Lessons from Poblaki

(I wrote this same post for the BGET blog. To check it out: http://bgetblog.blogspot.com)

As the rising sun began to heat the streets of Mae Sot last Thursday, BGET volunteers and technicians (including American volunteers Megan, Josh, and me, and Thai-Karen technicians Thai, Sunti, and Em) teamed up with two folks from a Thai ram pump company to head to Poblaki, a Karen village about 6-7 hours northwest from town. Thomas and Stefan, the folks from the ram pump company, had arrived the night before from their headquarters in Chiang Mai. Several months ago, BGET and the ram pump folks came together to install a ram pump system to deliver water from the nearby stream to the village school (if you are not familiar with ram pumps, please see the end of this post for a short description). This system moves water from the stream to a large tank in the schoolyard. Before the installation, people had to walk nearly one kilometer down a steep path (which became very slippery during the wet season) through the jungle to reach the stream, and then carry several gallons of water back up that same path. With the system installed, families could easily walk to the school yard and use the tank's tap to withdraw the day's water.

Unfortunately, we had heard that the system was broken and water was no longer filling the tank. Those on the team with experience with the system guessed the problem lay in one or more of three possibilities: (1) the pump was not operating properly, (2) the catchment dam was clogged with mud and rocks, or (3) a pipe somewhere in the line was broken.

After a brief stop at a Mae Sot hardware store to pick up a few pieces of possible replacement parts, we hit the road. About 5 or so hours on the highway and a lunch stop just outside the Mae Moei National Park, we began to wind our way up, down, and around the mountains on mostly washed out red clay roads. Large swaths of new green rice plants interrupted the fleece-y dark green of wild jungle plants, and dramatic mountain ridges undulated far into the distance under a striking blue enamel sky. Grey cotton clouds quickly moved into the valley, and a gentle drizzle cooled our sun-warmed skin. After about two hours on the dirt roads, we reached the last river before Poblaki. The monsoon rains had so swollen the river at one point that the bridge had been washed away. We pulled the truck over, packed up the bags and tools, and explored the banks for a shallow way across. Not finding anything promising, we asked a local the best way across, and he pointed us to a thin path a little ways up the hill. After a few minutes of walking in what had developed into a typical seasonal downpour, we crossed a beautiful footbridge constructed entirely of bamboo. After the bridge, we skirted acres of rice fields before arriving at a temporary shelter under the eaves of someone's house. As we waited for the storm to calm a bit, we busied ourselves with grooming -- finding the opportunistic leeches that had stuck themselves fast to our flesh and struggling to tear the slippery creatures away.

When the cacophony of rain had quieted to a dull roar, we thanked our host and began the remaining one kilometer -- all at a significant uphill grade -- to Poblaki. As we walked through town, we greeted folks sitting and chatting together under the protection of friends' and family's roof and watched chickens and dogs huddling together under the homes' raised floors. At the end of a cluster of homes, we arrived at Rose's place, our homestay for the two days.

Once the sun reappeared and we had dried off a bit, we set out to inspect the ram pump. Eight people half-slid, half-tiptoed down the hill to the stream. The Thai-Karen members of the BGET team moved confidently as though they had learned to walk on saturated jungle paths, and Tomas and Stefan admirably struggled to keep up, but the new farang BGET volunteers (i.e. Megan, Josh, and I) quickly fell far behind as we carefully tried to avoid (but didn't quite succeed) falling and sliding the rest of the way down the hill.

When we finally caught up to the rest of the group, we discovered that possible problem number two could have been the culprit. Rocks and silt had almost completely filled the catchment basin to divert most of the water away from the pipe. Once Thomas, Thai, Sunti, and Megan cleaned out the small basin as best we could and more water flowed into the pipe, we headed a little further downstream to inspect the pump. As we stood around watching the ram pump folks tinker a little with the pump system, the clouds opened up a second drenching attack. With the increased flow from the unblocked catchment basin and the rainstorm, the pump quickly kicked into operation. Satisfied that we had resolved problems one and two (pump and catchment basin), we stood around and chatted about the system until the rain abated enough to make the return trip to the village a bit easier. As we walked, we made a cursory visual check of the piping in the pump system, and since we noticed no spurting leaks, we assumed possible problem three was not a problem after all. Back in the village, we went to the school and confirmed that water flowed into the tank. Megan, Josh, and I spent the rest of the afternoon -- now sunny, now rainy -- performing a site survey for a future PV project for the school while the others washed and rested.

Later that evening, after a delicious Karen meal that Sunti, Em, and Thai helped prepare, we learned that in fact the pump system was not working. So, after rising with the sun and the roosters at dawn, Megan, Em, Thai, Sunti, and I suited up in rain gear, gathered tools, and went back to check the system. As before, the rains had swept the catchment basin full of mud and debris. Once the basin was clear, the pump began to work as normal. We returned to the village by following the delivery pipe and stooped to put our hand on the pipe to check that water was indeed flowing up. The ram pump's water hammer caused rhythmic vibrations in the delivery pipe that felt just like the heartbeat of a living thing.

As we traced the pipe up to the village, we saw water glugging out of a broken end, just before the pipe crossed the road to enter the schoolyard. Turns out that problem three -- a broken pipe somewhere in the system -- was in fact our problem. The pipe had been buried under the dirt road that passed outside the schoolyard, but some rains must have washed away enough dirt to expose the pipe to animal or motor traffic. Despite having stopped at the hardware store before leaving Mae Sot, we had not brought along enough of the required pipe size to fix the problem right away. We also suggested that the new pipe be laid inside a large pipe or piece of bamboo to protect it against future damage. Unfortunately, with most of the BGET team heading to Burma this week, we won't be able to return to Poblaki for at least three weeks, and the villagers will have to go back to the old method of fetching water.

So, what have we learned?

(1) A new design for the upstream water catchment is critical. The BGET team tossed around a few simple ideas for debris filters and a deeper catchment basin, as well more complex ideas, such as commoditizing the water with some money paying for a trained village member to clear the basin of mud and check on the pump and piping system whenever the school tank reported low or no flow.

(2) Think through all possible problems, and bring enough supplies to fix any of the problems.

NOTE: A Short Explanation of Ram Pumps

Ram pumps move water using only the inertia of flowing water and pressure gradients -- no fuel and no electricity. A large flow rate falling from a low head (elevation) moves a smaller flow rate up to a greater head. A drive pipe brings water from a catchment basin to the pump. A delivery pipe carries water from the pump to the desired location. Two valves in the pump and an air chamber regulate pressure oscillations (the water hammer) in the pump that force excess water from the drive pipe out of the system and move some flow uphill in the delivery pipe. As the first valve (waste valve) opens to release the excess water, pressure in the system decreases and water from the drive pipe flows into the pump. The entering water forces the waste valve closed. With the waste valve and the second valve (delivery valve) closed, static pressure in the pump builds rapidly. The increased pressure forces open the delivery valve, which allows water to flow into the air chamber to compress the air. When the pressure in the pump exceeds the pressure head of the delivery system, the pump expels water into the delivery pipe. This loss of water decreases the pressure in the pump and the waste valve falls open by gravity and the cycle starts again. The delivery valve is also a check valve to keep water from the delivery pipe from falling back into the pump when the pump pressure decreases.

The working life

Despite spending the bulk of my time sitting in front of MATLAB, I am really enjoying work! Ha, who am I kidding, I love MATLAB. :D

For those who don't know, I'm at Sandia National Labs for the summer, specifically, at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) working on dish/engine systems. We also design, prototype, and test parabolic trough and central tower systems.

With industry hoping to go commercial with dish/engine systems in the near future, the bulk of the work is toward reducing the capital and installation costs of the systems. Right now, each stand-alone dish/engine system is only 25kW, so many thousands will be linked up for a utility scale plant. Materials and installation costs add up pretty quickly when you're dealing with several thousands of something.

The optics of the concentrating dish is the first line of offense in the solar thermal game. If you have a crappy concentrating dish that only sort of focuses some of the sunlight onto the engine receiver, you've already shot the efficiency in the foot. These systems have about a 25 foot diameter parabolic mirror dish to concentrate sunlight into an aperture on the stirling engine perched on a steel frame boom at the dish's focal point. It is prohibitively expensive and nonsensical to manufacture 25 ft-diameter mirrored glass, so the parabolic shape is approximated with 40-80 spherical or parabolic (depending on the design) mirrors called 'facets'. Each of these facets has 3 contact points on the underlying steel frame, and each must be adjusted during system installation so that the whole dish optimally concentrates sunlight to the engine receiver. Currently, four engineers take four hours to accurately align all facets in one dish. To help make the dish/engine system a real competitor on the electric power generation market, we hope to bring this down to one to two non-engineers taking 20 minutes per dish. Kind of a tall order, I think.

But, the four of us interns have been hammering away at a quick alignment process and imaging software for only the past 4 weeks, with 6 weeks left to go, and I think we're going to nail it! I've learned a ton about visioning systems, camera optics, and edge detection. This optics stuff is nowhere near my area of "expertise" -- I'd love to work on some heat transfer problems in the engine itself -- but I think it's working out for the best because this work challenges me to learn and think beyond my comfort level. We already have spoken with the company that will manufacture the aligning device (whatever it will look like), and they're looking forward to receiving the software package we develop to work with their product.

Here's a quick intro to the other interns:

Kirill T. (KTrap, K-Money) is a PhD candidate in electrical engineering at Boston University. Originally hails from Ohio, and Russia before that. Has a tendency to lose and forget basic items, such as ID badge and/or bike helmet. Lives one block behind me, practically in my backyard. One of the regular weekend co-adventurers and morning commute bike buddy. Keeps 37.5 days worth of music on an external hard drive protected in a black hiking sock.

Brian M. (BMan, BMonster) is also a PhD candidate, but at the college of Optics (yes, there is a separate college) at University of Arizona in Tuscon. Speaks with a twang that belies his North Cackalacky roots. Plays after-work soccer in a dress shirt, basketball shorts, and hiking boots. Drives the rest of us interns in the official van from the main base to the NSTTF every morning. Has been happily married since the age of 19. Is learning flamenco guitar. Occasional co-adventurer, since he manages PhD work during his hours between Sandia work.

Scott S. (Special Sauce) is a masters student in flow physics at Stanford. A proud Northeasterner who calls Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire home, he is slowly becoming a California boy. Goes wild for bikes (road, mountain, dirt, and motor) and baseball. The other co-adventurer and occasional morning commute bike buddy. Can hold his own against a large Saggio's pizza and enjoys the simpler tastes in life, like vanilla softserve with rainbow sprinkles. Designed a reed valve while working at a dirt bike engineering company between college and grad school. Speaks Italian.


And now time for a little personal endorsement:
I think solar thermal electricty has a huge potential to provide utility-scale renewable energy in many parts of the United States. Compared to many other countries that already take advantage of the sun for power (Germany) and hot water (China), the US has more solar resource, especially here in the Southwest. Unlike solar photovoltaic systems that rely on complicated materials science, nanotech, and chemical engineering, solar thermal systems use well-developed turbine and engine technologies already used in conventional power plants. Stirling Energy Systems, Inc. -- the company with which we work here at Sandia -- is looking to break ground on the first MWs of their dish/engine systems in a little over a year. So keep your ears to the ground (or eyes to the sky?) for more info.

Engines in operation at the NSTTF:

Two on-sun, and two in stow position:

First impressions

Albuquerque, and New Mexico at large, has considerably surprised me as a great place to live. Sure, when I'm browsing the produce section at the local co-op grocery and all I see are CA-grown grapes and peaches, or when I'm biking home from work under smothering heat and a fierce headwind and daydreaming of the waves at Pacifica, sure, then I miss California.

But here in ABQ, we have afternoon thunderstorms!

We have green and red chiles, and honey and sopaipillas. We have jaw-droppingly stunning sunsets against a horizon of stark mesas and ancient volcanoes. We have warm, dry evenings. We have coyotes and roadrunners (beep beep!), and prairie dogs and hummingbirds. We have a college town with legitimately affordable restaurants and stores (*gasp*, no!). We have national forests and permit-less backcountry camping. We have high desert and low desert and woodland and alpine meadow. We have a pretty good AAA baseball team, the Albuquerque Isotopes (yes, that is a Simpsons reference). We have sweet metamorphic-something crag for trad, sport, and bouldering just 20 minutes outside of town. And, we do have a burgeoning crop of fixies. Look out, San Francisco and Portland!


If I'm going to shift the (oh geez, the cats are playing with a still alive cockroach now) blame for not writing this blog from myself to something or someone else, I'd have to say it's because I have been taking the time to discover and enjoy this place (now they're eating it!). I spend roughly 11 hours a day commuting to and from and being at work, and then spend the next four hours climbing plastic at the local gym, biking around town, playing soccer, and/or scoping out hip restaurants, bars, and music venues with friends. That leaves about 2 hours to cook dinner and lunch for the next day at work before collapsing in a sweaty, tired heap on my bed. Weekends so far have been camping trips around NM (this coming weekend is to Colorado, actually; my first time there!), BBQs at friends' places, and Isotopes games, where I give in to my secret craving for Dippin'Dots. "Friends" so far are limited to the three other grad interns in the lab and their roommates and neighbors, and they make for a great crew. We've made a checklist of things to do before we leave (two of the other interns are bouncing in 2 weeks because they got out of school in May and started the internship a while ago), so I expect to spend the remainder of the weekends on similar outdoors adventures. We've also passed a sweet roller rink several times on our way out of town, so that's definitely on The List.

I think the 'Topes are at bat in this one:

Some of the crew, waitin' to catch a home run:

Inter-inning entertainment, NM-style: green chile vs. red chile vs. taco:

White Sands National Monument:

















Interns (minus BMonster) at White Sands:

Locking off on a sweet hand jam at the local crag:

Apologies...

OK. It's been, what, a month and a half or so since I last posted, and I've received plenty of flak from you folks out there on the interweb about updating this blog. I was never a good journaler -- my bookshelf back home is filled with lovely journals from well-meaning friends, each with only the first ten pages or so filled with promises to keep up the writing and record every thought, wish, experience, and impression. It's really no surprise to me that I've been a disaster at blogging so far; I can only attribute my desire to start it in the first place to that sense of new beginnings that graduation brings, which had been previously presented on the crisp, clean pages of a new journal.

The internet is down in the house right now, so I'm jotting this down on Notepad. May the stars helps us that I eventually get around to posting this online...

Shutting down and rebooting, part 2

Well, if part 1 was the 'shutting down' -- saying good-bye to school and friends and getting all nostalgic -- let this post be the 'rebooting' and beginning a new life, just to drag out the horrible nerd analogy.

So, what's next for me? Here's the general outlook for the next year or so:

2008
15 June: graduation
16 June: find a place/move in in Albuquerque for Sandia Labs internship (solar thermal electric power -- w00t!)
18 June: back in Palo Alto to chill
21 June: Sierra Camp
29 June: back in Albuquerque
30 June: first day of work in the Labs
5 September: last day of work in the Labs

(weird interim period, not sure what's happening -- surf trip? rice thresher stuff?)

22 September: first day in Thailand for Border Green Energy Team MAP fellowship with MEGAN KERINS!! (coolest, sweetest chica ever)
22 December: Thai visa expires

(another weird interim period -- the motherland/Okinawa? folks come visit?)

2009
(plans get a little vague here)
22 Jan: most likely back in Thailand
April-ish: Urumqi, Xianjian, P.R. China for internship with Goldwind
14 June: little sister graduates college
summer: finding an actual job (gasp! no!) in the States (or elsewhere?)

SO.

That's roughly what life looks like. As far as I can tell, only the next 11 weeks are solidly figured out. That's ok by me. I've got to work for Sandia for at least 10 weeks, and I have to start in Thailand on the 22nd. There's that weird interim period that I'm hoping to go to Myanmar to work with IDE|M on the rice thresher project some friends and I developed this year as part of a d.school class. But, with the Burmese visa situation being as complicated as it currently is, the chances I could go in September are slim right now. But, cross fingers! It would be really neat to go over and help bring our project into reality to help farmers have a successful first rice crop after the cyclone.

Anyway, the folks came for graduation and helped me pack my life into boxes (to be shipped to the homestead back East) and backpacks/roller duffels (to take on the plane). They came along to ABQ to help me find a place to live for the summer while I'm at Sandia. By the first day, we found a cute house with two other awesome students really close to UNM and the downtown, and a reasonable biking distance to the labs. It was great to spend a few days with them, but I think they got a little weepy when we went our separate ways in the Albuquerque airport ('scuse me, the sunport). Luckily, my little sister is coming back from her quarter in Paris today, so the folks can get their offspring fix with her. (Just kidding, mère et père. I miss youse guys, too.)

Since it didn't take very long to find a place, I'm back in town for a bit, just doing a whole lot of nothing. Tidying up messes left from end-of-quarter projects, chilling with friends, trying to just enjoy the present moment....and finally catching up on six years worth of sleep debt. Ha.

I'm off to Sierra Camp for the week tomorrow, so I probably won't write again until I'm settled back in ABQ. Then, dear readers, look forward to ten weeks of delightful nerd postings about the wonders of solar thermal electric power!

Shutting down and rebooting, part 1

Ok. Granted. That is a LAME geeky computer metaphor for how I am leaving the plush student life and starting up in the "real world". Which of course will still not be the real "real world" as long as I keep traveling around the world sampling different internships and avoiding settling down in a career and paying rent and utility bills.

But graduation weekend has a tendency to bring out the nostalgia in most people, and, being a famously (or, infamously) nostalgic and sentimental person, I'm feeling this transition away from college pretty fiercely.

For example: yesterday afternoon brought a bunch of fantastic brilliant funny caring dynamic thoughtful passionate people to my house for a graduation picnic/bbq. They were friends I had met thanks to a variety of activities I've done in my past six years of school. Seeing them all together really knocked it home that I have been stunningly lucky to have shared time-space with them at this crazy academic institution we've called home. And in a few short days, I feel that I will have to turn and walk away from it all, to leave the voices and bodies clamoring in collegiate activities -- the fountain hopping, the rocking out to the Band, the co-op cooking, the midterm frenzy studying, the ultimate playing, the problem set writing, the all-nighter pulling, the campus loop running -- and face the uncertain edge of my world whose sights sounds smells and actions I don't know yet. It's enough to tug at the ol' heartstrings just a li'l bit.

Wow, ok. That was enough introspection for now. I've got to get back to some last minute research before my meeting this afternoon...