Wired on Haiti and the GEK

[jimmason]

jason turgeon's blog on wired has a nice article today on using DIY gasifiers in disaster recovery situations like haiti.
http://haitirewired.wired.com/profil...y-wastetopower

from the article:

"Recently, an open source movement led by a Berkeley group called AllPower Labs has been having great success with a DIY "gasification experimenter's kit" (aka the GEK). As an open-source, low-cost, low-tech solution the GEK provides a perfect platform for people in Haiti and other disaster relief situations to both dispose of the masses of waste wood, coconut husks, bagasse, etc., that they have nearby and to provide power. All that is needed is some simple metal working tools including a welding kit, some training that most mechanically-inclined folks could easily understand, and a generator (perhaps fashioned from a car engine) to turn the syngas into energy for electricity or transportation."


he correctly notes the gek strategy of making gasifier info, designs and building processes easily available to others so as to enable their distributed production, installation and improvement. we're trying our best to make the highest tech ideas in gasification implementable with the lowest tech, mostly commonly available materials. the goal is exactly to make local manufacture of gasifiers possible in a context like haiti and similar situations around the world. currently about 1/4 - 1/3 of geks made go overseas, with the shipping made price tolerable by the russian doll barrel packing method.

by coincidence, the first individual that approached us to manufacture the gek overseas was in haiti. he bought the 10th and 11th gek (we're now on #158). we're still exploring the details of setting up production there, which has been both slowed and sped by the earthquake. fortunately his shop and operation was spared, including the cnc plasma cutter that will hopefully enable gek production in haiti in the near future.

jim

[RobWindt]

Nice one Jim, thanks for sharing the article and your thoughts

[southern clean energy]

Great story Jim

[oldchuck]

I'm thinking it would be damned difficult to make any use of a GEK in a chaotic emergency situation like Haiti. Now if it was a very simple set it and forget it except for periodic refueling kind of system like a conventional genset that would be a different story. Maybe someday...