Aircrew Homes-Low Cost, Eco-Friendly | Hajjar Gibran

The high cost and vulnerability to the forces of nature make conventional stick houses foolish. The 3 little pigs taught us that in kindergarten. How about we build solid Aircrete brick homes that aren’t damaged by water or high winds? A fabric reinforced AirCrete dome home is much more durable yet costs only a small fraction of conventional housing.

The son of an inventor, Hajjar Gibran’s youth passed building tree houses, hot rods and tiny homes, and he was already a skilled designer & builder by the time he finished the engineering program at SDSU.

He built his first passive solar home in Nova Scotia, winning several awards from the Nova Scotia Design Council. While building The Gibran Center in Thailand, Hajjar developed an innovative way of building beautiful low cost AirCrete domes that has gained international recognition. Hajjar founded Domegaia in 2014 to answer the global demand for his innovative low cost housing designs. Visit him at Domegaia.com This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Tiny homes of the future – Lara Nobel

Lara Nobel has always had a natural tendency to problem solve, so when she found herself at the bottom rung of one of the world’s least affordable housing markets, she immediately started brainstorming alternatives. In this talk Lara shares how she was able to innovate, creating one of the world’s best tiny houses.

Lara Nobel has always had a natural tendency to problem solve, so when she found herself at the bottom rung of one of the world’s least affordable housing markets, she immediately started brainstorming alternatives. With an optimism that’s grounded in tangible solutions, Lara has travelled the world studying urban design solutions in Berlin, micro-housing in Tokyo, and alternative housing in Portland. She’s now developing a new type of compact housing in Australia – one that’s driven by our needs rather than market expectations. Leading by example, she has co-founded a company to produce these affordable ‘tiny houses’.

After completing a Masters in Architecture, Lara transitioned to an apprenticeship in carpentry to gain some hands-on experience that would aid her new venture. She is now near the end of this apprenticeship and last year won Apprentice of the Year.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Paving a new path to the future… Solar Roadways

Watch this video… now gone viral with over 12 million views and growing…

The Indiegogo pitch:

solarroadways.com
Scott Brusaw is an electrical engineer (MSEE) with over 20 years of industry experience. This includes serving as the Director of Research and Development at a manufacturing facility in Ohio (developing their line of products for over 12 years), a voting member of NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association), and developing several networked control systems from the ground up. Scott has multiple patents and his hardware and software have been sold internationally. Scott is also an ex-Marine Cops sergeant, a former Cub Scout Cubmaster, Chairman of the Board of directors of his church and has been active in home schooling, 4-H, children’s sports coaching.

Campaign for Local Power -Bolder, CO

This is a grassroots David and Goliath campaign to create a landmark model for how communities can take control of their energy future: http://igg.me/at/localpower

You can support this effort on Indiegogo: http://igg.me/at/localpower

Gravity Light – lighting for the developing countries

GravityLight is a revolutionary new approach to storing energy and creating illumination. It takes only 3 seconds to lift the weight which powers GravityLight, creating 30 minutes of light on its descent. For free.

Following the initial inspiration of using gravity, and years of perspiration, we have refined the design and it is now ready for production. We need your help to fund the tooling, manufacture and distribution of at least 1000 gravity powered lights. We will gift them to villagers in both Africa and India to use regularly. The follow-up research will tell us how well the lights met their needs, and enable us to refine the design for a more efficient MK2 version. Once we have proved the design, we will be looking to link with NGOs and partners to distribute it as widely as possible. When mass produced the target cost for this light is less than $5.

Why GravityLight?

Did you know that there are currently over 1.5 billion people in the World who have no reliable access to mains electricity? These people rely, instead, on biomass fuels (mostly kerosene) for lighting once the sun goes down.

Lift the weight and let gravity do the rest.

The World Bank estimates that, as a result, 780 million women and children inhale smoke which is equivalent to smoking 2 packets of cigarettes every day. 60% of adult, female lung-cancer victims in developing nations are non-smokers. The fumes also cause eye infections and cataracts, but burning kerosene is also more immediately dangerous: 2.5 million people a year, in India alone, suffer severe burns from overturned kerosene lamps. Burning Kerosene also comes with a financial burden: kerosene for lighting ALONE can consume 10 to 20% of a household’s income. This burden traps people in a permanent state of subsistence living, buying cupfuls of fuel for their daily needs, as and when they can.

GravityLight vs Solar powered lighting.

A commonly held view is that solar powered lighting is the answer to these problems in the developing world. However a number of conflicting factors combine to complicate matters. Solar panels produce electricity only when the sun shines, so the energy needs to be stored in a battery to produce the light when it becomes dark. The amount of energy stored is dependant on the size of the panel, the size of the battery, and how much (if any) sun has shone.

However batteries, panels and lights are expensive, and beyond the reach of people with no savings. Solar lighting projects continue to provide lighting for thousands of people in the developing world, but the spread is slow because the cost is too high for individuals, so they need to be bought and installed by communities instead.

LED bulbs do not attract mosquitos like conventional bulbs.

Lower cost self-contained lamps are becoming more widely available, but batteries are the weak link, because they are expensive and deteriorate through use and over time. Very often, when buying a low cost solar lamp with an inbuilt rechargeable battery, a full third of what you’re paying for is the battery, and you will need to replace it every few years. Assuming you can get a new battery… The capacity is often reduced to save money which limits the use time, after which there is no light.

With GravityLight, however, it only takes a few seconds to lift the weight, which creates enough energy for half an an hour of light, whenever it is needed. It has no batteries to run out, replace or dispose of. It is completely clean and green.

Because there are no running costs after the initial low cost purchase, it has the potential to lift people out of poverty, allowing them to use the money they have saved to buy more powerful solar lighting systems in the future.

Where will you use yours?

Hang it in the shed or make it into a great porch light, you can clip on a hanging basket or anything weighing about 20lbs.

No batteries to drain or replace.

Credentials

We are Martin Riddiford and Jim Reeves, London based designers who have spent 4 years developing GravityLight as an off-line project. We work for therefore.com, which has over 20 years of experience in designing and developing hand held computing and communication products for a host of pioneers including Psion, Toshiba, NEC, TomTom, Inmarsat, ICO, Sepura, Racal Acoustics, Voller Energy, FreePlay and SolarAid.

We’re using a tried and tested manufacturer who has the right expertise to make GravityLight. We have some links to partner organisations in Africa and need to do the same for India. If you’re part of an organisation and would like to get involved then please contact us. We are particularly looking for contacts in South America.

Visit our skunk-works website here www.deciwatt.org.

Our movie soundtrack kindly created by Belinda from the bush the tree and me.

Check out John Keane’s great Solar For Africa blog.

Graphene Revolution

Graphene has unique physical properties. It may be one of the strongest substances ever identified.

On that score, we’re still in the very early innings of understanding the technology that could come out of graphene. There’s plenty more to come from the world of graphene and future investment opportunities that we’ll discover over time.

Even early in the game this “super substance” represents an amazing opportunity for resource investors, considering the fantastic technical applications.

Will graphene replace silicon in computer chips? Yes, and it won’t take too long.

Graphene is thin, strong and electrically conductive. You can etch it. You can stack it and build whatever transistor you want to design.

“It is not only the thinnest material in the world,” says The New York Times, “but also the strongest: a sheet of it stretched over a coffee cup could support the weight of a truck bearing down on a pencil point.”

It’s not overstating the case to say that silicon is becoming obsolete. Somebody ought to tell the chip makers. OK, I’m just kidding — sort of. The chip makers know this. Indeed, you’ll eventually see graphene technology in common items like hand-held devices.

Can you add graphene to metal or plastic and make materials much stronger? I’m glad you asked, because you sure can. You can actually add graphene to molten metal and when it cools, the graphene crystals will align within the metallic crystal structure. It helps that graphene doesn’t even begin to break down until over 3,000 degrees Celsius — hotter than the melting point of almost any metal. So now you can have graphene-strengthened supermetals.

In fact, the head chemist for one company I’ve been following showed me a piece of boring old polystyrene plastic that he re-extruded and impregnated just with nanotubes — not even graphene. The stuff was nearly unbreakable. “This was just to prove up the extrusion process,” he said. “Now imagine how strong that’ll be when we add actual graphene.”

Using graphene, we’re talking about an entire new generation of supermaterials, with Star Trek qualities. In one back-of-the envelope calculation, we figured that a graphene-strengthened piece of plastic or steel just a fraction of an inch thick could offer the same protection as 8 inches of armor plate.

What else? How about alternative energy applications? Imagine graphene coatings on windows that, in effect, create solar panels with efficiencies over twice what people are currently getting from the best panels. Think in terms of solar cells with 75% efficiency and more. Maybe we really will see solar-powered skyscrapers.

From: http://dailyreckoning.com/graphene/

Solar Power Revolution Documentary

This takes the edge off the myths and dis-information about the solar industry and shows that a solar economy is much closer than we think. Next year, there are already rolling Giga Watts of solar cells on the conveyor belt. The industry has mastered the technology and the machines.

If it were up to the sun, we would have no energy problem. Every half hour on the Earth’s surface, there is more than enough light to provide energy needs for the whole world in a year. We don’t have an energy problem, we have a conversion problem. If we are able to harvest sunlight in smart way, then we can prevent a global energy crisis.

Space Travel On Earth – ET3

Evacuated Tube Transport (ET3) offers the potential for more than an order of magnitude improvement transportation efficiency, speed, cost, and effectiveness. An ET3 network may be optimized to sustainably displace most global transportation by car, ship, truck, train, and jet aircraft. To do this, ET3 standards should adhere to certain key principals: maximum value through efficiency, reliability, and simplicity; equal consideration for passenger and cargo loads; optimum size; high speed/high frequency operation; demand oriented; random accessibility; scalability; high granularity; automated control; full speed passive switching; open standards of implementation; and maximum use of existing capacities, materials, and processes.

Why ET3?

Transportation should be clean, green, fast, comfortable and affordable for all; It must also be financially sustainable on a global level. THE TIME FOR A NEW MODE OF TRANSPORTATION IS NOW!
WHAT IS ET3 and HOW DOES IT WORK?

ET3 is literally “Space Travel on Earth”. ET3 is silent, low cost, safe, faster than jets, and is electric.

Car sized passenger capsules travel in 1.5m (5′) diameter tubes on frictionless maglev. Air is permanently removed from the two-way tubes that are built along a travel route. Airlocks at stations allow transfer of capsules without admitting air. Linear electric motors accelerate the capsules, which then coast through the vacuum for the remainder of the trip using no additional power. Most of the energy is regenerated as the capsules slow down. ET3 can provide 50 times more transportation per kWh than electric cars or trains.

Speed in initial ET3 systems is 600km/h (370 mph) for in state trips, and will be developed to 6,500 km/h (4,000 mph) for international travel that will allow passenger or cargo travel from New York to Beijing in 2 hours. ET3 is networked like freeways, except the capsules are automatically routed from origin to destination.

ET3 capsules weigh only 183 kg (400 lbs), yet like an automobile, can carry up to six people or 367 kg (800 lbs) of cargo. Compared to high speed rail, ET3 needs only 1/20th the material to build because the vehicles are so light. With automated passive switching, a pair of ET3 tubes can exceed the capacity of a 32 lane freeway. ET3 can be built for 1/10th the cost of High Speed Rail, or 1/4th the cost of a freeway.

Growing food in the desert… a solution to the world’s food crisis?

Agriculture uses 60-80% of the planet’s scarce fresh water, but what would happen if food production used no water at all? That is what is happening right now in South Australia, and soon in Qatar.

A group of international scientists is using the sun to create something-from-nothing — fresh water for irrigation, from condensation; electricity for heating and cooling greenhouses, from a solar thermal system — all integrated to grow high-quality, delicious, pesticide-free vegetables in greenhouses year-round.

So far, the company, Sundrop Farms, has grown commercial quantities of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, using the same proven technology and close to zero fossil fuels. Salty seawater is abundant like the sun, especially with our ice caps melting away, so the venture is ready to scale up in a big way. A a 20-acre greenhouse is being built that will grow produce for supermarkets now clamoring for an exclusive contract, reports the Guardian.

“They are making food without risk, eliminating the problems caused not just by floods, frost, hail but by lack of water, too, which now becomes a non-issue,” says the head of Australia’s government-funded desalination research institute, Neil Palmer. “Plus, it stacks up economically and it’s infinitely scalable.”

Typical horticulture is highly water and energy intensive. These inputs are finite, getting more scarce and rising in price. In some regions energy and water costs represent up to 70% of total farm expenses.

In light of these supply constraints facing our horticultural system today and the need to grow more crops closer to where people live, Sundrop Farms has developed technologies that rely mainly on renewable inputs, namely seawater and sunlight to produce the same quantity and higher quality food.

The Sundrop Farms System™ harnesses the sun’s energy to desalinate seawater to produce freshwater for irrigation, produce electricity to power our greenhouse and provide the energy to heat and cool our greenhouse. Our seawater drenched greenhouse ventilation cleans and sterilises the air, making it possible to grow crops without chemical pesticides. The Sundrop Farms System™ system relies mainly on renewable inputs to achieve the best possible outcomes for our planet and the best possible produce for our customers. To learn more about our greenhouse solutions for arid climates, please contact us.

Therefore, instead of extracting groundwater at unsustainable rates, we produce fresh water from seawater. We don’t consume fossil fuels to control the climate in our greenhouse, but substitute them with the sun’s energy to do that for us. The salt and nutrients won in our desalination process are re-used to either fertilize crops or the salt is sold on to other agricultural producers. Moreover, we can locate Sundrop Farms on degraded land and in arid climates, which typically would not be considered suitable for agriculture, let alone horticulture, thereby conserving valuable farmlands and soil.

The Sundrop Farms technologies and farming practices are positive for the planet, our customers, and our communities and also our business.

http://www.sundropfarms.com/

http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/

From GoodNewsNetwork.com and the Guardian

The Soil Solution Film preview – Santa Barbara International Film Festival World Premiere

http://www.sustainableworldmedia.com What if a solution to climate change was just beneath your feet? Sustainable World Media visits with farmers, scientists, and educators who are exploring the connection of soil fertility to water quality, food security, and carbon sequestration. Produced by Jill Cloutier and Carol Hirashima.