5. Create new activities that did not exist before – such as local water purification, local food processing, local bio-char production, food and brick baking, and even tourist attractions – making life not only sustainable in the long term but better in the short term. Not only does such new activities increase solar enthusiasm, but it can also spark global-local development giving any such technology a life of it’s own.
Recommended reading:
Vesta-Helios Advantages
The Principles of Solar Concentration
Benefits of Solar Fire
The Urgency of Local Solar Power
Solar Fire Vision (pdf) (html)
Travellers! Pack some Solar Fire!
Without a source of heat - fire - most people on earth would not survive.
Our use of and dependency on fire is one of the deepest roots of our environmental problems.
When we burn wood for heat we cause deforestation and desertification, we destroy biodiversity, cause soil erosion, and limit the earth’s ability to repair itself.
When we burn fossil fuels for heat we cause global warming, acid rain, particulate pollution, and the acidification of the oceans.
We have been burning things to get heat for so long, and heat is such a fundamental need, that most people have never even wondered whether we could heat our homes, water, food, and industrial processes in any other way.
However, we don’t need to burn living or fossilized organic matter for heat, we can rethink fire.
We tap solar energy directly for heat, instead of indirectly through plants. By concentrating the sun’s light we can easily obtain the heat we need to live.
Low tech solar concentration is especially adapted to be used at a local scale for anything to do with heat anywhere where there’s sun. Low tech solar concentration is the only realistic alternative to fuel wood and fossil fuels for most people on the planet.
A loose network of people who want to build as many solar concentrators as possible, spread the knowledge, especially in countries poor in dollars but rich in sun. To spread the solar fire !
To this end we voyage, build and test, make construction guides, built this site ...
The Projects section presents our current projects. Initiatives presented here go from roasting cocoa in southern Mexico, to the construction of a bread oven in Mali, the creation of an association in France to support micro-projects in Africa.
This site was built so that anyone (individuals or organizations) can download a guide, build a machine, contribute their technical and human experience and become a platform on solar information. All are welcome to participate.
Technology