9 July 2014
I (now we) are wrapping up our visit in Bugiri and
preparing to move on to the north tomorrow where we’ll pay a visit to the
lovely ladies (and fellas) at TEWDI in Soroti. Denis Weboya, my colleague from
Makerere Univ in Kampala, came in on Monday. It’s great to have him along for
the rest of the Ugandan leg of this trip- he’s a local Ugandan from outside of
Mbale who helps me navigate through the nuances of Ugandan culture (ie.
bargaining for bota fares and calling out clever hotel managers trying to tack
on additional charges to tourists), he also has a good handle on low-cost
technologies for renewable energy production and is excited to work with locals
developing clean energy enterprises in his country.
Despite feeling a bit unprepared for this field visit
just coming off of a large (and successful!) experimental campaign at Berkeley
Lab last month, the first leg has turned out better than I expected. The fine
people from Nakabale Integrated Development Group were most welcoming when
Sylvia and I arrived at the production site, located on Mzee’s (pronounce muh-zeh’s)
farm, on Monday morning with yips and shouts coming from the group of women who
were pounding away on D-Lab briquette hand presses as we walked up. After
catching up with these people, who now on my third visit, feel like members of
my African of my extended family, my handy local assistant, Moses Ekiring, and
I set right to work while Sylvia went over the numbers with Peter and Robert.
We began clearing out a space in the brick storage building for what would soon
become the Nakabale Charcoal Briquette Testing Laboratory. Before we knew it
our friend George Guaraj showed up from his farm and happily joined in arranging
the lab.
I came with two large duffels filled with supplies to
help these young scientists begin evaluating the cooking fuel and stoves that
they produce and work to meet new fuel standards that HFI is establishing based
on user requirements, fuel savings, and emissions reduction targets. A
blackboard made from a piece of scrap plywood, a wood lab bench hand made by a local
carpenter, testing instructions and equipment from D-Lab, a couple of days of
instruction, and Moses and George are now overseeing testing at Nakabale’s new
quality lab, probably the first of its kind at any fuel producer in Africa. It
was great to work with these guys and see them get excited about their new
roles in the organization and the HFI research team- no PhD needed here. During
the coming months, Moses, George and other youth in the Nakabale group will
perform weekly tests to measure briquette and char density, durability,
moisture content, ash content and fuel efficiency. Those results will then be passed
along to Nakabale director, Robert Ekiring, who will upload them to a
cloud-based database. The HFI team will use these test results to understand
trends in fuel properties and effects of different feedstock recipes and
production methods on fuel performance, and ultimately feed this information back
to help Nakabale and the many other briquette and stove producers effectively produce
a quality and safe product for their communities. Happy experimenting Moses and
George! Time for Denis and I to say farewell, grab our bags and track down a
ride up north where our work continues in Soroti-town.
(Still struggling with photo uploads, but hopefully get some on here or the FB soon)
Update: Photos posted to Facebook album here
Update: Photos posted to Facebook album here
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