CNESOLER

The National Center for Solar and Renewable Energies.

May I present to you the chief of the workshop:
he's showing off a big parabolic cooker which is something like 4 years old and is already worn to the point of ineffectiveness. Such is the story of tinfoil contraptions. They were trying to get around the need to import polished aluminium from Germany and so they experimented with a variety of foils.

Solar cookers (box and parabolic) and solar dehydrators (active and passive). They dehydrate onions in the dehydrators, but the cookers only ever come out for experimentation.



Having developed something of a cough due to constant sand and smog inhalation I've decided I'm not going to take it anymore:



GEAR! Like, real measuring equipment! Golly, you mean I get to be scientific and stuff?



Things at CNESOLER look pretty good.

Re-strategification

I just learned something that blew my mind. The National Center for Solar Energy Research and Renewable Energies doesn’t receive any research funding. Meanwhile, Mali is party to the following environmental treaties: Ozone Layer Protection, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Biodiversity and Desertification. The current listed environmental problems include: deforestation; soil erosion; desertification; inadequate supplies of potable water… All of which low tech solar thermal can play a large role in combating!

Re-strategification: apply all cunning to ensure CNESOLER gets funding.

Right now they’ve got a decent workshop and a lot of experienced personnel sitting around with not enough to keep them busy. Once I learned this I went straight to the director. I asked him how could it be and he spread his hands, gave an exasperated sigh and shook his head. I told him my new plan was to get the center funded to research Solar Fire. He liked what he heard. If anyone knows of an organization that could possibly be interested in funding the Malian National Center for Solar Energy and Renewable Energy send me some info1!

I’ve sent a budget estimate for prototyping the domestic cooker (I’m planning a variation on the Papillon solar concentrator, seen below, which is an excellent design, but some elements need to be imported. My modifications should make it locally producible and therefore a candidate for auto-diffusal).

Unfortunately I did this on Thursday, when the weekend starts on Friday and work doesn’t resume until Monday. After that we’ve got to follow protocol, but the director of CNESOLER agrees that we’ll be at AMADER’s heels.

I’ll use this weekend to try and get in touch with the ministers. My plan is to propose that while the training center gets built and equipped, we take advantage of existing infrastructure to get a jump start on R&D.

I’m also communicating as much as possible. First entry in the Tacticus is “communicate”. As such, I’m going to try and connect as many dots as I can. I’ve gone through the Solar Cookers Internation contact database for Mali and Burkina Faso, because those are the two countries in Africa where Solar Fire is active.

“Burkina Faso?” you might be saying. That’s right. After the expo went out on continental television a number of people got in touch who want to bring Solar Fire to Burkina. As such, I’m putting them in contact with one another and the active solar elements in BF, and hopefully together we can formulate a game plan. Note: they’ll be doing it with only over-the-net support, as I can’t go support them in person… if anyone is available to go to Burkina Faso and wants to help, we can get you trained up either in Europe, or in Mali and you can be on your way.

Chess, Life and Strategy

I should have studied at Josh Waitzkin’s Academy (Chessmaster 10) longer and harder. But I didn’t, I was too busy GOing in Cuba, GOing in France, and then GOing to Africa.

Things didn’t change too much when I got to Mali. I set myself on ‘linear GO mode’ (while building the Helios) to such a degree that once the objective (demonstrating/awareness raising) was completed I didn’t re-evaluate my line (being exhausted also diminished my analytical capacities).

Before the demo I had recognized the inefficiency of attempting to predict events after the demo, since so much would change, and so for mental convenience I settled on a simple line which was fairly obvious and low energy (meeting the ministers, gauging their enthusiasm to finance).

In Waitzkin’s Academy he teaches the necessity of recognizing what your opponent leaves behind when he moves. In life the opponent is reality (remove any negative connotation associated with the word opponent) and I failed to fully recognize what new opportunities emerged after the demo happened (reality moved).

This is because I pulled the noob mistake of not analyzing the new possibilities as fully as I could have (true I was physically exhausted and sleep deprived) and instead continued by following through with a line simply because I had set up for it.

Less abstractly:

Karim, Tomota, Lalla, myself and others conceived a goal: create a non-profit association dedicated to Solar Fire, and pursue the agencies able to supply the means to attain the goal Solar Fire International which is to promote ecological energy autonomy by creating a Research, Development and Training facility.

Lalla and Tomota are particularly insistent that all negotiations and efforts go through the association. They cite examples of government inefficiency and argue that the autonomy of being an independent organization will save us from getting mired in bureaucracy. These thoughts and their implications formed the basis of the line I was working on, which was linear towards getting a research, development and training center operational (the goal of promoting ecological energy independence is not compatible with GO mode, as it is an abstract guide for action).

The government agents were very impressed by the demonstration, but no meetings have happened to date. This is primarily because they have been out of the country, as the president has been on the road. Nobody’s fault, but not the speed and action on the project I would have liked to see.

Being stuck in linear mode for four or five days after the expo, I did little things to prepare for the eventual meetings: price materials, build a mental workshop and make lists of tools, personnel, space requirements etc.

I had vague feeling of inefficiency, but couldn’t see past the blinders GO mode.

Impatient, I figured I might as well see what AMADER (Malian Agency for Domestic Energy and Rural Electrification) was like. They approached me after the demo and told me that there was a Habitat Salon (SAHABA 2008) going on in Feb. and that if I could make a domestic model before then I could do an exhibition with them.

I got the go ahead to visit them. I did, and it turns out they are situated right beside the National Center for Solar and Renewable Energy. Within two hours I was touring the workshops with the directors of both AMADER and CNESOLER making a plan to create a partnership between our three organizations (AMADER supplies funding, CNESOLER supplies tools/workers and Tasuma Tile (Bambara for Solar Fire) supplies me. It was not official, AMADER still has to clear things with the president-director general, but they were pretty pumped and moving with a sense of urgency, since SAHABA 2008 is only a month away.

Pumped that the manpower and tools already exist for all the research and development I could want to do in the short term already exist, I fill Tomota and Lalla in on what went down. Their reaction was something along the lines of ‘ok Tasuma Tile will work with them for the domestic model since it is urgent and we don’t have the facilities to do it yet, but after that it’s back to Tasuma Tile running the solar show.’ I reiterated that I would work with whoever it was most efficient to work with. It was slightly tense.

That night I read a document that Eerik had sent to me. It was a breakdown of his strategy and a criticism of mine. The linear GO mode spell was broken, hopefully for the last time. It was refreshing like ice cold coconut milk (which is super refreshing and also nourishing).

Unconventional times, unconventional tactics.

Le blog en Français!

http://www.solarfire.org/operations/mali/context_fr.html

Merci a Olivier pour son traduction!

pwned?

The day of the exposition has come. We've hyped this thing pretty hard, and now we'll see if we can pull it off. Our tests yesterday gave us some information about how the heating of the oven was uneven, so I had to make some final adjustments:
Normally, we'd have another day of tests to verify that the heat distribution is good, but we're out of time... the sound crews and cameras start setting up (the man with the camera is a Frenchman who lives in Bamako, and who lives nearby the workshop and offered his services and his high definition camera to film the exposition):Everything is in place.
The sky is blue.
The oven is hot (+250C).
All we need now are some guests:
Here they come! And in style no less.
The minister of the promotion of the woman, child and family and the minister of the environment, along with representants of 4 other ministers settle in:
At this point I hand off my camera to Yusuf so that he can take pictures while I'm shaking hands, giving a speech, and participating in the event. Unfortunately, he mistook the zoom function for the shutter button and I have no photos of the rest of the event. :(

RV managed to take a pic of me speaking:
And the attentive audience:


Don't despair! We've got high definition footage of the whole ceremony, so Olivier and I are going to put together a little montage which I'll post as soon as I have it.

Regardless of that unfortunate mixup, it went superbly. The bread was baked to perfection, the guests were impressed, the ministers pledged their support and afterwards amid all the handshaking and networking I was told about several workshops that could be put at my disposition.

The minister of the woman, child and family put the facilities of the Kid City at the service of the Solar Fire Project. I'll be moving in soon, and any project-mates who join me can do the same.

Tomorrow, I have been invited to check out the workshop run by Amader, which stands for Malian Agency for the Development of Renewable Energy.

Before Karim leaves this Friday the two ministers will receive us to flesh out the plan.

The plan being create a research and development facility which will develop a number of low tech, low cost, high effectiveness solar technologies which we will then attempt to diffuse as broadly as possible.

Expo prep

One sweet piece of kit that came in the package was my welding mask from Canada. It is arc-sensitive and so is easy to see through until the welding spark hits, after which point it is like a normal welding mask... maybe with this advantage RV will get two things to stick together :PWith only two spares to go around, mirrors take priority during transportation:
Set up and ready to go. By go I mean clean, paint, clean, orient, test, reorient, test, adjust and expose.
Yusuf takes a break from painting and decides to endanger the paint job with some yoga:
To save time we test and paint at the same time:
It works! Our first baguette! It was really surprising, since the weather was bad up until we put the bread in. The oven was only at 125C when it should be at 200C. After 30 minutes the oven finished at 205C and we were left with a fine loaf:

Painting pretty much requires visual contact with the subject (go figure). The next day we had to go over most surfaces again (and again, something which leads me to believe that it was not only the darkness that prevented a good paint job... I'm looking at you Drisa!):
Finally, the day before the exposition, we have a finished product:
Despite strong winds, the occasional dust devil and really hazy skies, we were able to (almost fully) bake the bread seen here (it took a while, since the skies were hazy, but the bread came out pretty well):
It took us 3 weeks from start to finish. This is not a normal build-time, but a result of the chaos of the situation and the fact that I made enough adjustments and we improvised enough that it was as if we had never built one before. If we were to do it again it would easily take half the time, and if the workshop was equipped properly I estimate 1/4 of the time.

Over the course of the past 3 weeks I've been using a tactic I call the 'controlled chaos-slide' which basically means that on a daily basis you don't do all the little things which keep life organized and clean. It makes you more effective in the short run, but if you let it go on too long, all elements of the 'controlled' aspect soon become hard to discern and it eventually leads to cascade failure. No cascade failure yet, and the time sensitive portion of the mission is finished, so we should probably take care of:

I told you before to note the clean white T-shirt. Now I'd like you to note what 3 weeks in the shop has wrought:


I have declared a state of laundry emergency.

It has taken a considerable amount of will power to save a clean pair of everything for the demonstration/exposition tomorrow. Wish me luck (even though luck has nothing to do with it... except the weather).

Note on blog quality/frequency/etc

An inverse correlation exists between the intensity of my circumstances and the frequency and quality of my blogs.

By integrating this knowledge you can deduce that things have lately been intense.

Have met with the minister of the environment who concluded our meeting by saying 'I consider you our partner for the next year'. It's in no way formal, but is, I think an indication of things to come.

I spent around 15 hours wrangling with customs to get a package that is necessary for successful exposition of the project. It was harrowing, frustrating, terrible and generally bad. It worked though, and everything is now in place.

The Helios array that we have built is 4/5 painted and is set up on a platform at the city for the children, where on Tuesday the minister for the promotion of the woman, child and the family will preside over the demonstration of the technology. The mayor will speach, then the president of FIMB Mali will speach, then Karim will speach, then I'll speach while showing off some burning plantlife and then the minister will speach, then the minister of the environment will speach, and then the minister of energy should speach.


Should be good times. Elaborated blogs to come.

Race against time

When I say approximate, I mean approximate (referring to the end of my Jan 5 post). It is hard to predict the future here. Not having appropriate tin-smithing tools or rivet gun the oven took a great deal more time than expected. Compounding the problem was the fact that I had to spend 2 half days and 1 full day at the customs office to get the package that was sent to me from Canada.

Considering the demonstration has taken on political dimensions that were not anticipated (other than in my dreams), I asked my dad to send a couple of ceramic glass windows, some thermometers and more glue, which will dramatically improve the performance of the oven and enable us to do more in the future. I had been planning on going slow and doing some experimentation on a new way to heat the oven, but with several ministers and the presidents of a number of NGOs coming to the demonstration I decided it was best to not take any chances on experimentation.

I have no desire relive the endless hours chasing down various officials and signatures and documents etc. All I’ll say is that due to the nature of the project and the sympathetic ear of some officials we got 2 weeks of paperwork done in 2 days. No small miracle.

You probably can’t imagine my horror when I finally got the package in my hands and heard the last sound I could ever want to hear: broken glass grinding together.

I pulled out the first piece of glass, cracked neatly in three. An anguished moan escaped me. Frantic now I grabbed the next piece of glass, it was even more broken than the first. At this point I was in tunnel vision mode… there were a dozen people who had gathered around, as we had been discussing the project with everyone we saw, trying to get a helping hand here and there so most were current on how important this package was to the project. I didn't even notice. I dove in for the third piece of glass and pulled it out in its entirety. Ecstatic, I kiss the glass, thinking that our every problem has been solved and that a successful demonstration is all but assured.

However, during the time that I spent away from the workshop, work did not advance at the anticipated pace. As such, we only finished the oven today. That leaves us 3 days to move everything to Kid City, clean, paint, configure and test. We basically have zero room for error (something I really REALLY wanted to avoid (but seems to be my modus operandi)).

Progress.

Work progresses adequately. Things have not gone as quickly as I would have liked, but that is primarily due to the lack of appropriate power tools. Additionally, a couple of the 'optimizations' I drew out in Google Sketchup 6.0 didn't work out as planned (note the picture below entitled surgery).


















However, in the timeline I envisioned, I took into account a number of mishaps of this sort and so we are not far off schedule. Here, Drisa (Diadie's apprentice) attaches a finished spider to the frame.












A spider is a small frame that we glue to the back of each mirror. Here are the spiders after we glued the spiders to the mirrors.


















The frame has eight 'arms' with screws at the end of them which permit us to deform the mirrors so that they approximate parabolas, yielding a focusing effect, seen here.

The balls of light you see between the mirrors are about 4 meters away, and are 10cm in diameter, while the mirror is a 30cm by 30cm square. In essence, each mirror focuses at 9:1 and there are 54 mirrors, so if we manage to focus perfectly we will have 486 intensities of the sun at the focal point.



Mirrors are not made to be flexed, though, and so some breakage is expected:


















Luckily, RV is on the case and he does his best to stay in the bounds of how much you can deform the mirrors.


Impatient for the oven to be finished, , Konan manages to roast a roast, Solar Fire style (even with only 2/3 of the mirrors mounted).

Meanwhile, Diadie 'makes with the oven':
Technology wise, things have slowed down a little with the making of the oven, as it is a precise process needing constant attention, so there is essentially only one working group. Compounding the slowness, RV has come down with some kind of illness and so has been out of action for two days. It's not too serious, but working all day in the sun requires a certain fortitude which he currently doesn't possess.

Politically, things are going well. The magical Tomota has done his thing, and has met with the Minister of the Environment to discuss the Solar Fire Project. The Minister is supportive and says he will 'accompany us, politically'. In real terms, that means he and his staff will attend our opening exposition.

The goal is to excite people as to the possibilities afforded by low tech solar power enough to create a research, development and training program which will develop technologies and train people how to build and use them to enhance their economic opportunities while promoting an ecological way of life.

Approx timeline: finish oven and any minor adjustments to the Helios concentrator by the 7th, have the array painted and pretty, set up at the Cite des Enfants by the 10th, commence preparations for the exposition and start actively promoting the technology on the 15th.

PEACELOVEHOPE