Environment friendly and environment sensitive energy use.

 

Considering the adverse effects of fossil fuels like climate change, desertification, destruction of plant and animal species with the consequent implications to human life.

Considering the astronomical rise of the cost of fossil fuels and the projected future rises due to increased demand and stagnation reserves, not forgetting international and regional political instability in various parts of the world especially the sources of raw materials.

We came to the conclusion that the only way forward for Africa is through, high efficiency and environmentally friendly energy utilisation. In this regard the following were developed.

Environmentally friendly energy sources.

Solar energy.

Solar cooking devices: Parabolic solar stoves which cooks as quickly as other gas, wood, derisive or electric stoves:

Solar box type ovens which cook although quite slowly, foods requiring boiling.

Solar panel cookers which also cook foods requiring boiling only.

Solar water heaters: These can use the direct rays of the sun to heat water stored in a storage tank.       This water can be used for all sorts of domestic uses including central heating

Solar fruits and crop drying: These cut to zero some of the waste of harvested crops due to lack of preservation methods. The promotion of this technology should raise farmer’s revenues, stabilise prices, eliminate wastes, and protect the environment because in some cases wood burning ovens are used to dry some crops such as cocoa. There are many other economic social and psychological advantages:

Solar thermal electricity:

This system which uses the sun’s heat to boil water (a working fluid) which then passes through turbines to turn a dynamo is only economical to implement at the community level, not the individual level. Unlike the photovoltaic system this can be designed and built locally, with purely home grown technology.

Photo voltaic solar electricity: Uses solar panels to convert the sun’s energy directly into electricity. The main disadvantage of this system is the cost.

Wind energy:

We have designed a vertical axis wind turbine which is cheap to build and doesn’t require any tower nor a mechanism to turn it towards the wind. It’s only handicap id the tendency to vibrate<; something which can easily be solved using many methods including undamped vibration absorbers.

Micro hydro installation: We can design and build site adapted hydro power stations even from small streams. A good solution for villages or castles far from the national grid.

Biomass energy sources:

Using animal and plant waste: In this system the animal and plant wastes are put into a digester and are digested by micro organisms an aerobically to produce biogas which is a mixture of CO2 and CH4 plus a tiny amount of H2S. This gas can be used for direct lighting using a mesh dipped in thorium nitrate (mantle), for cooking by connecting it directly to a conventional gas cooker, to generate electricity by adapting a gen set which would have used petrol. Later on we may consider the possibility of feeding it to a fuel cell ad produce electricity direct from chemical energy.

By burning wood from tree farms and filtering all the carbon particles from the smoke. This can be used in enhanced wood cookers which improve efficiency by 60% compared to the traditional three stone pot supports. These enhanced cookers can be made from iron or ceramic. (A vitrified mixture of ,clay, hay and cow dung in the ratio 4:1:1) Our overall aim is to promote the development and implementation of energy efficiency at grass root level. For example in a maize farm. Maize is planted on land fertilised by organic fertilizer (manure) from the biogas plant. The grown maize leaves and sugar cane like stalks are feed for animals (cows, goats, sheep, and chicken) The dung from the animals is fed into the biogas plant. The core from the maize after the grains are removed is used to grow mushrooms. The mushrooms can be sold directly giving more revenue to the farmer or dried and packaged as a spice. The mushroom mycelia will help convert the polysaccharides in the maize core into monosaccharide and disaccharides thus providing more fodder for animals. The irrigation if required could be done using energy from the wind or biogas plant. There is also the possibility we could explore in the future of producing cellulose ethanol which is a fuel and antiseptic and a bases for the production of plastics. This is just an example using maize. Almost every crop has also many spin offs and advantages.

Enhanced efficiency electric cookers(100W): 

These cookers designed to cook things requiring boiling only thus, temperatures < 100°C, take advantage of the possibility of cutting heat losses due to cooking by insuring that most of the energy used up is to heat cooker and content to 100°C. After that the amount of energy going to waste (less than 100W). In this way we can cook with electricity at less than a third of the cost of cooking the same with wood or charcoal. Moreover the former is less polluting to the environment.

The solar and wind based electricity systems: 

Because of the intermittent nature of their availability require some form of storage. To this end two electronic power sources were designed and prototypes built.

Ngubong 203. This device 60cmX60cmX30cm works like a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) which can enable continuous use of ,power for ,house hold appliances, (TV, lights, computers) after a power outage. *the power used is automatically replenished when the mains power returns. It has darkness/light sockets through which appliances we require using exclusively at night such as security lights or during the day can be connected. It has an inbuilt alarm system for personal security. It can operate as an indoor accessory and manage the power generated by the wind, solar, hydro and biomass based systems

Ngubong 103: It is a miniaturised model (23cmX12cmX12cm) for motorists and lorry drivers. It provides power for lighting and other light uses such as charging mobile phones from the vehicle batter. It can light up the whole village ceremony or picnic. It indicates the charge level of the vehicle battery and indicates if the vehicle recharging mechanism is functioning properly. It can be connected to the mains supply and used to recharge the vehicle battery.

Locally built standby gen sets:  We can by using a car engine and an electric motor build a gen set with automatic starting either as a backup power unit in a comprehensive UPS system of as a stand alone unit.

To help the fisheries industry and marine transport:

We have started to design boats to be built of wood and mounted with car engines. Many islands around the coast have low occupancy and reduced activities because with the present situation, with marine transport, these islands are several hours away. Hovercrafts, hydrofoils and woken boats could change all that.

More efficient street lights: The street light currently being used in 2007 are 500W mercury vapour lamps leading to electricity bills of the order of 100million CFA Francs per month for a town such as Douala (about 3million inhabitants). By using more efficient lighting systems, we can increase the brightness of the lights and lower the consumption to 200W. That should make the municipal bill to be just 40% of what it was before.

Transformation of local materials:

There is an almost endless list of products which can be produced from local materials some of which is currently being thrown away. Agriculture being such an important sector of the economy, the first natural effort such be products which can be obtained by transforming agricultural produce by trying to use as much of the harvest as possible. Such as in the example about maize above. Some examples of products we can obtain from agricultural produce include Dextrin, glucose, starch, glues, adhesives;, fruit juices, pickles, marmalades, jams, syrups, pectin, Albumen, Acetaldehyde, soaps vegetable oils, glycerine, skin care products disinfectants, insecticides and fungicides, dried fruits etc There are lots of other products which can be produced locally from local raw materials and semi finished products as  well as recycling which are being ignored at the moment, leading to a lot of waste and lost opportunity such as electronic devices, electromechanical and mechanical devices etc.

 

 

Sheikh Mohammed Ngubong

Commercial Industrial and Engineering consultant

Tel: 237-699917339 or 237-678856211