Our Green Streets Blog

The following comments come from the master architects and innovative visionaries who founded LuminAID Lab, originally the Solar Light Pillow Project. Read, enjoy, spread the news! – Glenn

“1 in 6 people in the world lack stable access to electricity. Many people must rely on dangerous and toxic kerosene lamps as a primary source of light and spend upwards of 30% of their income on this kerosene. With the increasing developments in small scale solar technology, there is no reason why individuals and families should not have a safer, less expensive, and more reilable source of light. The LuminAID solar light is a cheaper, safer alternative to kerosene lamps.” ”Some of you may have heard us talk for some time now about finding a new name for our product. We are excited to announce that we are renaming both our product and our company. The Solar Light Pillow Project will now be known as LuminAID Lab, and our light is now the LuminAID solar light!  Our new name came to us with help from our talented friends Stevie Belchak and Jess Tom. While we are sad to retire the well-liked “light pillow” nickname, we felt the change was necessary in order to better market our product. We consider it one more of the many lessons learned so far in having started our venture. There are many new exciting developments to come, so be sure to join our mailing list to keep up to date!

“The LuminAID solar light proposes a new direction for solar technology. Flexible, photovoltaic film is laminated to polyethelenevinyl acetate plastic (PEVA). The LuminAID solar light inflates to produce a quality of light similar to a lantern. The LuminAID solar light provides 5 hours of light and fully charges in 6 hours. The inflatable core measures 9″ L x 9″ W. Printed on the core is a frit pattern that consists of white dots. The frit pattern diffuses the LED light.

“The LuminAID solar light inflates to diffuse light like a lantern.

“The circuit and photovoltaic panels are sandwiched between the two layers of plastic, protecting it from damage and making the pillow waterproof. When inflated, the LuminAID solar light can float. The outside layer of plastic can be printed with additional logos or patterns.

“Restoring normal life in regions affected by natural disasters or war plays a vital role in recovery efforts. Re-establishing electrical grid infrastructure in those cases can sometimes take weeks or months. There is a need for a solution that can be deployed easily and immediately and with minimal maintenance. Sustainable lighting solutions, including photovoltaic cells coupled to rechargeable batteries, are an ideal approach to providing on-demand lighting with no operating cost. However, current solar-charged light solutions are expensive and difficult to manufacture and transport. This makes them unattractive for large-scale deployment. The LuminAID solar light addresses these issues while providing a useful and portable form of light for disaster victims.”

Bravo!

If it appears that resolutions for each New Year flow plentifully, launching a resolutions for sustainable practices comes as easy as pulling a wisdom tooth.

With this in mind, the “New Year x(1)” practice of sustainability has been released as a very simple and painless way for each member of the world population to participate in contributing toward an increase in sustainability practices.

During the upcoming year, people can start their “New Year x(1)” practice as follows: Read more of this >>

Vermeer drove a mobile CEB press from Iowa to the Rocky Flats CEB production site.

TSC Global, championing its innovative “Roofs for the World” program, met in Denver with a group of earth building advocates, including Partners Worldwide and Iowa-based Vermeer Tractors for a full production test run of the Vermeer’s mobile compressed earth block machine press.

Brad Wells, TSC executive director, says Vermeer drove its equipment from Iowa, setting up a mobile production facility to manufacture over 1000 compressed earth blocks (CEBs) which TSC will then use to complete the walls on a demonstration unit at its Denver headquarters. Wells believes this represents a new building paradigm for impoverished areas in the world.

The CEBs were manufactured on facilities west of Denver that had been donated by Church Ranch, where the team used “a mountain of blue ribbon dirt!” says Wells. The goal of this endeavor is to build durable, inexpensive structures that will resemble the Ugandan units developed by Moses Musaazi Kampala, as shown in this photo.

This October, a group of international business people gathered to observe Vermeer’s portable CEB press – the 714 Dynabloc Press. Vermeer and Faith Tech Connect developed the machine to use in worldwide poverty areas to build low-cost CEB homes and provide jobs to local residents in the process.  The blocks are produced using a mixture of clay-based soil and a small amount of cement for bonding.

Read more of this >>

Nick Mallos, a scientist from the Ocean Conservancy, joined on the expedition to the North Pacific Gyre.

Embarking on an important journey this past August, the Ocean Conservancy set sail with San Francisco-based Project Kaisei to expand its research and help with some cleanup on the massive trash vortex that exists in the North Pacific Gyre. Four boats joined in the journey, including a barge large enough to haul away some of the trash that was found in this “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”

The North Pacific Gyre, an area between California and the Hawaiian Islands, happens to be where trash from around the world is trapped – much of it plastic – due to four converging ocean currents. Some estimates report the gyre is twice the size of Texas, others argue its size goes double that of the United States.

The actual size of the garbage patch is a great question, says Nick Mallos, Nick Mallos, a marine scientist and member of Ocean Conservancy’s marine debris program who joined the expedition. He describes the trash vortex as being more like an archipelago in character, with parts being clear ocean, while other parts are dense and deep with trash.

Mallos collects data on microplastics, parts that have broken from bottles and packages into very small pieces that almost resemble confetti.  “There was this shimmering gleam of color because the water column just below the surface was littered with these objects. I was just astonished,” says Mallos. “In certain areas, the top three to six feet of water is absolutely dense with these microplastics. If you wave your hand in the water, you come up with these fragments on your hands.”

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This is a good story to read from Simone Preuss. It starts:

“The Great Mosque in Djenné, Mali is not only the world’s largest mud brick building but also a model of ecofriendly and sustainable architecture. Though the current mosque was ordered to be built by the French colonial administration in 1906, its style follows African ones of the region. In fact, the mosque is considered by many to be one of the finest examples of the architectural style found in the very dry Sahel and Sudanian regions south of the Sahara, where Islamic influences are abundant. Other examples include the Agadez Grand Mosque in Niger and the Larabanga Mosque in Ghana.”

Thanks for this story, Simone!

Mark October 15 and participate!

That is when bloggers across more than 100 countries participate in Change.org’s Blog Action Day for clean water. The purpose of this event is to debate, brainstorm and raise global awareness around clean water. Participating bloggers will take this single day to write about this very important and ill-understood issue.

“Why Water?” asks the Blog Action Day website. Many people just take water for granted, like the photo on the left. But there are one billion people on this planet without enough water.

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Mohammed Bin Abubakar, explains nursery to writer, Glenn Meyers. Photo: Oteng Foster

As gardeners go, Mohammed Bin Abubakar holds a unique position. He has built a forest where once there were only rushed rocks and the unsightly remnants of an old gold mine.

He serves as the reclamation coordinator at Newmont Mining Corporation’s Brong Ahafo Gold Mine in Ghana which started production a few years ago. One Newmont employee, Gloria Dwummah-Adu, says Abubakar has made a beautiful forest out of this mining wasteland and that many should follow this model.

Fondly, she refers to this 75-acre site as “Bin’s garden.” Now birds sing and the shade from the rapidly growing forest is a welcome relief to all who enter these woods.

Abubakar’s reclamation work began some time ago when Australian-based Normandy Mining employed him. When Normandy was sold to Newmont in 2002, he began working for Newmont Ghana Gold, Ltd. This is a green, well-designed forest that invites exploration.

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IDE's water technologies have had an important impact on poor rural farmers in developing countries. Photo: IDE

In Denver, an important art exhibition from developing countries opens in Denver, along with another feature concerning sustainability and affordable water technologies. The exhibition, titled, The Art of Dirt, has been organized by Denver-based IDE The exhibition takes place at the EventGallery 910 Arts and will run through September 25.

According to IDE, The Art of Dirt allows visitors to learn how simple, affordable technology design has improved the incomes and lives of the millions of people at the base of the economic pyramid. The exhibition includes photographs, videos and a tomato garden growing in the gallery that has been irrigated using IDE water technology.

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Enel Archimede plant in Italy. Photo: Enel

This July the Italian utility Enel unveiled “Archimede”, one of the most important developments in the emerging field of concentrating solar power (CSP). The launch showcases this power plant as the first CSP  plant in the world to use molten salts for heat transfer and storage.

Archimede, a 5 MW plant located in Priolo Gargallo (Sicily). The breakthrough project was co-developed by the utility, Enel, and ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development. The name, “Archimede,” refers to the rows of huge parabolic mirrors used to capture the sun’s rays, recalling the “burning mirrors” that Archimedes is said to have used to set fire to the Roman ships besieging Syracuse during the Punic War of 212 BC.

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TSC Global's hypar roof is located next to the light ril tracks, just south of downtown Denver

Evidence of new buildings featuring an innovative and cost-effective roof can now be seen in a growing number of African nations, including Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Sudan, as part of a Roofs for the World initiative.

This roof is called a Thin Shell Composite Hyperbolic Paraboloid, or TSC Hypar, thus the name, TSC Global, which proclaims  the building methodology using this roof has the potential for revolutionizing roofing and construction in the most impoverished and remote parts of the globe. TSC Global executive director, Brad Wells, says that compared to the corrugated steel roof structures seen everywhere in the developing world, TSC roof construction requires a minimum in cut lumber, demands no power machinery for construction, and leaves almost no carbon footprint. In addition, buildings featuring these roofs are significantly quieter in rain and windstorms, and can be earthquake resistant.

Denver-based TSC Global was created to build, promote and fully develop this construction method, with the belief that there is real potential to dramatically enhance the overall quality and affordability of structures used by millions if not billions of people worldwide. It is now focusing on a potential rebuilding program for Haiti.

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