Sunday, January 18, 2009

When Two Or More Are Gathered....

Anthony,
Alas, but life is something that happens to you while you are busy making other plans. Due to weather and other constraints I did not make it to Sunward (yes, it is the first of three co- housing developments with Great Oaks) And speaking of serendipity, a good friend and colleague is coming to visit this week who happens to be in the forefront of bio diesel algae research and development. Will speak with him regarding the potential to grow algae in an area where the fresh water supply is limited. What day are you leaving? As far as the building and energy components of the research station are concerned, the answers are only limited to the degree that applications of naturally occurring genius are constrained. That is to say if we are able to develop the local talent (naturally occurring genius in the young people and the genius of nature unconstrained by the viruses of greed and corruption) in conjunction with partners in distance learning projects I am convinced that a great symbiotic adventure can be embarked upon. So although there are many parallel and divergent components needing to be considered in building a successful research station in Madagascar the first and most important one I believe is to embark on that journey through a system of self awareness and empowerment of the local villagers especially the young ones. That takes an understanding and appreciation of the cultural precepts as part of a discovery of all the potential resources that could be involved in the success (or failure) of this and future projects.
Looking forward,
Jim Bates
Southern Exposure REC
(248) 245-7114
edOn Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 1:30 AM, Anthony Arnold wrote:
Serendipitously I have given a presentation about Madagascar at Great Oak co-housing community back in August, maybe that is near Sunward? It would be great to stop by and meet up with you for a bit but I will probably only be able to stay for a short while as I'm leaving next week and yes going to South Africa and then to Madagascar in 6ms as the 'Applied' part of my degree I like the power station ideas that your talking about. Have you ever heard of anything about algae biofuels, I hear that it is supposed to be energy efficient to produce with out much environmental impact http://www.valcent.net/s/Ecotech.asp?ReportID=182039 or High density vertical growing systems http://www.valcent.net/s/HDVGS.asp?ReportID=266563As far as building materials found locally there is endless amounts of sand and lime stone (for concrete/plaster), straw (for straw bale buildings) water can be sparse, so we are going to study the local hydrology better and test a few ways to build wells and may hire a well drilling company to drill a professional wall for our field site.Timber is relatively abundant, but the forest canopy is 6 meters high at most so there are not a lot of huge rain forest trees. Were we are at there is not much processing of timber so you can get logs which works well enough. Depending on how much lumber is needed, it makes more sense to bring milled lumber from the capital where it is possible buy planks in whatever dimension you need and what every other logistics (materials/tools) can likely be procured from the capital.A power station sounds like exactly what is needed and if it is simple enough that local people and university students can become immediately involved in constructing, learning about, benefiting from it and passing it on, all the better. As i said before there is major solar, wind and tidal energies to be harness. ill fill you in with the rest tomorrow best Anthony
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 12:30 AM, Jim Bates <renewablesjim@gmail.com> wrote:
Anthony,
I may be going to Ann Arbor tomorrow (Saturday) evening to the Sunward Co-Housing for a dance/music party. If you are not already It would be great for you to become familiar with Co-Housing as a potential development idea for Madagascar as it is a model of a small village with a common house being central to it's design. Give me a call if you are available to attend there and bring a friend.
Jim Bates
248-245-7114
On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 5:31 PM, Anthony Arnold <arnold.anthony@gmail.com> wrote:
HI Jim It looks like my plans to go to South Africa for my masters project is going to work out after all so it is good that we met when we did. I showed a friend of mine one of the wind spires and he really was interested to know more about them and probably would consider setting one (maybe more then one) up at his house if he has the wind power. He was interested in checking them out at the auto show and would like to learn more about them directly from you. Can I put him in touch with you to learn more about them?ON a different note, I guess it was never quite clear to me so I wanted to ask directly how you guys potentially could see your projects and the Madagascar project lining up? I know we talked about distance learning and that is really appealing to me, I just was curious to know if you had any more specific ideas that would be relatively easily attainable in the near future?Id be interested to learn more...
thanks again-- Anthony Arnold co-founder of New Latitude - who's mission is to mobilize initiatives that actively promote community projects benefiting both people and the environment's most vital steps in conservation are mapping biodiversity, identifying priority areas, restoration, and making conservation profitable',from The Future of Life, E. O. Wilson-- Anthony Arnold co-founder of New Latitude - who's mission is to mobilize initiatives that actively promote community projects benefiting both people and the environment's most vital steps in conservation are mapping biodiversity, identifying priority areas, restoration, and making conservation profitable',from The Future of Life, E. O. Wilson

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