shows up on searches, maybe it’s forgotten.”
In a thread that includes circuit guru Forrest Mims, it is notable that a single diode is a mean substitute for a four diode full wave rectifier that allows an alternator to tax its driver continuously.
As other commenters have pointed out, even the best-intentioned and best-designed projects will fail in an environment of corruption and violence. I checked the history of Lesotho according to Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lesotho
and it’s not encouraging. From its independence in 1966 to the rise of the LCD Party in 1997-1998, Lesotho suffered from political instability and outright coups. Since 1998 the country has been more stable, but the LCD Party has retained control of the government. Personally I think reform is more likely when the “opposition” is strong enough to win the occasional election.
As all idealistic idea’s they fail to take into account reality. In this case reality is that any expensive apparatus in those countries will be destroyed/cannibalized/stolen/taken over by some local warlord. Don’t forget Africa’s forever wars: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/22/africas_forever_wars
I have to agree with the cautionary comments regarding foreign investment and aid into some of these countries. The top down corruption and skimming of funding occurs more frequently in these types of ‘young’ countries – heck, it occurs in our own established democracies!
It is the same with ‘giving’ to big charities – all very well donating a few pounds/dollars, but when you check out some of these charities’ financial records, a large percentage is ‘lost’ to costs and executive salaries. I would always prefer to see smaller localised operations because there is less ‘business’ through which funds can be lost or skimmed.
The point being that simply cyhucking funds around does not always make things better – and can often encourage things to be worse due to the unscrupulous officals, warlords, criminal gangs, etc.
They’ve got a few engines, in the forms of trucks and maybe the occasional old bomb of a car. A car engine is pretty powerful. All you need to produce electricity from a car engine is a treadmill for the back wheels, connected to a generator.
They already know how to take care of their car and truck engines – probably better at it than most of us are, because they have to keep them going well beyond the point we’d chuck them on the scrapheap.
So all they need is a bit of help with the generators.
A cheap and nasty generator can be made out of really, really cheap components – for example, instead of making the coils out of copper, they can be made out of plastic coated aluminium, which is a good conductor, but it is a lot cheaper and also a lot lighter than copper (so cheaper to make, easier to transport).
In many music festival in the UK such as Glastonbury and Shambala, performers and musicians use solar panels to power their equipment when away from the grid. They’ve been doing this for a fair few years now and probably have a good insight into the most efficient methods of energy generation. Maybe Willis saw similar set ups in Burning man which I would guess gets more sunshine than UK festivals.
Interesting Stuff Wilis, tales of your exploits never cease to amaze me! Have you ever come across a gravity fed compressed air system?
First you need a water supply around 80M higher than the workshop, some piping and a pressure vessel. The water enters the pipe at the top, via a cone shaped funnel, that has another cone inside it, the inner cone has a bunch of holes drilled vertically though it (can be made from fired clay with straw to make the holes). As the water runs around the cone it draws in air into the water flow via the holes in the cone, the air is trapped in the flow until it gets to the bottom, where the pressure vessel collects it, pressure should be about 14.7 PSI per 10M of head. It would run a generator, or workshop.
Variations on this theme ran tram systems. City-wide compressed air energy systems have been built since 1870. Cities such as Paris, France; Birmingham, England; Dresden, Rixdorf and Offenbach, Germany and Buenos Aires, Argentina installed such systems.
Thanks for posting this Willis. Loved your travelogue, and was even thinking of travelling to Liverpool to see if I could intercept you there, but life got in the way.
There’s a chap in Scotland by the name of Hugh Piggott who teaches people how to build their own windmill. The idea is people pay him to learn as they make a windmill with their own hands. He then gives that windmill to one of his neighbours. Any money he makes is used to finance trips to the third world to show them how to do it.
Using his methodology, it is possible to build a 5kW unit for around £200. For the capstan (the bit that swivels around), one can use the bits from old car axles. He teaches how to actually make your own axial flow alternator using neodymium magnets and wire encased in epoxy resin. He also sells plans over the internet.
I was recently looking for LED lights for a home automation project, and I came across these. They use 6W @ur momisugly 12V DC, are the equivalent of a 50W incandescent bulb, give off a very bright light, can be dropped and mishandled without worry, can be put directly in a G4 socket, and last north of 20,000 hours, for less than $5 all in. Amazing little things.
Also, Yandex “Listeroid”, a single cylinder diesel engine (there’s also a twin, I think) that runs a generator. These things are indestructible, economical, easy to maintain and some are still in use after 20 years of non-stop service. The EPA have banned them in the US (bedwetting about “emissions”), but you can still buy them in “parts”.
Eventually, I’d like to buy one of these and enclose it in an insulated cabinet to keep the noise and heat in. I would then run the cooling through a large Hot Water Cylinder which would heat water. I think you only need about 70C at the end of the exhaust to lift any smoke away, so all the rest of the heat can go towards heating hot water, so you’re getting a “two-fer”. I haven’t run the numbers yet, but I reckon I can substantially reduce my overall energy bills with one of these things. Over half of the energy used in an ICE is wasted as heat.
Of course, the elephant in the room is storage, and I don’t have any really great ideas on that. If I had the time and money, I would look into flywheels. There’s just one moving part, and no nasties to get rid of. It is possible to make passive magnetic bearings now, and by evacuating any air from the enclosure there are very little “idling” or friction losses. They too could last forever and done right, there’s very little to go wrong with them.
By doing one for a house gives the owner independence, and the flywheels wouldn’t need to be too big, so less worry about them bursting from centripetal forces. For instance, in Formula One racing they have a thing called KERS, which drivers can use to help them overtake other cars. It’s a flywheel that can deliver 60-80kW in a very short burst. I’m not suggesting using one of these for storing home energy, it’s just an example of what is doable now.
That’s the one thing that makes oil so useful. It is its own storage medium. If we could crack that for electricity, and do so on the level of the individual or family, it could be revolutionary.
After four years in Nigeria I was desperate for any source of power other than generator but in the end I decided it was the only way. I think that oil is the easiest way of moving energy and generators are quite cheap these days.
NikFromNYC said on September 29, 2013 at 1:25 am:
It’s the same on the Mother Earth News original diagram.
And do you know what it’s for?
The alternator has its own diode pack inside, that single diode isn’t for rectifying the generated AC. And alternators are regularly set up internally as three-phase so a standard 4-way bridge wouldn’t work.
That big single diode is on the Ground (G) terminal, connected to the battery in the diagram. It keeps the electrons flowing in the right direction.
Normally the armature (A) terminal goes to the positive terminal of the battery for charging, after going through the regulator (becomes BAT terminal). Batteries discharge by electrons leaving the negative terminal and entering the positive. The alternator sucks the electrons out of the battery at the positive terminal. The battery negative terminal often goes to a motor ground lead (bolted right to the block) with other frame/body grounds, and that’s it. The alternator returns the electrons by the Ground connections.
For the welder, the Armature runs to the battery negative. The Armature wants to suck in electrons, as wired they would come from the Ground terminal. You’d have a short circuit. The big single diode is a one-way gate, blocking the flow of electrons from Ground to the battery, preventing it from being a short circuit.
When using the welder, electrons flow from battery negative through big diode to Ground, to ground clamp, to rod and rod holder, to battery positive. If that was it then you’d be welding with just the battery. But Armature is sucking electrons from battery negative, shoving them out at Ground, and thanks to big diode those electrons go to ground clamp with the rest.
The problem with the welder as shown is the current always only goes one way through the battery. Forced reverse current flow, aka charging, recharges the battery but also reforms the electrodes. It’ll keep working with a depleted battery, residual magnetism will let the alternator self-energize once it’s spinning. But as it’ll essentially be forcing further draining of a dead battery, severe damage could result.
So make provisions to recharge the battery when not welding. If you use an external regulator, while the alternator is spinning, with creative switching you can have the alternator charge the battery.
And also charge other batteries you have laying around, preferably for profit.
I see Bulaman beat me to the steam suggestion. But to elaborate…if you were to have a local do it as a battery charging business (armchair quarterbacking it here) you could teach him the maintenance (use a simple single not triple expansion steam engine to keep the maintenance to a minimum) have the customers pay half the charging fee in wood or other burnable biomass. In the tropics have them pay in copra and the husks.
Alternately, get an old junkyard slant 6 and a gasifier rather then boiler and steam engine. I think the single steam engine and boiler would be less maintenance but their efficiency would be in the single digits.
Hi Willis,
There’s a whole lot of your experience in the statement “There’s a whole social component to technology.”
Outback Australia – if it breaks, it’s often thrown aside. It has to be so, so simple.
Willis, I have successfully done quite a few remote (and grid interconnected) systems using wind and small hydro. These ranged from small very large homes (+5000 sq ft) to remote sporting camps. After the enron/de-regulation debacle, I retired and worked as a power lineman for a few years. I am a critic of large scale wind and related projects that are doomed to performance and financial failure.
I have seen plenty of junk and ill sited systems from the renewable bubble created during the last energy crisis including manufacturers who built junk to cash in on the grant money, as do the large scale guys now. I will give you my best advice on wind/hydro and let the solar guys make their own recommendations.
The hydro aspect was a bit more complicated due to environmental concerns but works outstandingly if there are good site and resource availability. One company I really appreciated has an easy to understand guide and offers outstanding tech support.
http://www.canyonhydro.com/guide/
On the wind side, Bergey Windpower manufacturers the best small wind turbines (to 10kW). They are a bit pricey but well worth it if a reasonable wind resource and site are used.
My favorite battery config is be the Surrette 8CS25PS, 48 volt system. My last big project (back in 2001) used 2 banks connected series/parallel for appropriate storage and utilized stacked Trace (now Xantrex) SW 5548 inverters. The system is still performing flawlessly.
From what I am seeing regarding the energy boom in Africa, there has to be funding available to offset the cost of the better systems. It might be wise for the African government to negotiate any new oil or mineral deal to include funds for these systems.
I no longer have any financial or other interest in the above mentioned companies and make my recommendation based on my past professional experience.
On a side note I will be making my bucket list trip to Alaska next year and plan on doing a little fishing. I will be looking for that guide service you mentioned in a previous article.
Thanks.