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Our Open-Source Biodigester Model in Action

Visionary permaculturists Paulo Mellett and Fabio Poesia Sambasoul in front of their Insinkerator and Solar CITIES biogas system in Sao Paulo

August 6, 2014

Basic training opportunities in small scale biogas build confidence and familiarity with biogas before launching into a larger community-size builds.

Our Facebook group “Solar CITIES Biogas Innoventors and Practitioners” encourages people around the world to get involved. Individuals, with guidance and advice from members of the Facebook group, build their own small-scale systems so that they gain confidence and expertise and can leverage success at the home-scale to garner larger funding opportunities.

As our network grows, Solar CITIES builds and trainings are beginning to occur in more and more locations. They are led by people who have been inspired by the open-source sustainable development network concept.

Our dear friend Paulo Mellett (RIP brother! We miss you down here!) was a leader in bringing open-source solutions to the world and blessed us when he embraced the Solar CITIES small biogas cause and made it his own.

Before his untimely death from malaria contracted while building biodigesters in Ghana, he made this video of the installation of our open-source Solar CITIES 3 IBC system in Sao Paulo.

We hope this helps others who want to replicate and improve not only the Solar CITIES open-source systems but the philosophy of collective intelligence leading to a better world.  Paulo’s video from Sao Paulo helps others visualize the storage system we developed with Hanna Fathy and Mike Rimoin in 2009 in Cairo. We built this system with Alvaro Silva, Mike Bonifer, and Danny Barth in south Los Angeles in 2010. We also built it in Alaska with Adam Low, in Santa Rosa with Frank Di Massa as well as Slovakia and Budapest in 2011.

This unit in Sao Paulo, Brazil we think is now the only functioning one of its kind. The one in Cairo was discontinued when the teacher at the SEKEM school left, the one in Los Angeles was stolen, the ones in Alaska were dismantled at the end of the project and the storage tanks froze, the one in Northern California was given away to be reassembled some other time, the one in Slovakia has gone off radar, while the one in Budapest was forbidden by authorities to be operated. So this one, run by Fabio Poesia Sambasoul, is the one to watch for future progress on this front. 

Our projects continue in Brazil, both through the work we are doing with Urban BioRecovery: Digesters for Development and through Paulo’s legacy and our commitment to Catalytic Communities.

The Solar CITIES Model in Action at Vale Encantado

The Puxin system at Vale Encatado Favelo in Rio ready to receive concrete for the neck/gasholder

August 6, 2014

When the pours were finished in Niteroi, T.H., Jorma and the local team from Niteroi took the molds by pick-up truck to the rainforest Favela, “Vale Encantado”. They worked with Theresa Williamson and Catalytic Communities, an NGO that specializes in community development and empowerment. Catalytic Communities was one of the inspirations and catalysts for Solar C3CITIES (Connecting Community Catalysts Integrating Technologies for Industrial Ecology Solutions). Vale Encantado community leader Ottavio Alves Barros came to a workshop in Niteroi on Puxin assembly that Cuhane, Teller, and Vasconcellos gave during the build there. Inspired by the workshop, Alvez Barros finished a food waste digester for their communal kitchen in July of 2014 with the assistance of Marcello Ambrosio, Luis Vasconcellos,  Tito Cals and Leo Adler.

Marcello, Leo and Tito assemble the Puxin neck molds to finish the build

This is a great example of the Solar CITIES development model in action. Each build in a community acts as a training opportunity for members from other communities to gain the expertise to do it themselves.  Once a build is finished in one place, the biogas molds can be transported to the next community where another build can take place, training members of another community.  The molds can then be passed to another community.  The Puxin molds become like a traveling circus. The circus moves on but new performers join in each new location. It is basically the same show with new players. And similar to a wave, the water is localized but the movement is ever forward. In this spirit, Solar CITIES sets the wave in motion by joining receptive communities and building a small scale biogas system out of local materials.

In the summer of 2013, Culhane and Vasconcellos, joined by Insinkerator’s Julio Porta, built a 500-liter biogas system in Niteroi at the old creche (day care center) out of the typical Brazilian tapered open water tank just to show that it could be done.

An ARTI style digester built out of a typical tapered 500 liter Brazilian water barrel, just to show it could be done.

During Culhane’s next visit, he and Vasconcellos built an experimental 500-liter system out of a typical sealed water tank with the members of Alemao Verdejar.

Luis and T.H. experimenting with a new design for using off-the-shelf water tanks as biodigesters in the Alemao Verdejar Favela

These basic training opportunities in small scale biogas build confidence and familiarity with biogas before launching into a larger community size build.

Read more about our Vale Encantado work in English here and here and in Portugese here in articles by our Brazilian NGO partner Catalytic Communities.

Bringing Puxin Biodigesters to Brazil

Photo by Jorma Görns – Luis Felipe Vasconcellos and T.H. Culhane discuss placement of an additional gas holder

July 25, 2014

Solar CITIES intern Jorma Gorns joined T.H. Culhane on a project bringing Puxin 10m3 biodigester molds to sites in Rio De Janeiro.  The initial work was done by Solar Cities Solution’s Biogas Education team members T.H. Culhane, Yair Teller, and Marcello Ambrosio, working with Dr. Gail Richardson and Architecture for Humanity’s architect Luis Felipe Vasconcellos. Three digesters were built at the site of a new elementary school and day care in Niteroi including two 4m3 units for the school’s toilet waste and one 10m3 unit for the cafeteria waste.  A constructed wetland was built alongside the school to further aerobically phytoremediate the effluent from the humanure digesters. The effluent from the food waste digester can be used directly in the school garden.

You can learn more about this project in an article by the Brazlian NGO “Catalytic Communities” in their Rio on Watch Newsletter in English here and in Portugese here.

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Indoor Kitchen Biodigester

Jorma, Rafael and friends from Alemao in front of the kitchen biodigester
Luis and T.H. experimenting with a new design for using off the shelf water tanks as biodigesters in the Alemao Verdejar Favela

January 17, 2014

Solar CITIES e.V.  normally sets the wave in motion by joining receptive communities and building a small scale biogas system out of local materials.

In the summer of 2013 Culhane and Vasconcellos, joined by Insinkerator’s Julio Porta, built a 500 liter biogas system in Niteroi at the old Creche (day care center) out of the typical Brazilian tapered open water tank just to show that it could be done.

The next visit Culhane made, he and Vasconcellos built an experimental  500 liter system out of a typical sealed water tank with the members of Alemao Verdejar.

These basic training opportunities in small scale biogas build confidence and familiarity with biogas before launching into a larger community size build.

Read more about our Vale Encantado work in English here and in Portugese here in articles by our Brazilian NGO partner Catalytic Communities.

This article was also written about the project.

Learn more about the Verdejar Alemao hand made solar hot water system here.

For more on Verdejar as a sustainable community here.