FORCE Blog 3: Wind Dreams in Nepal

Amrit points it out as we zoom past on his motorbike. If you look closely, past the Nokia sign, past the other motorbikes, over the jumble of electric wires, and let your eyes drift upward, you might see it. It is a solution to the energy problems of Nepal, turning in the wind. Amrit turns a corner, jokes with a security guard and drives into the grounds of the Kathmandu Engineering College. A few minutes later we are on the roof, listening to the whirling of his homemade wind turbine and looking out over this crowded and noisy city called Kathmandu.

 Amrit Singh Thapa, owner of Eenergys.com, lives and breathes wind energy. When he was still a student at the Engineering College, he began researching sustainable technology and felt deeply that his path was entwined with wind energy. He hasn’t looked back since.

 "My life has been changed drastically since I got involved in wind energy. I don’t have time to sleep. My experience is very small, but there is no one with my experience in Nepal. That is the main factor; from the management, technical, ground, and field level, I have to manage and tackle everything. I am working as the complete package.”

Kathmandu is in the midst of an energy crisis. The Himalayas provide ample opportunity to tap hydro resources, but current supply is insufficient for the entire electrical needs of the city and in winter, when the reservoirs are low or landslides fill the reservoirs, hydro capacity is compromised.

“In the summer we have 3 to 4 hours a day of load shedding”, says Amrit, using the all-too-common term for a government scheduled black-out of city regions. “In the winter it will be even higher, in 24 hours we will only get 18 hours of electricity. This is the past record of maybe 4 years.”

Amrit dreams of seeing turbines on the hills surrounding the Kathmandu valley one day. He believes that wind energy is the solution to the energy crisis in Nepal. His calculations show that it is feasible, and he cites the build time difference between wind and hydro as an additional plus.

“Kathmandu has a daily demand for 200 Megawatt. Around the Kathmandu Valley we can take 70 to 100 Megawatt from wind energy. In only one year we can make a big energy project, and you can’t do that with hydro power”, says Amrit.

The only thing holding wind energy back is proof to the Nepal business, government and people that the technology can work and be sustained. If Amrit can do that, and he thinks he can, then the money will flow and the technology will be replicated across the country.

“I think that it only takes one or two years to make a big windmill project in Nepal. I am quite optimistic. I hope that I can make it, and I can show that Nepal can also generate wind energy.”

As Amrit and I climb down from the roof, his story reminds me that one person can make a difference. If he has his way, this energetic young man’s vision and passion for wind could be the difference for Nepal’s energy problem.

For more information about Amrit’s work, visit http://eenergys.com/

This blog post is part 3 of a series of wind energy stories from photographer Robert van Waarden. Next week meet the De Clerck family, a farming family in the Netherlands that enthusiastically co-operatively harvest wind energy.

Conclusion of Date With History!

FORCE Blog series 2: I Love Windpower Brings Energy and Identity to Mali

“If I had to sum it up in one word, I would say identity,” says Piet Willem Chevalier, owner and operator of I Love Windpower. “On my first trip to Mail, I saw this group of people that were really shy, that didn’t want to ask questions, they had no confidence. After we made that first turbine, we threw a party and it was quite amazing to see how this sense of identity grew.”

One day Piet literally drove off the road, transfixed by a set of wind turbines. He couldn’t have known at that time that this incident would change his life. In a few years he would be bringing wind power to Mali where the poorest communities often pay the highest rates for energy. 

One thing led to another and Piet started working as an engineer for Siemens wind. After about a year he discovered the work of Welsh engineer, Hugh Piggott. Mr. Piggott is the inventor of an open source, affordable, small-scale wind turbine design. Piet invited Hugh to come and teach a workshop in the Netherlands. It took some convincing, but Mr. Piggott finally agreed.

That workshop taught Piet how to build these turbines, and in doing so it changed Piet’s life. Piet knew that he needed to take this new skill and technology to a place where it would be most beneficial and he could pass it on. One of his best friends was from Mali and he figured that Mali was as good as anywhere else to get started. He founded I Love Windpower. Designing a course that was easy to teach, transcended language barriers and used readily available materials, Piet flew to Mali. In two weeks, he and a team of 10 people, 5 who couldn’t read or write and 5 who couldn’t speak any French, built a better turbine than Piet himself had done.

The windmills deliver energy to local homes, but they also had some unexpected impacts. Two men participating in the workshop were from different tribes that for the last 20 years had not spoken to each other. During the workshop the two men became great friends, and now the tribes are talking again. The sense of identity and ownership derived from this windmill project has been remarkable.

“This is something that I never realized when starting this. Even if this project is going to fail completely and they never make a business out of it - which I still believe is possible and just takes some more time - every investment has accomplished so much from a social and identity perspective.”

Recent events in Mali have threatened I Love Windpower’s projects – not only because of the military coup and the rebel unrest, but also due to an impending food crisis. Piet recently wondered whether his little amount of money would be better used feeding people. After much debate with his team, they decided to keep the project running. They thought giving these people something to be proud of, and which one day may become a financially sustainable business, was deemed equally important.

Piet is now also working with Wind Empowerment, a group dedicated to small turbine development across Africa and the globe. He will be attending Rio+20 and setting up windmills around the conference. Some of his volunteers have taken the skills gained with Piet even further, and in one case started the Tanzania branch of I Love Windpower.

As for the Mali project, it is too early to see where it will go, but one thing remains certain, small-scale windmills are helping build community and identity while providing much needed electricity to Mali.

This blog post is part 2 of a series of wind energy stories from photographer Robert van Waarden. Next week meet Amrit Singh Thapa, an engineer from Nepal who has a big wind energy vision.

Climate Change And Health Adaptation Podcast

(To listen online, visit http://daraint.org/2012/05/11/3513/podcast-climate-change-health-adaptations/)

The Adaptation Performance Review of the Climate Vulnerability Monitor 2010 assesses over 50 key measures that can be taken to reduce dangers and harm to communities and the planet across the four main impact areas of the Report. Highly cost-effective actions exist for minimizing nearly every type of impact assessed in the Climate Vulnerability Monitor.

There are a variety of measures that can be taken to prevent deaths due to climate change, and many of them are very affordable. Since outbreaks of disease related to climate change are concentrated within certain regions, age groups, and socioeconomic groups, good targeting of these diseases is feasible. Lifesaving measures to address these health problems are some of the most well-documented and effective measures we have in fighting the negative effects of climate change.

Many adaptation measures for Health concerns are highly or very highly effective. Two especially effective adaptation actions are School health and nutrition programs and basic sanitation facilities.

School health and nutrition programmes rate highly on costeffectiveness, co-benefits, feasibility, and scalability. This programme is among the least expensive of all health measures assessed here. Improving child health can also lead to better educational results. Such programmes can roll out quickly using existing educational networks and have an especially high impact on the poorest and most undernourished children.

Evidence shows that the number of children reaching school age (defined as 5 to 14 years of age) is increasing due to such child survival programs. In Kenya, treatment of Helminth infections reduced absenteeism by one-fourth, with the youngest children (who typically suffer the most ill health) showing the largest gains. The evidence base for school health and nutrition programmes is high -- we have several well-documented examples from various geographical regions. However, not all types of intervention are relevant to all situations or locations, so it is essential to assess the needs of a community prior to each implementation.

Basic sanitation facilities programmes rate highly on costeffectiveness, co-benefits, and scalability. At a construction cost of $60 per capita for basic sanitation facilities and a lifetime of 5+ years for a latrine, this programme remains among the least expensive of the health measures assessed here. Lower-cost models are possible in areas that lack infrastructure or where more complex sanitation systems are not feasible, making such a programme highly cost-effective even where construction costs are high.

The programme is beneficial to all groups in a community lacking sanitation and reduces the spread of diarrhea while also producing socio-economic and cultural benefits. However, it is unclear whether we can attribute the positive effects to the installation of latrines alone, since benefits have only been measured in combination with improved hand-washing habits. Benefits are highest where a clean water supply is also available.

The World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the World Bank have already developed technical specifications and guidelines for low-cost sanitation projects, and many well-documented case examples exist.

Other health adaptation measures analyzed in 2010 included breastfeeding, oral rehydration therapy and zinc supplementation, immunization programmes, improved water supply infrastructure, insecticide-treated bed nets, indoor residual spraying, and excessive heat event notification and response programmes. To learn more about them and their effectiveness, read the Health Impact section in the Adaptations Performance Review within the Climate Vulnerability Monitor.

Introducing the Date With History Finalists

(from tcktcktck.org)

After weeks of intense online voting and nearly 200 video submissions from around the world, we are delighted to share the finalists for the Date with History competition.
On behalf of the TckTckTck team and our partners Climate Nexus, NRDC and the Rockefeller Foundation, we’d like to thank everyone who submitted an entry, voted for their favourite or helped us share this competition to their friends, family and networks. Your enthusiasm and vision and inspired so many people and we look forward to finding ways to share your messages in the coming weeks.

I was so impressed by the number and quality of the video speeches – I wish we could have brought all of these kids to Rio. They have some powerful messages for the people who hold our future in their hands. – Kelly Rigg, Executive Director, TckTckTck Campaign

From this point on, the decision on who wins a Date with History and attends the Rio+20 Earth Summit in Brazil this June lies with our Jury. We look forward to announcing their eventual selection in a few weeks, but in the meantime, please take a few minutes to get to know our finalists and the future they’d like to see.

(see the finalists and explore tcktcktck at http://tcktcktck.org/2012/05/introducing-the-date-with-history-finalists/#!/home)

FORCE blog series 1: Orthodox Community Embraces Renewable Energy in the Czech Republic

 

High on a windmill, hidden amongst the

 cherry orchards and the wheat fields of 

Eastern Czech Republic, is a painting of

 a raven with a piece of bread in its mouth. 

The prophet St. Elias the Tishbite was 

kept alive by ravens feeding him bread

 when he was hidden in the desert. This

 is the St. Elias windmill and it belongs to

 the Pravoslavná Akademie Vilémov, a

 non-profit Orthodox NGO specialized 

in renewable energy.

 

“Everything was given to us by God to survive,’ says Roman Juriga, director of the Akademie, 

“that includes the energy and the capacity to create energy, that is why we have 

named our turbine St. Elias.”

 

 Roman Juriga, is a devout member of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia.

 He grew up in communist Czechoslovakia as an atheist as ordered by state decree. 

Outspoken and anti-communist, secretly he studied English, and secured entrance to an 

international English school where he received a better education. Joining the Orthodox 

Church he was encouraged by leaders to attend University to study theology.

 He objected: the government knew he was anti-communist and if they discovered him 

studying, he would be thrown out. The Church offered their protection. Luckily, just as

 the authorities got wind of his studying, the 1989 Velvet Revolution happened and 

communism in Czechoslovakia disintegrated.

 After successfully completing his education, Mr Juriga

 established the Akademie, with the support of the

 church and Orthodox Monastery, in the little village of

 Vilemov. Through small scale solar, wind, and hydro 

power, the Akademie educates kids and adults about 

renewable energy and climate change. The reaction has

 been incredibly positive from all groups, especially

 the secondary school students. Many of them say 

that the information provided by the Akademie is 

in complete disagreement with the information provided

 to the schools by the Temelin Nuclear Plant.

 

 Members of the Monastery and village are very proud

 of the installations. Additionally, several new solar 

thermal installations that were inspired by the Akademie

 have sprung up in the community, an anomaly for this 

area of the country. The Akademie offers free 

consultancy on renewable energy for other churches and church-related 

NGO’s. All this is made possible from the revenue from the 100kw

 St. Elias turbine.

Mr. Juriga has been instrumental in shining some light on the complicated world of clean 

energy bureaucracy in the Czech Republic. The approval process for small energy 

production is very difficult to navigate. Complicated submission procedures and reams

 of paper work protect the vested interests of fossil fuels, politicians and corporations. 

Mr. Juriga has become something of an expert in negotiating the submissions process 

and his successes have become examples and inspirations for others across the 

Czech Republic.

 

 Wind energy in the Czech Republic is lagging compared to Western Europe. 

This is partially due to propaganda by invested fossil fuel interests. However, 

Mr. Juriga recognizes that it is a natural progression for a church to move in the

 direction of small-scale energy production and that it is essential to the 

development of a post carbon world. He also believes that as the Czechs look to 

Germany and see the rapid deployment of clean energy, the future will look 

different in the Czech Republic.

 This blog post is part 1 of a series of wind energy stories from photographer

 Robert van Waarden. Next week meet Piet Willem Chevalier, Dutch mechanical 

engineer, bringing small-scale wind energy to Mali.