Busy little bees

Onward and upward! Fraser and I continue to plug away at our list of tasks... we're very nearly finished our fruit and veggie dehydrating unit and a second Vesta. Once finished they will allow us to really get into some serious gathering of data and experimentation, which we await with great anticipation.

We are going to nixtamalize corn and dry it, we'll dry bananas, onions, pineapple and mangos, we're going to make tamarind jelly, hibiscus jelly and orange marmalade and if we're feeling ambitious we'll roast peanuts with chili and garlic.

New Home = Sweet Home.

Welcome to Symington Solar Fire Mexican Headquarters! Fraser and I have settled in to our new digs and are keen to get moving.

'Who knew that a couple of peasants could aspire to such comfort?' Fraser asks and only half in jest. Truly, we have been fortunate. After arriving in Puerto Penasco a week ago we again sought accommodations at the Dreamweaver Inn. Oscar, who is the general manager there and the man who we would see be our business partern smiled broadly upon seeing us again and asked 'Couldn't stay away, could you?' We replied that we 'Could have, but we thought better of it, in no small part because of you!' he was both pleased an puzzled. Over the course of the next couple of days we laid out our plan to him and his wife Lupita.

The plan we laid out to him was in essence: 1) Grandad and I secure a house with a suitable yard and a space to fabricate a couple of arrays. 2) We build 3 Vestas, a couple of drying units, an oven and a roaster for nuts and other roastables. 3) We begin experimenting with various fruits and vegetables and eventually settle on a couple of what we think are the best and most marketable. 4) We establish communications with wholesalers and independent health food stores and attempt to establish a flow of goods. 

Oscar said he was able and willing to work with us on a part time basis to learn how we make machines and to lend insights as we develop products. We only have a certain amount of time, however, given that our auto insurance and visas run out mid March. Bringing Oscar into the fold serves the double purpose of having a manager who will be able to continue operations/production in our absence and, in the event that we don't manage to establish a flow of goods, having a local entrepreneur attempt to make a go of using Solar Fire technologies independently.

Oscar is a clever and curious fellow and the suggested action plan involves no risk on his part, so we were not surprised that he was enthusiastically game. That being the case, Fraser and I spent the rest of the week cruising around looking for a suitable place. Eventually, the good people at Twin Dolphin Realty brought us to see the mansion you see here. The sun access in the yard is not ideal, but it is acceptable, there is a garage, it is fully furnished (down to the details... as if people had up and left a month ago) and let me tell you, the price is right!

Real estate here has tanked in the last couple of years. Bob from Twin Dolphin says that the boom that Puerto Penasco experienced from 2004 - 2007 was somewhat artificial and speculative in nature and with the meltdown in the US that since then things have gone from bad to worse. This is evidenced by our getting a place like this for half of what it is worth. We're on a monthly rental, but depending on how things go we might just hang on to the place.

Once we had a place lined up we continued to scout for materials and everything is lined up so that monday we buy metal and glass! By next weekend we should have a preliminary Vesta up and running and another 2 or 3 will not be far behind.

Workshop:

Symington Solar

A new chapter in my solar saga is beginning! The originator of the Solar Fire technologies, my grandfather Fraser Symington, has asked that I accompany him to Mexico for the winter so that we might a) escape the Canadian cold (he is 90 years old, after all) and b) establish if/how someone can turn a profit using his Symington Solar Arrays.

The case being thus, my first priority is keeping granddad safe and well and second is to facilitate whatever it is he decides to do. He has been tinkering with and developing the technology for close to 20 years but this is the first time he has been free to really pursue a long term initiative where utilization of the tech would be the central focus.

As evidenced by previous blog posts, essays and websites, I had gone a slightly different direction with the technology than my grandfather advises; he says “Make money with it and the technology will spread automatically.” Fair’s fair and I’m now willing to give his way a shot. Based on our discussions preceding our trip I would most likely do things differently than he plans to, but I really want to see his ideas tested, his theories proved or disproved and I want him to have the satisfaction of seeing his invention fly according to his designs. That being the case I plan to merely act as an extension of his will though I’ll certainly play devil’s advocate when the inclination arises.

Fraser’s plan is to head to Mexico. Reasoning: a) close enough to Canada that should medical problems arise, we’re not pooched, b) we can drive there and so bring down prefab pieces, tools and more gear than we would otherwise be able to c) I speak the language, d) American $. Though we are not married to any idea in particular, we have set our sights on Puerto Peñasco, a town 60 miles from the US Arizona border that is sometimes called “Arizona’s Beach” due to it being the closest seaside to Phoenix and Tuscon.

PP lies near the apex of the Sea of Cortes which is a deep bay formed by the Baja Peninsula. The waters are warm, the tourists and American retirees are numerous and we figure we just might be able to make a buck there.

Off we go in our little Kia Spectra, full to the brim!

The National Forum on the Environment

Right. Remember what I said about blog frequency and craziness? Yeah.

So Monday rolled around, and there was no action on the budget. Not only that, but the guy who was supposed to help bring the Helios to CNESOLER didn't show up. I decided to go to the director of AMADER's home energy dept to speed things up. He understood, but couldn't influence things. I told him about my decisions regarding CNESOLER and he agreed that it would improve chances to get funding if I partner with a government establishment.

I went home without having accomplished much.

Tuesday started out the same… I was in an office trying to move things along when a brochure on the lady's desk caught my eye. The Mali-Folkecenter is apparently hosting the National Forum on the Environment. MFC is a pretty big operation, and I hadn't yet made contact with them, though it was in the plan. It didn't really connect just yet that I am in Mali. I look at the date, it says 29th of Jan 2008, not knowing what date it is I think for a moment, that's a shame that I missed it. Wait a minute… that's TODAY! At this point I still have significant doubts that we'd be able to do the necessary paperwork to get a vehicle, or register me or whatnot. Still, might as well ask.

Bam. To the directors office! 4 hours later we had dis-assembled the machine and transported it to the Palace of Culture, where the Forum was taking place. They gave me 10,000 F CFA to buy food to cook for people and I was on my way.

The next day we(and by we I mean she) cooked up a big stew for everyone.
Solar Fire Style: maxed out thermometer (that means +200C)
Ibrahim C Tomota says: Solar Fire, awww yeah.
So much stew.
lol poor SK-14, all broken and neglected:
Then there's the Association of Women Engineers who had a stand promoting their use of cardboard and tinfoil cookers with a heat resistant bag. They have to be imported from Holland, but have the advantage of being able to be transported like 30 to a backpack.
Mmmm so much solar cake. We made the mistake of using pots that were too big for cake, and they were burning at the edges and not done in the middle, so we massacred it a little bit and put everything on the baking trays.
I probably served cake to like 100 people.


It was good to the last crumb.
Haha in our enthusiasm for cake we let the focal point wander… on this oven we built the exterior side walls out of wood to save on tinsmithing, but we'll probably not do that in the future, considering it smolders a little if the focal point hits the tin on front.
I made tons of good contacts, met the minister of the environment a couple more times, and impressed the people who work at CNESOLER (I was hosted by their stand at the forum). Everyone is really enthusiastic, so we'll see what we can cook up.

This weekend is catch up on sleep time and kit maintenance. This coming week, if the money isn't available to start the papillon prototype I'm just going to buy enough materials to get started... the Habitat Salon is less than 3 weeks away, and is important enough to disregard protocol (what? me? disregard protocol?)

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.

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.

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

GOING.

RV and I get up at dawn, spend 10 hours a day at the workshop and then work on the computer until after midnight before sleeping until the pattern repeats. It’s working: I have anywhere from 1 to 7 people following my directions at any given moment in time when at the workshop. From the neighborhood children who sit around saluting us and chanting ‘toobaboo’ (whitey) at us while making us tea, to Diadié a shop man with impressive skill (it’s his workshop), his apprentice Drisa, RV, Konan, Yusuf (an economics student who wants to help promote the array) and a seemingly endless supply of interested randomers who have dropped by to lend a hand for the simple, long and repetitive work of making the spiders.

Today we finished the frame, and the mirrors have been glued up and ready for a couple of days now. Tomorrow is going to be a big and exciting day: we’re going to mount the mirrors, concentrate them, and start experimenting with local supplies for insulation (vermiculite and fiberglass insulation don’t seem to exist here). Next week, before Karim gets back on the 5th I hope to have painted the machine and built a hybrid oven/roaster, since two of the most interesting applications are bread baking and peanut roasting.

The real fun should begin then. For now, enjoy some pictures from around the workshop.

Proof that the solar arrays can be built just about anywhere:

Instead of giving the full explanation to every passerby (you never know who will be the vector that makes the connection to the precise person you want to talk to) I got the schematics printed up and I taped them to the wall of the ‘shop’ and they inform themselves, and if they’re interested (most are) they come over and talk it up.

RV at work slitting the spiders (if you’re interested in knowing more about the construction process, it is outlined in some detail at http://www.solarfireproject.com/spider )

Tea a la Mali is like teaspresso: they basically fill the teapot with green tea, fill up the between space with water, boil for half an hour, remove some water to add the sugar and then boil for another 15 minutes while pouring it back and forth ceremoniously. They then serve a half shot of it and you’re good to go for the next 45 minutes while 2nds gets made.

Here’s the jig we made to make sure the spiders get welded square (it’s important or else the screws fall outside the perimeter of the mirror and do nothing).

Work gets interrupted by Didier’s daughter; he gives her a coin and she goes to the corner store to get a candy (even though she can’t yet speak).

RV is good to go.

Didier isn’t impressed though:

By curving the main beam by weighting down the middle we’re able to weld some strap iron to make a tensor which strengthens the structure.

Warning: getting Bulldog glue out of the tube without the glue gun is surprisingly and amazingly difficult.

Headlamp to the rescue! We were able to glue up all the spiders.

On the way to work I stopped by the local bakery and found a bunch of jovial bakers willing to let me walk around and observe things. They didn’t speak to much French, but I got across that I was trying to build a bread oven and wanted to know how it worked. That’s not a wall behind them, that’s the oven. It’s over 2 meters tall by 3.5meters by 2 meters deep. It has two levels of bread and can make 240 baguettes measuring 80cm long at a time.

Finally we finished the frame. The mirrors are all glued up, and we’ve got a game plan for figuring out how to build the oven. Tomorrow, with the first sun of the new year we’ll light a Solar Fire.

Initial leaps

Due to time and logistical constraints (Karim's van and Pierro's vans leave tomorrow) we have purchased all major steel and mirror components for a Helios ( http://www.solarfireproject.com/thehelios) array (no doubt at slightly higher costs than would have been possible with more time, but orders of magnitude more convenient).

Note the nice clean T-shirt.

The Project is in very high gear.

Last night: strategy meeting with RV and the President, secretaries and Administrative council of FIMB-Mali, and Tomota, who seems to have a hand in just about everything. We are in general agreement that the plan is as follows: build a Helios ASAP, promote it at the highest levels permitted to us through pooling our (their) contact networks and solicit funding for a solar energy research, development and training (R,D&T) center, where my colleagues and I would explore all low tech (for now) solar technology options, while training others in the science of solar concentration as we build concentrators to distribute to eligible people. To this end, it was decided to call the director general of the Cité des Enfants, a ‘Ministry of the Promotion of the Woman, Child and Family’ institution housed in a sprawling complex of buildings built to look like fairytale castles: All those at the strategy meeting knew him and agreed that Mr. Dembele was the man who could set this thing off with a bang. The Cité des Enfants has plenty of space to set up the unit for demonstrations and is a government institution, which will reduce the red tape for inviting government representatives and media to the unveiling of the Helios.

This morning RV, Lalla, Tomota and FIMB-Mali’s general secretary and I met with Mr. Dembele, who was astonished by the capacities of Solar Fire technologies. He said there were a half dozen solar cooking devices sitting in a warehouse owned by the ministry of energy, unused, because they were not worth the cost. He said it would be a pleasure for us to do the demonstration at the Cité, and said that it should be no problem for him to arrange for various Ministers (Energy, Environment, others) to be in attendance, as well as directors of various NGOs and institutions, plus TV, newspaper and radio reporters. When I asked him how much notice he needed to set up what he called ‘an inauguration ceremony’ with such attendees, and he told me three or four days. I said I’d be ready by mid January and he shook my hand and said he looked forward to it. He gave me his cellphone number and said if I needed anything he’d do what he could.

Afterwards I went and checked out the workshop. Lalla’s brother, Diadié, owns the place. It is rustic to say the least, but he has everything we need to build the array. It’s a good thing he has an apprentice who is basically a human hacksaw, because there’s no abrasive chop saw. There is a hand grinder and a hand drill and a table vise and some welders’ beams and we’ll be working in the street, since there is no space in the actual workshop (and it’s blazing hot in there).

Here's a picture of our workshop. It's kind of like a 'Where's Waldo?'

The Road to Bamako

Our convoy left Nouakchott in a less than spectacular fashion. Since the condition of our van was in doubt it was decided we'd leave first, so if we broke down the others would find us and be able to help. We didn’t count on the normally super-navigatory skills of Pierre to fail. We took around an hour to find the road out of Nouakchott. We had agreed that if we didn't meet up on the road before the next town, we'd hang out there until we met up. When we arrived at the meeting point we parked, played a couple games of foosball with the kids and waited. No one really had any clue as to when the biotruck troop was moving out (they picked up about 5 hitchhikers at the hostel, so the chaos was somewhat understandable) but we assumed they’d leave after the second van. When they turned up and we still hadn’t seen the second van we started to sense something was amiss. Regardless of when and where we agreed to meet, we couldn’t let our safety net pass us by, so we joined up with the biotroop. After a quick top up,

we continued together until nightfall, where we lit up a traditional biofuel bonfire (don’t worry, the Biotruck expedition is fully carbon footprinted and carbon neutralized).

We camped out in the Savannah, not fully realizing the reason that lions have such thick pads on their feet. Ben, a travelling storyteller, juggler and artist soon found out:

pretty much everything in the Savannah is vicious. Essentially everyone was covered in burs the likes of which I’d never seen.

Since French phones don’t really work in Mali, we were unable to communicate with the other van, but we concluded that they had passed us by while we were turning around and around in Nouakchott, had not seen us and had concluded that we had continued the journey. With the biotroop safely bringing up the rear, we decided to speed ahead to see if we could catch our friends, since we had scheduled to stop at Nioro du Sahel to meet a French couple, Gerard and Mariane, who support an association of women farmer/gardeners by teaching the principles of eco-agriculture.

Our assumption was right; the other van had been speeding trying to catch us, thinking that we were ahead of them. Regardless, it means that we made good time getting to Nioro, after which we drove a couple hours on rough paths to get to Tourougoumbe where Gerard and Mariane do their thing.

Always vigilant for opportunities to improve efficiency and diffuse Solar Fire, I was somewhat taken aback when I saw:

*mental note: wood not particularly scarce here* This guy must be getting no more than 15% efficiency out of his rig. Regardless, I asked around to find the bakery to see if I could learn a thing or two about his business. I found him

in a kitchen so amazingly smoky that after no more than 2 minutes, tears were freely running down my face. He laughed and told me, between hacking coughing fits, that you get used to it. After we stepped outside for some fresh air, I asked him some questions about the quantity of wood he uses weekly, how much bread he bakes with it, and so on. He doesn’t exactly take rigorous notes, but tried to be as helpful as we could be. The most solid fact I got was that the bakery works at maximum capacity only one day per week: market day. He showed me the bundle of wood that he bought to fuel the oven for market day alone, and told me that it cost 2500 Francs CFA (1€=650 CFA). Satisfied, I left him to his work.

Gerard and Mariane invited us to take a tour of the gardens, where the women grow spices, tomatoes, potatoes, and a number of medicinal plants. Amounting to around 2 hectares, the women practice composting, natural pest barriers, crop rotation, evaporation reduction techniques and other aspects of eco-agriculture. The association had, in the past, been the recipient of some grants, the benefits of which can be seen in this photo:

Note the aqueduct. Also note the woman carrying a bucket alongside it. The women painstakingly haul buckets of water up 10 meters from the well, and they’re not about to let it evaporate while sitting in the aqueduct, which it would take her all day to fill to an effective level. The aqueduct now just gets in the way. I found it a poignant illustration of the importance of involving aid recipients in the decision making process, so as to minimize the risk of misspending.

After being treated to a night of African dance and drums, we set out at dawn for Bamako, where the intensity and awesomeness of the happenings still escapes my capacity to transcribe it (not for long).

Travelling companions

Allow me to introduce my friends, colleagues and traveling companions:

First up is Pierre, a Frenchman from Auvergne who runs his own solar waterheater and solar panel installation company. Pierre has made the trip before and has traveled a number of times to Morocco, Mali and elsewhere in West Africa.

We'll be rolling in Pierre's Renault Tracker 4x4:
It's a beast of a machine. Notice the solar panel on the roofrack, which has been modified into a pop tent.

Introducing Pierre's daughter, Lucie:and Roxanne, Lucie's friend:
We'll be traveling together until at least Bamako, Mali, where I'll gather information about the feasibility of implementing Solar Fire technologies, and based on my findings I will or will not then promote Solar Fire (call me presumptuous, but I have a feeling there'll be enough interest to warrant my sticking around).

The plan is to meet the rest of the crew at Nouakchott, Mauritania around the 14th of December before making the last push across the desert into Mali and Bamako.

Soon enough I'll post some pictures of the sights we've seen along the way... there have been some spectacular ones.

Peace and light