Pitch
Windmills could generate electricity, organic material, reduce CO2 emission and generate water. Using windmills could solve world problems.
Description
Summary
Windmills are overseen by their one unique use case; generation of electricity using wind as a resource. Recent technology has however made use of windmills to solve other scenarios such as CO2 emission and generation of water through air humidity.
For CO2 reduction, there is ongoing technology that has successfully made CO2 into pellets. This means that CO2 is under a cyclic process instead of in a unidirectional process, emitting CO2 to the atmosphere.
AWG’s are also heavily used to generate water from air humidity and this has proven great success. These windmills can produce water for villages in African countries with very little maintenance cost.
To leverage the current technology stack we currently have, to solve problems in other areas than intended, is why innovation has succeeded in modern world. We can do the same for windmills, helping African agriculture or agriculture in general to increase the profits of people that have a bad fundament to grow crops or generate a balanced living standard.
The challenges we face today with, for instance, El Nino and humanitarian aid, are being tackled at a too little stage. Victims of these problems often have a bad outcome and we simply aren’t having enough to give. In order to provide essential resources to people in Africa, we cannot depend on $636 million in funding to aid these people. There are currently 7.5M people that need aid in terms of food and water. We need to find a solution in order to compensate on our lack of “funding”.
Windmills are a good starting point. If this were to succeed, we could tackle these problems with less interference in terms of financial aid through resources such as food and water.
The windmill itself is a combination of solutions from AWG, Direct Air capture and electricity. Direct Air Capture/Bio provides the possibility to generate low-emitting carbon fuel, AWG generates water and electricity could also be an addition to the windmill.
DAC turns to organic material in the right format.
What actions do you propose?
Key outcomes are that sustainable agriculture in Africa is exponentially growing during the period this would be in place. It would allow African farmers to have a better fundament to build their societies and it allows a higher living standard for an citizen.
It also allows western countries to invest more resources in other areas such as education of these people, instead of investing it all to essential resources such as food and water. If this were to succeed, they would manage to do so partially themselves.
In terms of measurement, we could use a biopyramid/energypyramid to see derived changes from before and after the installation of the windmill. We could also look at carbon emissions derived, to see if the Carbon Dioxide has been successfully transferred and "recycled" in terms of being included as a cyclic process instead of an unidirectional process ( emitting to the atmosphere ).
We could then see that less funding would be required in order to provide essensial resources to these people and it would allow the non-profit organizations to focus on other problems such as epidemics.
Actions to utilize windmills would need to be taken in terms of technical agreements and afterwards come up with a plan to distribute these properly.
To utilize the windmills, we would need to come up with a design scheme and technical scheme that fits the purpose and combines the technologies in a way that decreases the cost while serving the purpose. We would need to consider an ”accessory” strategy where the user could buy a attachment instead of the entire tool.
The end user is an average African citizen. To achieve a steady distribution plan, we would need to involve manufacturers and other partners such as AWG startups/firms that use this technology, and then come up with a prototype that fits the purpose of the project.
To gain revenue, we would first install a windmill with a payoff plan, meaning that we would not charge anything until we see that it has benefits and that the "Buyer" is having a increased profit and that the buyer has the ability to pay back the cost of installation and production.
Key points:
· Manufacturing facility
· Production tools and equipment
· Collaboration
In order to scale, a windmill would get installed in a more dense area as a connection point, where the community shares the expense to install it in a longer period.
The starting point is not mass distribution, but a distribution model that is intended to scale over time. This might be hard when not choosing mass distribution as a starting point, but if needed we could distribute for modern agriculture first and then adapt to African after we've got a viable production budget.
Cultural challenges would be that the tool is too expensive for the end user and that the project doesn’t succeed at making this viable for African Agriculture. That is in the worst case scenario. If this shows potential in the European/American market, this project would succeed.
Another issue might be the lack of wind or air humidity. In order for this to pay of, we could need to analyze geographical advantages like Tesla has done with their Car Batteries. We could utilize air pressure, altitude and temperature to solve this.
Who will take these actions?
Startups and individuals that have worked on this previously would need to participate in this project. This means that key actors are current firms working with this technology and individuals with the skill-set to do so. Research wouldn't be needed, but a good design and technical scheme would.
To make this happen, we would need to have a minimal of two experienced people involved. To include the government for funding is needed, as this is a non-profit based mission, although the costs and expenses has to be balanced. Therefore the project has to have profit-based distribution model.
A good starting point for involvement would be to speak about this at a larger scale to get involvement and later continue to implement this once the interest to make it happen is in place.
Where will these actions be taken?
African Countries with need of humanitarian aid ( Distribution Phase 3)
European Countries ( Distribution Phase 2 )
Areas with Red Soil, the need of humanitarian aid, or few resources ( Distribution Phase 3)(The US has red soil in Texas)
American Agricultural States ( Distribution Phase 1)
Latin American Countries ( Distribution Phase 1-2 )
How much will emissions be reduced or sequestered vs. business as usual levels?
See the "Action" section
What are other key benefits?
See other sections.
What are the proposal’s costs?
Expected budged would be very inaccurate at this point. This solution would need to be developed as profit, as it's too expensive to develop as a non-profit. To generate funding we would naturally depend on investors and governments to help.
This solution will be sustainable by default, meaning it would pay of if it shows potential regardless. The concerns are that firms aren't willing to collaborate or that it turns enterprise-like and too expensive for the end user.
To generate funding, we would need to get governments involved or larger agencies as well as private funders if needed. This isn't fit for commercial use, but moreso humanitarian-like.
Prototyping would need a funding of somewhere around $100K, depending on the integration process of technical schemes. To generate a cheap prototype, we could go down to 3D printing and require far less, around $20-30K.
Early distribution/production might be the biggest obstacle, as this requires a market that needs this in the western society. It could scale well if we distribute at a macro-scale to individuals with the target group of South American Farmers or Latin-American farmers.
We could also distribute to firms, where the intended target group would be city-located firms with opportunities to grow crops. We could look for involvement from "The Kitchen" in NYC for collaboration.
Time line
0 - 2 years - Prototyping
Prototyping of the product, early adoption of the combined technology and development of a good technical scheme.
2-5 years - Development and Early Distribution at year 4
Distribution, stage-1 or stage-2.
5-8 years - Distribution to African Agriculture and intended end user
Related proposals
References
http://www.gr8water.net/products/atmospheric-water-generators
http://time.com/75612/atmospheric-water-generator-watergen/
http://carbonengineering.com/our-technology
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/use/?cid=nrcs142p2_054024
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