WIND POWER FOR NEPAL

This blog post comes from Nepal where Amrit Singh Thapa is pushing wind energy development. Wind energy could help alleviate Kathmandu’s load-shedding problem and bring renewable energy to smaller mountainous communities.

Amrit’s wind turbine, overlooking Kathmandu

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 changed drastically since I got involved in wind energy. My experience is still limited, but I’m somewhat of an expert 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 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 is 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 Megawatts. Around the Kathmandu Valley we can take 70 to 100 Megawatts 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 wind turbine 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 by photographer Robert van Waarden. Next week meet the De Clerck family, a farming family in the Netherlands that enthusiastically co-operatively harvest wind energy. Please feel free to share this story on your social networks.

I LOVE WINDPOWER

Overcoming barriers with windpower

Piet in his workshop

One day Piet literally drove off the road, so transfixed was he by a set of wind turbines. He couldn’t have known that this incident would change his life! This interest in wind power led Piet to work as an engineer for Siemens Wind where 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 and the rest, as they say, is history.

That workshop taught Piet how to build small-scale turbines, and in doing so Piet realised he wanted to take this new technology to places where it would be most beneficial. One of his best friends was from Mali and he figured that Mali was as good as anywhere else to get started. Piet founded I Love Windpower and designed a course that was easy to teach, transcended language barriers and used locally-available materials. Piet flew to Mali and within two weeks, he and a team of 10 people had built a working turbine.

“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.”

“If I had to sum it up in one word, I would say ‘identity,’” says Piet. “On my first trip to Mail, I met a group of people who were really shy, didn’t want to ask questions, and had little confidence in their abilities. After we made that first turbine, we threw a party and it was quite amazing to see their sense of identity grow.”

The windmills deliver affordable 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 project has been remarkable.

The recent military coup and the rebel unrest in Mali has threatened I Love Windpower’s projects, but after much debate with his team, Piet decided to keep the project running. They all felt that helping people to create something useful, that could one day evolve into a financially sustainable business, was incredibly important when other events were so destabilising.

Piet’s own work has evolved too. He 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 setting up windmills around the conference.

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.

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Overcoming Fossil Fuel Vested Interests in the Czech Republic

How the Orthodox Community Embraced Renewable Energy

Today APEShit features a blog about Roman Juriga a member of a religious NGO from the Czech Republic that is actively engaged in using and promoting renewable energy. It is part 1 of a series of wind energy stories from the Force Project by photographer Robert van Waarden – designed to tell the stories of sustainable solutions and their benefits for people and nature in the run up to Rio+20.

Inside the working mechanism of a wind turbine, 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 wind turbine and it belongs to the Pravoslavná Akademie Vilémov, a non-profit Orthodox NGO specializing 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, but 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. 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 Orthodox Church, 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 contrast to the information provided to the schools, which is sponsored by the Temelin Nuclear Plant.
Members of the Church and village are very proud of the renewable energy 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 a 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 be different for 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.

Please consider sharing this story by posting it to your website, Blog, Facebook, Twitter or through other digital networks.

Earth Day 2012

Speke's Mill beach from St Catherine's Tor

What can I do for Earth Day, I thought? We’ll as I spend most of my working life writing, blogging, tweeting, funding and generally supporting the climate justice movement, I decided to do my absolute favourite thing in the world and get my hands dirty. So I planted some rhubarb, transplanted some jerusalem artichokes along a bank to make a wind-break and conceal our ‘glamp’ (a little seated area made out of driftwood collected from the beach) and potted-on some tomato and basil seedlings. Bliss. Then I went for a walk with my dog – the amazingly handsome Jack – to the beach along the Abbey footpath where the bluebells are now in abundance and the willow warbler announced her arrival, it seemed, just for me. On such a beautiful day (even though the sun didn’t shine) it’s easy to forget that there are two massive factory farms in this area, suffocating the fields with millions of tonnes of slurry; that the beaches are now always pock-marked with plastic detritus; that, thanks to farm pollution, the local river no longer supports little brown trout or kingfishers (although I did see a Dipper last year); that in Spring, the sea now has a strange white algal bloom on it’s surface… If humanity were to work in harmony with nature, using biomimicry to run our systems, instead of the wasteful, linear entropic systems of industrialisation, this planet’s abundance would astound us. So on Earth Day, I thanked Nature in all its glory for having the tenacity to keep reproducing and flourishing, despite humankind’s best efforts to destroy it.

IF YOU’RE NOT PISSED-OFF, YOU’RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION

I am seriously pissed-off. I don’t agree with hardly anything these days! I don’t agree with Fracking; mega-dams in the Amazon; factory-farms that produce millions of gallons of slurry; FSC certification of old-growth forests for logging; I could go on… But I won’t – instead via the excellent work of Artists Project Earth, I will continue to focus on projects and organisations that respect the natural world and the interconnectedness of all beings. I do however urge you to read the SchNews article about the situation in the Amazon, because what befalls the Amazon befalls us all. The Amazon rainforest is the lungs of the planet – if we destroy it, we destroy ourselves. So I’m pissed-off. Are you?

Printing Money Gives You “Value for Nothing”

I love this little exchange of views first broadcast on Radio 4 and picked up by Positive Money. It seems that it’s okay for the Bank of England to print money out of thin air, but not okay for example, for the Transition movement to print currency that has direct relation to something of value, albeit time, skills or produce. Sorry Mr Fisher, but we’re going ahead with community currency anyway, because we don’t really have much confidence in your systems, that issue money out of thin air – which in your own words, has “value for nothing” – and indeed seems to do nothing but create cycles of debt and inflation…

…

“Here’s a quote from Paul Fisher (Executive Director of the Bank of England) broadcast in a programme called “What is Money?” in the Radio 4 series “Analysis”:

Presenter: Would you mind if I printed my own money – it wouldn’t look anything like yours from the Bank of England.

Paul Fisher (Bank of England): Yes we would mind. When you start printing money, you create value for yourself. If you could issue one thousand pounds worth of IOUs, you’ve got a thousand pounds for nothing. And so we do restrict people’s ability to create their own notes in that way.

Presenter: You’re protecting us against ourselves.

Fisher: We’re protecting you from charlatans.

So if someone can create money out of nothing, they get value for nothing? And are charlatans? Does this only apply if you’re printing paper money, or does it also apply to the banks that have created over £2trillion of money out of nothing electronically? Did they get £2trillion of value for nothing? Something for us all (and especially the Bank of England) to ponder!”

Click here for the full broadcast story.

The new film Transition 2.0 produced by The Transition Network gives examples of communities that have printed their own money or use e-money to allow sustainable transactions within communities.

George Monbiot and Theo Simon on Nuclear Power

If like many people, you’re concerned about the new planning regulations which give the green-light to indiscriminate development, then please read this blog by Theo Simon in debate with George Monbiot. It raises lots of important issues not least how corporations and developers are using the new laws to push through developments, even if communities are opposed to them. This is insidious indeed. I think we need to start a ‘Planning Watch’ NGO where, through the medium of the social networks, we highlight what developments (road-building, new power stations) are being proposed and look into the legitimacy of them. That’s assuming the government’s proposed new crackdown on social media doesn’t scare people away from speaking their truth.

Haiku of the Day

Spring Equinox socks
I wear them every year
They are equal length

by Loveswing: the minstrel that doesn’t leave chocolate on the palm of your hand.

GOODBYE WINTER, HELLO SPRING…

I’ve had this painting on my ‘Desktop’ all winter, reminding me that spring will soon be upon us, and now, this morning outside my kitchen door, my own primulas are blooming in the garden. But in all honesty, we didn’t really have a winter here in the south-west of England. A couple of frosty nights and some sleet on Bursdon Moor was about the extent of it. My chilli peppers have overwintered on my windowsills and are in flower now and my orange tree has managed to hold on to all 15 oranges (which are actually ‘greens’ at the moment as they’re still unripe).

What is more, our household carbon emissions were considerably less this winter than last: I’ve not needed to light my woodburner in the office for weeks and we hardly turned on a radiator (electric, wall-mounted fuelled by Good Energy) upstairs… Is this Gaia Theory’s ‘Daisyworld’ in operation – a rebalancing taking place. It might be if we were the only daisies on the lawn, but of course, being part of a globalised, interconnected world, mild winters in the UK might reduce carbon emissions, but a new coal port on the Great Barrier Reef (for God’s sake?) will certainly increase them. What a complex web us human beings weave.

I hope the sun is shining on you today – happy first day of spring!