Cyprus-Forum.com

[repulsewarrior]

...a machine for sale.

http://www.aquatechnology.net/vaporcomp ... llers.html

...an inventor with a solution for "smaller" households.

Segway creator unveils his next act
Inventor Dean Kamen wants to put entrepreneurs to work bringing water and electricity to the world's poor.
By Erick Schonfeld, Business 2.0 Magazine editor-at-large
February 16, 2006: 2:06 PM EST
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San Francisco (Business 2.0) - Dean Kamen, the engineer who invented the Segway, is puzzling over a new equation these days. An estimated 1.1 billion people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water, and an estimated 1.6 billion don't have electricity. Those figures add up to a big problem for the world—and an equally big opportunity for entrepreneurs.

To solve the problem, he's invented two devices, each about the size of a washing machine that can provide much-needed power and clean water in rural villages.

"Eighty percent of all the diseases you could name would be wiped out if you just gave people clean water," says Kamen. "The water purifier makes 1,000 liters of clean water a day, and we don't care what goes into it. And the power generator makes a kilowatt off of anything that burns."

Light in the darkness
Kamen is not alone in his quest. He's been joined by Iqbal Quadir, the founder of Grameen Phone, the largest cell phone company in Bangladesh. Last year, Quadir took prototypes of Kamen's power machines to two villages in his home country for a six-month field trial. That trial, which ended last September, sold Quadir on the technology.

So much so in fact that Quadir's startup, Cambridge, Mass.-based Emergence Energy, is negotiating with Kamen's Deka Research and Development to license the technology. Quadir then hopes to raise $30 million in venture capital to start producing the power machines. (With the exception of the Segway, which Kamen's own company sold, Kamen has typically licensed his inventions to others.)

The electric generator is powered by an easily-obtained local fuel: cow dung. Each machine continuously outputs a kilowatt of electricity. That may not sound like much, but it is enough to light 70 energy-efficient bulbs. As Kamen puts it, "If you judiciously use a kilowatt, each villager can have a nighttime."

A satellite picture of the earth at night shows swaths of darkness across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. For the people living there, a simple light bulb would mean an extension of both their productivity and their leisure times.

Entrepreneurial power
The real invention here, though, may be the economic model that Kamen and Quadir hope to use to distribute the machines. It is fashioned after Grameen Phone's business, where village entrepreneurs (mostly women) are given micro-loans to purchase a cell phone and service. The women, in turn, charge other villagers to make calls.

"We have 200,000 rural entrepreneurs who are selling telephone services in their communities," notes Quadir. "The vision is to replicate that with electricity."

During the test in Bangladesh, Kamen's Stirling machines created three entrepreneurs in each village: one to run the machine and sell the electricity, one to collect dung from local farmers and sell it to the first entrepreneur, and a third to lease out light bulbs (and presumably, in the future, other appliances) to the villagers.

Kamen thinks the same approach can work with his water-cleaning machine, which he calls the Slingshot. While the Slingshot wasn't part of Quadir's trial in Bangladesh, Kamen thinks it can be distributed the same way. "In the 21st century, water will be delivered by an entrepreneur," he predicts.

The Slingshot works by taking in contaminated water – even raw sewage -- and separating out the clean water by vaporizing it. It then shoots the remaining sludge back out a plastic tube. Kamen thinks it could be paired with the power machine and run off the other machine's waste heat.

Compared to building big power and water plants, Kamen's approach has the virtue of simplicity. He even created an instruction sheet to go with each Slingshot. It contains one step: Just add water, any water. Step two might be: add an entrepreneur.

"Not required are engineers, pipelines, epidemiologists, or microbiologists," says Kamen. "You don't need any -ologists. You don't need any building permits, bribery, or bureaucracies."

The price of freedom
Still, even if some of the technical challenges have been solved ("I know the technology works and I'd fall on my sword to prove it," insists Kamen), the economic challenges still loom.

Kamen's goal is to produce machines that cost $1,000 to $2,000 each. That's a far cry from the $100,000 that each hand-machined prototype cost to build.

Quadir is going to try and see if the machines can be produced economically by a factory in Bangladesh. If the numbers work out, not only does he think that distributing them in a decentralized fashion will be good business -- he also thinks it will be good public policy. Instead of putting up a 500-megawatt power plant in a developing country, he argues, it would be much better to place 500,000 one-kilowatt power plants in villages all over the place, because then you would create 500,000 entrepreneurs.

"Isn't that better for democracy?" Quadir asks. "We see a shortage of democracy in the world, and we are surprised. If you strengthen the economic hands of people, you will foster real democracy."

Lights, water, freedom. Now that's entrepreneurial.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/16/technol ... /index.htm

[repulsewarrior]

water desalination produces waste which is difficult to manage.

any kind of water purification needs a great deal of energy.

the factors to cycle for best practice in this domain are: Energy, Water, Waste

Karmen has found a unique way to address these issues.

[Nikitas]

RW

I was referring to small desalinators which provide water on a neighborhood basis. Local is better than national scale for this to work. I am going to check out your link now.

[repulsewarrior]

...it is an interesting premise. "Local" leaves the payers of the water closer to their money. Getting the water to the desalinators is a problem which needs as much consideration as well as the waste and the energy that the machines consume.

I hope that the links are useful...

[Nikitas]

RW

Years ago, I read an interview with Amory Lovins, the physicist-environmentalist, stressing the advantages of local energy and resource production. It echoed the way Greece effectively forbid the self production of electricity through red tape. Theoretically you could install photovoltaics but practically the procedure was so complex that no one did and everyone was at the mercy of the power company. It is ironic that Lovins was among the first people to be honored by the Onassis foundation in Athens!

Maybe you can remember the salt monopoly under the British too. Living on an island surrounded by salt water we broke the law if we took salt from the sea!

[Big Al]

Turkey is in the process of building a pipeline capable of carrying water, gas and electricity to both Israel and Cyprus, as far as i know some GC politicans have already ruled out accepting water from the north... i'll post some articles on this shortly

[Big Al]

From The Zaman newspaper, i do remember reading another article where the GC refused the possibility of accepting turkish water, saying the shipments from Greece were sufficient, oh well there loss...

The protocol amounted to $9.5 million, which covered the engineering work for the pipeline. The construction of some of its parts has been signed between the General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works and Alsim Alarko.

The pipeline will provide an annual water supply of 75 million meter cubes, of which 15 million meter cubes will be used as drinking water after being processed at the water treatment facilities to be built near Lefkosa (Nicosia). The remaining 60 million meter cubes will be used to irrigate the Mesaoria plain. The island population, who contended with dry agriculture for years due to the water penury, will thereby have the possibility to practice hydro-agriculture. Researches indicate that TRNC's water demand, which currently is 8.4 million meter cubes, will rise to 31.8 million meter cubes in 2035.

Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Guler speaking in the signature ceremonial described the project as "a kind of a new Peace Operation." Noting that TRNC could use only 50 percent of the arable land and allocate only eight percent of it to hydro-agriculture, Guler said, "This water will be like a cure for TRNC."

Following the completion of the engineering work the building process will start. The estimated duration and the total cost of the construction is not yet clear.

Alarko Contract Group Chairperson Oktay Varlier related that transporting water through the pipeline would cost 35-40 cents per meter cube.

Guler also announced that following the water project they would work on projects to supply electricity and natural gas to TRNC. "We are taking a step forward that will improve the relations with the neighbors in this area. Water is as important and strategic as oil. We will realize projects that will use the water to the very last drop. The scheduled date for this is 2023.” Guler said that although the project was designed at the first stage for the benefit of Northern Cyprus, there is a possibility for Greek Cypriot's to benefit from the water as well.

The project envisages the construction of a 78 kilometers long pipeline which will supply TRNC with water from the Anamur Dragon Stream.

Franfurter Rundschau: the Greek Cypriots will benefit as well

The German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau wrote Turkey planned to transport drinking water to TRNC by building a pipeline and that the use of the water by Greek Cypriots was also taken into consideration.

The news article included Varlier's announcement that they planned to realize the project with an estimated cost of $250 million within five years. The article noted Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan considered the project as an important step towards resolving the Cyprus issue.

[Nikitas]

This pipeline has been in the works since the 60s. We will see if it will materialise this time round. Calling it a second "peace operation" is not exactly a good PR move. COnsidering the problems between Russia and the Ukraine over their gas pipeline tends to indicate that depending on one supplier for strategic supplies is not a wise move.

[repulsewarrior]

...i think balloons should be reconsidered.

don't laugh, i'm serious...