I finally took the opportunity to visit the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York this week to see their exhibit of affordable technology, what we used to call appropriate technology or intermediate technology back in the day. The exhibit is titled Design for the Other 90% and includes, my favorite, the pot-in-pot sand and clay evaporative cooler.
The day I chose to visit was the day Grand Central Station and the East Side subways shut down because of water damage. That hot day, walking through a barely functioning Manhattan, made me think that maybe I saw this exhibit just in time.
The Pot-in-Pot cooler works by evaporative cooling. One clay pot is placed inside another clay pot with a layer of sand between them. Put the fruits and vegetables inside the inner pot and wet the sand between the two pots. As the water in the sand evaporates it draws heat away from the inner pot and cools it. I recommended this option to a friend serving in Iraq who was trying to help develop the food industry there but don't believe this solution matched the scale at which my friend was working.
This plastic wheel is hollow. You fill it with water and roll it along the road or the path instead of carrying your water in buckets or cans. Rolling water is easier than carrying it. This is another epitome of good design and the common sense that is so uncommon.
This gravity feed drip irrigation system makes the most efficient use of the water available. The plastic bag on the post holds a water supply that flows through small plastic hoses directly to the roots of the plants. I can imagine seeing this idea sprouting up in community garden plots around my neighborhood.
The StarSight is a solar-powered street lighting and a wireless Internet access node. There are other adaptations of solar street lighting, including one from Sharp that doubles as an earthquake monitoring and emergency alert system.
The Internet Village Motoman links fifteen solar-powered village schools, telemedicine clinics, and the governor’s office in Ratanakiri, a province of Cambodia. It uses five Honda motorcycles equipped with mobile access points and a satellite uplink to provide email and Internet browsing.
Of course there was the old reliable parabolic solar cooker too.
A couple of appro tech applications the exhibit missed are the BoGoLight which sells solar LED flashlights for $25. That $25 includes the cost of sending a second solar LED flashlight to someone who needs it around the world, including Afghanistan and Iraq. The solar flashlight uses standard AA batteries so industrious people can purchase more rechargeable AA batteries and charge one set while using another, making a battery switching network.
Jewish World Watch sends solar ovens to two Darfur refugee camps. $30 buys two ovens and all the accoutrements. This allows the women in the camps to cook without the risk of leaving the relative safety of the camp in order to gather firewood.
I wrote about this exhibit before, Design for the Other 90%, and reported on a recent conference on Affordable Technology.
You see why I keep writing
]Solar IS Civil Defense
and believe that statement is true both here and around the world?
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