Frugal systems energy streams for a low carbon world
Brian White
I grew up beside the river Slaney in Ireland. It’s a typical Irish or British
rivers and it has abandoned mill sites every 6 to 10 kilometers for about 100
kilometers of its length. These were ALL Water Power sites with flour and
fiber mills driven by waterwheels 200 years ago.
Oil made them uncompetitive and they all disappeared before 1970.
Salmon disappeared in that river about 1980.
New technologies have just arrived to bring riverpower and riverlife back.
Zotloterer Gravitational Vortex Power Plants and the reverse Archimedes screw
or “hydro dynamic screw” are disarmingly simple.
Apparently after more than 2000 YEARS someone noticed that Archimedes screws
would also work in reverse to PRODUCE power! They are now used in various old
mill sites in England, etc to generate electricity. Vortex power plants are
also spreading from Europe to Asia.
How come we did not think of these things earlier? Lets think harder about
basic stuff.
Lets make whole systems where waste streams are put back into the process!
I will include a little about the pulser pump, fermentation powered pump,
their connection to the worldwide windowfarms project and about my solar
stuff. All frugal power projects!
About Brian White:
Brian White is a stonemason in Victoria and a trained as a lab technician
(applied biology) in Ireland, works as a stone mason and invented the
pulser pump in the late 1980s which is now being researched in Queens
University.
My mum imparted her frugal beliefs and my father gave me much more time
to learn and play with my projects than any overworked father should have.
Laziness is a great motivator. I wanted an automatic watering system for my
garden. How do I get the water out of the stream and around the plants without
using energy and without having to haul it myself? A tiny ram pump that I made
failed after half an hour due to dirt in the clack valve.
Ducks kicking up dirt!
The quest for a “no moving part “duckproof” pump” led from coffee jar suction
pump to the “what the hell is this?” which I later renamed pulser pump. 20
years later, it has been replicated in England and a tiny research project in
Queens University, Ontario validated the concept. But nobody yet knows their
full capabilities.
My solar projects are progressing slowly. Interest comes from Stirling engine
enthusiasts, aid workers etc. If I had more technical wherewithal, they would
be done now.
Thanks to my family and friends, and ducks and those who encourage and argue
for getting me this far.
I am a citizen scientist too!
My “pulser pump” went on Wikipedia last year, and my video about it is the
most watched “airlift pump” related video on the internet. According to
youtube, it is seen in more than 150 countries every month.
I am also involved in the linen project. (Growing flax for food and fibre),
making habitat for solitary bees, and I made a “2 storey compost bin” that is
in an e-book from instructables. I have also made several solar cooker
innovations.
I have never succeeded in getting funding for the projects, (which slows
things down a lot).
On the plus side, I have never been curbed by the strings attached to funding,
which can stop things altogether!
More details about the tracking solar accumulator
and the clam shaped solar cookers can be found on the
solarcooking.org wiki.
