Urgent Evoke

A crash course in changing the world.

My Evokation - Portable Helical Watermills

1. The Place – where will you make a difference? Describe the institution, community, town or other geographic or virtual space in which you will focus your efforts.

Although my business may be based on the University of Portsmouth’s business campus, I truly want to develop my project in one of the most difficult places in theworld: the Third World. While the majority of us have lived in a form of luxury for years in nuclear-prolific countries, most people in the Third World live without food, without water and without adequate shelter. It is time we give back to these countries and then they will support us in the future if Climate Change still acc**ulates into a global natural disaster.

It is thought that electricity is not as much a necessity in times like these, but one must take into account that their civilisation will only thrive if all forms of infrastructure (food, water and power) are developed harmoniously. Renewable technology may also help speed up the restoration of agriculture and water purification in its largely barren lands, to provide greater quality of resources already available, instead of depending on humanitarian aid. We must build for a better tomorrow, but build wisely by turning away from fossil fuels and towards renewable power that can provide the same benefits without further polluting our environment.


2. The Challenge – what will you aim to change, and for whom? Highlight what is the need that you perceive and who will benefit from this change.

We have always benefitted ourselves with technology that damages the environment by dumping massive amounts of CO2 and other emissions, threatening the Monsoons every year. Global temperatures are steadily rising, lush farmland is becoming barren deserts and water shortages are increasing. People from my background may not be suffering as much as those in Africa, China and similarly affected parts of the world, but if we don’t change our principles, it’s only a matter of time.

We must examine renewable energy more carefully and not aimlessly build projects that will amount to nothing over the long-term; what’s needed are projects that will take the best science we have available and develop new, sustainable systems. Adding a few thousand wind turbines or solar panels to a hill somewhere is not as useful as it once was – we need to explore other devices in-concept or making prototypes that will achieve far better results.


3. The Idea – your solution: what is the action, product, service, project, change that you will initiate? Tell us how your idea will succeed where others have failed.

Power Generation
The watermills will be meant either for areas where a natural disaster has occurred (thus requiring the use of a simple and portable power generator for triage sites), or for areas that have an abundance of drinking water that has become polluted. In simple terms the device is a source of power that doesn’t depend on erecting massive generators that disturb a landscape. Similar to a large watermill used by old breweries or homes here in the UK, it is a relatively small, modular and easy-to-assemble hydroelectric generator for areas where electricity is needed, but getting it to people is impractical because of the surrounding terrain.

It works a lot like a set of dynamos specially designed for the water... once assembled, it is comprised of a pair flexible but durable fishing cables situated each side of five (or possibly seven) helix-shaped turbines in a single metre. These turbines would be arranged in a staggered pattern above and below the cabling apparatus and be made to catch the flow of a waterway or waterfall’s currents as they pass through. Using the mechanical movement they would stream energy along the cabling to the rear of the apparatus, into a series of waterproof power cells that can be easily removed, or a six-metre output cable for direct transfer. If more generators are needed, the watermills will be designed to connect to more of themselves using a “daisy chain” structure end-to-end, so the power requirements are augmented easily.

Water Filtration
The generator may also have a secondary component where the turbines themselves aren’t actually solid objects, incorporating some form of filtration system. In this manner their outer shell will be a 1cm Teflon coating to protect them from algae or silt in the water from building up on their surface, but inside this there will be an easily replaceable cartridge containing a chemical (such as a combination of iodide crystals and vitamins) that break down in the stored water, collected through drip-filtration system.

When the turbines rotate they carry a small amount of water through a pump, through a charcoal filter, to a sealed container located onshore. This filtered water is then purified using a UV Light to remove pathogens. Like the generators, the filtration system is modular and could be linked together into a single purifier, drawing some of the electricity from the turbines collectively to power the UV filters...

At time of writing, only a small amount of research has been performed in regards to water filtration, so it is possible that the purifiers won’t appear until the first generation of helical power systems have already been tested in the field. These may also use helix wind generators; to operate a turbine pump once the water is in the container and a Solid State heating process to boil for removing bacteria.


4. The Money – what would you do with your first US$1,000 given or invested in support of your vision?

All the money will probably be placed in the bank to gain interest on its value, until an appropriate digital prototype has been made that properly shows the system and how it will work. The plan is that these devices will cost no more than £50 each to manufacture and then a lower, more affordable price for communities in the Third World with aid support, following a two-year period of rigorous testing.

The first generation of Helix Watermills will be developed at the Portsmouth Centre for Enterprise (PCE) in co-operation with a humanitarian organisation such as the Red Cross, who will work with the prototypes of the system when they are ready for deployment. Testing will initially occur in areas recovering from a natural disaster and facilitate the efforts of providing portable power supplies for makeshift triage sites. This is before they are sold for general purpose use in communities that has a waterway, in which people can sufficiently generate the electricity themselves.

Once testing has been completed for the first-generation Helix Watermills, it is likely work will commence on either a second-generation prototype, or the filtration units that will augment the existing technology. An official business plan for this product is in development and will be ready by 13th May 2010.

Views: 40

Comment by Simon Spencer on May 16, 2010 at 1:29pm
I probably won't be for this product since it's in the wrong area compared to yours. But, I'm still formulating thoughts about how to do the Helix Purifier, and I believe a smaller version of that might work for what you're doing.

Like I said though, I'm really rough with this bug so probably won't be doing anything besides talking for a while.

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