Archive for the ‘’ Category
June 30, 2010
Currently there are three designs of the solar autoclave that are being pursued in Nicaragua and a growing number that are being pursued at MIT.
The first design is the original design using two cafeteria food trays clamped together to create a pressure vessel. The problem with this design was keeping the gasket from blowing out and releasing whatever pressure had built up. The team in Nicaragua has taken measures to modify the edge of the two trays to prevent the gasket from blowing out during pressurization. More testing is taking place to determine if this modification helps to solve the gasket problem.
The second design being tested is the University of Dayton (UD) design which involved a steel tube with a sealed end and a steel cap on the other end held on by two rods and bolts. This design allows for two to three autoclaves to fit inside one solar oven.
The third design involves a purchased pressure cooker that is placed inside a solar oven. Because of the size of the pressure cooker a new solar oven is being constructed.
The team at MIT is working on continuing to develop both the cafeteria food tray design and the UD autoclave. Their work will help Salud del Sol to determine which design will be the best option to implement in rural clinics throughout Nicaragua.
June 30, 2010
Some of you may know that we gained two new teammates-Chris Weiss and Matt Pittinger. And we gained a “teammate-in-law”-Lori married Alex McIlvaine, her high school sweetheart of Wadsworth, Ohio. So that means she has a new name and email address: lori.mcilvaine@saluddelsol.org. Since the wedding, she has been enjoying her new job as an environmental engineering consultant with Tetra Tech, Inc. in Lexington, KY, where she does a variety of things, including assisting companies and other organizations to meet EPA regulations. This is her first time living in a “big city”-or at least big compared to Wadsworth, Ohio!
Lauren also recently started a new job, as an Auditor with Rotary International in Evanston, IL. She’s excited about the possible networking opportunities this will bring! The new job meant a quick, crazy move, from which she is still recovering ever so gracefully, all while still taking care of our finances here at Salud del Sol. She was crucial in our filing for non-profit status, and she also did a lot to facilitate the Wadsworth Rotary Club’s recent trip to Nicaragua.
Daniel continues his education in Europe, where he is loving playing Ultimate Frisbee, hiking, and touring the areas around Liverpool. He is doing well in his Aerospace and Materials courses, and he’s starting a dissertation project investigating airwakes created by frigate ships. He didn’t leave his volunteer-spirit behind when he went, as he has recently became involved in a charity called Link Community Development (LCD) in Liverpool, an organization devoted to raising educational standards for underprivileged children in many African nations.
Anna has been busy busy busy in Boston, working as an R&D Officer at the Innovations in International Health (IIH) program at MIT and serving as a research mentor for undergrads in the D-Lab Health class there. She also has been traveling, participating in an Executive Education program through GIFT (Global Institute For Tomorrow) in Hong Kong and Indonesia, learning about social enterprises and collaborating with other young professionals to write a business plan for cocoa farmers in Aceh, Indonesia. She also traveled with MIT undergraduate students to Ecuador as a trip leader, disseminating different appropriate technologies. AND she made time to run the Disney Marathon in January with the Distance 4 Dreams group from UD, in support of a child from A Special Wish Foundation and in memory of fellow UD graduate Dan Hauber.
Chris has been working as a Mechanical Design Engineer at ACS Industries in Ohio, working on construction equipment attachments. He loves having the chance to use his creativity to design products that meet the customer’s needs. He also recently passed the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Exam, making him officially an “Engineer in Training.” Outside of work, he has been training diligently to hike part of the Buckeye Trail.
Matt spent months volunteering and climbing around the Red River Gorge, Kentucky-our token team “wanderer”-whether he was climbing because he happened to be volunteering there, or volunteering there so that he could climb, we’ll never know. Since then, he has been working for Clough Harbour and Associates as an energy engineer. He especially likes the fieldwork, where he is able to go into buildings and identify opportunities for energy savings.
June 19, 2010
Today, June 19, 2010, is Solar Day!
Salud del Sol, Inc. is a proud partner of Solar Day. Solar Day is an international day that was designed to bring awareness about solar energy, clean technology, and sustainability. Visit http://www.solarday.com/ for more information and to find out ways you can get involved.
June 17, 2010
In 2004, Aceh, Indonesia was the site of one of the most devastating tsunamis which took the lives of 230,000 inhabitants. Five years later…during December 2009, I had the opportunity to experience how this developing economy is struggling to recover from the natural disaster and the indestructible will of the local population to thrive in their homeland. For two weeks, I participated in a Young Leaders Program sponsored by the Hong Kong-based think tank, the Global Institute For Tomorrow (GIFT). I was among a group of 18 academics, corporate employees and NGO workers from Malaysia, China, Thailand, Australia and India learning about and experiencing the international business environment of Asia and the application of social enterprises.
The program began in Hong Kong with a week of MBA-style classes. My time in Hong Kong was quite similar to how I envisioned learning about Islamic banking and the entrepreneurial environment in Asia. We had a special lecture given by Hugh Evans who leads the UNDP’s (United Nations Development Programme) APED (Aceh Program for Economic Development) on the complex ecosystem of aid in Aceh and how market opportunities can enhance the aid that is given in Indonesia.
Three flights later, our team headed to Aceh, Indonesia to apply what we had learned in the classroom to the cocoa industry. Through a series of interviews with local farmers, government officials, and NGO leaders, we learned that there was a substantial market opportunity in a global demand for cocoa that could be aligned with poorly equipped local farmers who lack bargaining power in cocoa prices and access to local markets. The rugged SUVs which brought us from the cocoa farms to the centralized collection centers brought to reality the transportation constraints of the famers in Aceh and why they are disconnected from the market. To address this, we researched a business plan for an enterprise which would connect cocoa farmers to the market. The core goal of the business plan was to increase the quality of cocoa beans being produced and harvested by the farmers, empowering the farmers to move up the supply chain through various solar technologies that can be used in the drying process and in turn, directly connect the farmers to international cocoa exporters to allow them to realize a majority of the profit.
Here’s a quick picture of the current cocoa drying process in Aceh:
- Farmer grabs bucket of cocoa pods from the field behind his house.
- 4 hours later, the pods are shed and the cocoa beans are exposed.
- The cocoa beans are required to dry for 1 day before the fermentation process begins. Ideally, this is done inside of a processing facility. However, in Aceh, farmers do not have access to such technology and instead lay the cocoa beans outside on a tarp usually in the same vicinity as the chickens or next to the road.
- At the convenience of the collector, the cocoa beans are collected from the farmers for a price dictated by the collector—the price decreases based on quality of bean and if they have not been dried long enough.
- The cocoa beans are brought to a processing facility where they spend 8-10 days in the fermentation and drying process.
- These dried beans are then sold from the collector to an international exporter at a price determined by LIBO (what is this?).
Due to a lack of transparency in the system and a lack of appropriate tools at the farmer level, the farmers in Aceh rarely see any of the premiums received by the collectors for the cocoa beans. How can we change that? As part of the supply chain and operations team, we explored:
- Simple technology and agricultural techniques that can be implemented at the farmer level to produce high quality cocoa beans and increase production.
- Distributed processing centers equipped with solar driers for low operating cost, to be used by a group of 15-20 farmers.
After 6 days of developing a business plan, we presented the opportunity at an Investors Conference in Medan, Indonesia, where cocoa collectors, exporters and NGO leaders were present. I came back from Indonesia with an incredible experience of working in multi-cultural teams, a new appreciation for M&Ms, and plenty of ideas for how simple solar technologies can support cocoa farmers!
June 16, 2010
Grupo Fenix offers hands-on courses, workshops and service trips for individuals interested in broadening their knowledge of renewable energy and sustainable development. Stay in a rural village in Nicaragua while working side-by-side local community members as they teach you about practical solar energy technologies such as solar cookers and photovoltaic systems. The July Solar Culture Course is now available for registration and includes the building of a solar cooker oven, a solar battery charger, and the installation of a PV system within the local community. Course fee is $750 and includes all expenses after arrival in Nicaragua. For more information email thegrupofenix@gmail.com.
June 16, 2010
Come spend a month volunteering in northern rural Nicaragua in the community of Totogalpa in a reforestation bridage hosted by Grupo Fenix and Las Mercedes. Live with the local rural families, assist the community in reforestation projects, all while learning about their Solar Culture. We have 2000 trees ready to plant, each pine can provide enough oxygen for two people. Volunteers will also get the chance to learn local artisan crafts, traditional folklorico dances, enjoy hiking, and a visit to the beautiful Somoto Canyon. Volunteer fees are $500 + a $50 registration fee and include all expenses except for flight, for more information and to register, email thegrupofenix at gmail dot com.
June 7, 2010
The Solar Women of Totogalpa are well on their way to creating a Solar Campus in their community of Sabana Grande de Totogalpa Nicaragua. First constructing a community center that acts as a hosting site for activities, a workshop for solar cooker construction and an office for Grupo Fenix on-site staff members. The next step in their entrepreneurial endeavors is building a Solar Restaurant where the women will be able to sell some of the delicious meals made from the solar cookers. This past May, Robert Esposito of Community 3P had a chance to visit the community and take part in the incredible construction efforts for creating 7,000 bricks to make the solar restaurant a reality! Below is an excerpt from his blog:
This restaurant required seven thousand of these bricks and after about an hour and a half we had moved just over one-hundred. As I shuttled the bricks from one pile to another, sweat pouring off me and my hands feeling quite raw, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe for the women who built that first centre. Adobe construction is one of the most physically demanding building projects, and The Solar Women of Totogalpa, small in stature but giants in determination, had worked to achieve a vision that even caught the attention of the United Nations, who declared the partnership with Groupo Fenix and their joint achievement as one of the most inspirational in the world.
Read the rest of Robert’s blog entry here: http://blog3p.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/the-solar-women-of-totogalpa-pt-2/
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