I am back from a month in Kenya. I arrived in the UK worn out, dusty, dirty, smelly (after a 9 hour trip on an old bus then straight onto a plane) and hungry.

At home, a shower, a meal, a cup of tea (strong, little milk and sugar, rather than Kenyan-style), and I could sit back and figure out what has been achieved on this trip.

Our biggest achievement was to build an anaerobic digester. We didn’t follow any of my designs as funds were limited and a “proper” system would have cleared out my wallet long before I was due to come back. So we compromised. We scoured the markets of Kisii for plumbing connections and fittings, eventually finding enough bits and pieces that actually fitted together to make the first build.

After a bit of negotiation (bartering) we acquired a 45 gallon oil drum, fitted all the bits and pieces and filled it with cow slurry and waited. A digester usually takes about a week to start producing gas.

But we were impatient, so a couple of days later, we opened the tap. The smell that came out of the tap was awful – as you can well imagine – and it didn’t burn. We purged all the gas out and hoped that any gas that wasn’t methane had been expelled.

Another two days passed and we tried again. This  time, we attached the Calor burner from home to the pipe and lo!, we had a flame, not very strong, not very hot, but it was a flame.

This was cause for celebration as we were to travel to Bungoma the following day to meet people from an organisation looking for ways to use the nuisance weed, water hyacinth. Would it make methane? Yes, it will.

Following our initial success, we bought a Calor table-top stove, modified the air intakes and connected it up to the digester. After a little purging, we got a pretty blue flame.  We had to take off the diffusers, but we had a proper flame, nice and blue and hot. We boiled water on it, then we ran out of gas.

The fundamental flaw with our “modified” design is that the feed stock and gas are stored in the same container. So, as gas is produced, it builds up pressure, compressing the feed stock until it cannot release more gas. So, we need a second container for storage. I knew this and there is provision to add one at a later date, when funds permit.

In the meantime, we opened the digester and stirred the feed stock. It was like porridge. So we added a couple of litres of water. We got a better, longer flow of gas, but we were still hampered by the fact that there was very little space in the top of the barrel to store gas.

However, the exercise was to produce a flammable gas for cooking and we have achieved that. The addition of a storage tank and a header tank to keep the gas under pressure will be a vast improvement and will allow us to store 45 gallons of gas under pressure, which should be enough to cook a meal for several people, but proof will have to wait until my next trip and the funds to buy a second drum and a few other bits.

I cannot say that I am a great believer in global warming, but at the same time, I do not deny that climate change may be taking place. It happens, it has always happened and it always will. We, the human race, may be helping the climate to change, but it would probably happen without our help.

Our world, all the other worlds in the Universe, the Universe itself is governed by laws – the laws of physics, chemistry, biology and maths. We haven’t figured out all these laws yet, but they are there. They are what we call nature. They are natural laws and cannot be bent or broken.

Hmm! I am off-topic already!

So back to gas.

Methane gas is a naturally occurring substance. It is formed when organic matter rots, and it escapes to atmosphere. The problem with methane is that it is 20 times more potent as a “greenhouse” gas than carbon dioxide, but we hear little about it. We all produce it, but all we hear about are references to cows farting methane. In fact, they don’t, they burp it.

The other difference between methane and carbon dioxide it that it burns. I am sure many of you have seen vents sticking out of landfill sites with a flame at the  top, burning off the methane from deep underground.

So, we have a gas, a naturally occurring gas, being produced all around us, twenty times more “dangerous” than CO2, but we do nothing with it!

It could be collected and used. In sufficient quantities, it could be used to fuel a power station. It is, after all the main constituent of natural gas that we pump up from deep underground.

On a smaller scale, we could capture this gas and use it for cooking, by collecting our organic waste rather than just leaving it to allow it to rot and pass methane to the atmosphere.

If all the organic waste that can be seen strewn along the roads of many Kenyan towns were to be collected and treated, the town would have a very cheap source of power that could run a generator or water pumps, or it could be bottled and sold for cooking.

At a smaller community level, methane collectors can provide an excellent fuel for cooking, clean, no smoke or particulates to irritate lungs and eyes.

And when methane is burned, it produces CO2 and water. So we reduce a gas with a potency factor of 20 to a gas with a potency factor of 1.

Now that’s got to be good for the environment.

No more cutting down of trees for fuel or charcoal.

And that’s got to be good for the environment, too!

I am travelling to Kenya on 11th November for a month. It will be good to see friends in Kisii.

More importantly, I hope to get a full-size anaerobic digester built and working on this trip. I need to find out how much gas (in cubic metres) my design will produce in a day. I know that 1 cu.m is enough for cooking the daily food for a family of 5-6 people.

But I have had enquiries for commercial applications, that is, to supply gas for places such as game lodges, with several kitchens and a need for hot water. This project, which started out as a way to stop trees from being felled for firewood looks like it could turn commercial!

It would not be a bad thing to find a commercial use for digesters, but I had not given that side of it much thought. After all, I am not really a businessman. Commercial potential for a project has to be dangled before me before I can see it.

But now, I am going to have to look  at our other projects to see if there is any commercial potential in those. Somehow I doubt it, but I am now looking at things from a different angle. I am trying to take off the blinkers of a tool-using thing-maker and look at things from a business perspective.

Wearing my “Tool-using Think-maker” hat, I designed a simple methane collector for use in warm climates as found in East Africa. The methane would be used for cooking, or to power petrol-fuelled static machinery, such as a borehole pump or electricity generator.

But, to my mind, although the simplest design worked, it had certain flaws, mainly to do with safety. After all, methane is flammable.

So, I have been tweaking the design and I came up with a slightly modified version, which I felt was safer as I designed in an anti-blow-back device.

But I was still not satisfied. So now I have come up with a Mk2 version. I have been playing around with this version for a few months now, and I am just about happy  with it.

Unfortunately, it is far more complicated (and therefore more expensive) to build, but easier to maintain.

I will be returning to Kenya on 12th November and I hope I will be able to build one of the new Mk2 models – or at least, something approaching it. It all rathe depends on what materials I can find, what tools are available, etc.

I am not a “warmist”, but then nor am I a sceptic. My comments are made on the back of reports I have read, some only half-remembered, but these are my views, not in the least scientific!

I have read a lot over the last couple of years and it strikes me that when anyone announces that global warming is accelerating it makes headlines, especially on the BBC (radio, TV and website).

However, when someone proclaims that overall mean temperatures have not risen since 1998 or whenever, this is consigned to a small link on the website and is not broadcast.

To me, this looks like biased reporting in favour of those who are pushing for action to prevent global warming.

I read somewhere that polar bears were declining “because of global warming”, then a report from one of the foremost experts on polar bear populations stating that one polar bear community was declining, two were increasing and the rest were stable – don’t quote these figures, I am typing from memory as the article has been lost.

So, who do I believe? None of them.

Yes, I believe we are ruining the planet. We are using non-renewable resources far too quickly. We are cutting down the “lungs” of the planet, the forests, which affects carbon dioxide absorption, which in turn may – and I say may – affect weather, which, as far as I can see, is not a good thing.

But, this almost hysterical screaming from some warmists is turning me away from the argument for global warming.

Another problem is that our (the UK’s) present government is pushing the argument for global warming and frankly, after suffering 12years of their rule, I don’t believe anything they say, especially as they are trying to tax us out of existence on the back of the argument.

Yes, I believe that the climate is changing. We have had a run of poor summers in the UK. But climate change happens; it is cyclic. It is not so long ago that Europe was covered in a thick sheet of ice. And before that, it had a sub-tropical climate.

Now we are told the climate is not following the predictions of the computer models. Why not? are the computer models faulty? Or were they just created to reflect what the warmists wanted them to?

There have always been two types of camera-user, one who studies the subject, checks the framing, lighting, and eventually produces a photograph to be proud of, and the second, who basically points and shoots.

But in the days of film cameras, point-and shooters used a little discrimination because the film and the processing cost money, and there was the problem of running out of film. But today, with cheap digital cameras and cell phones with built-in cameras, the only constraint is the size of memory.

Then we got sites such as Webshots and Flickr, where photographers could show their masterpieces, and now we have twitter and its associated picture uploading add-ons.

And, having looked at a very few of the millions of photos that are uploaded, I ask myself, “Why do they bother?”

What is the point of uploading a picture where the subject cannot be identified because there was camera shake, or it is out of focus, or there was not enough light?

And then there are the people who are uploading not their photos, but pictures of cartoon characters pulled directly off a web page – what is the sense in that? All it does is clutter up the Internet.

I don’t profess to be a good photographer, but my digital camera now allows me to take several photos where I would have taken only one with my 35mm camera. Then I choose the best and ditch the rest.

But there seems  to be an indiscriminate need to upload everything, good, bad and rubbish.

I hope it will end soon.

Once again I read that Africa is suffering because people are cutting trees for fuel and to produce charcoal. Generally, the charcoal production is illegal, but this can be sorted out with a back-hander – no change there then.

From what I have seen and heard on my trips to Kenya, the solar cooker, which can be made for pennies, are very efficient, but do not fit in with the East African psyche, they take too long to cook a meal. From my observations, it seems that Kenyans like to prepare and eat with little or no gap in between. So they need an instant heat source to cook on, wood, charcoal, kerosene or, if they are modern (and can afford it) butane gas.

So, trees will continue to be decimated until an alternative instant fuel is found, that is acceptable to those who have to use it.

You can read an article on the BBC website here

I have been working on methane collector design for a while now and have come up with a version that is easy and cheap to construct, and easy to use.

My contention is that if butane is acceptable, then so is methane. The difference is that methane occurs naturally, and to collect it is a simple matter. It is FREE!

Looking at its use ecologically, burning methane forms water and CO2, which is a good thing. Why? Because methane is 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2, so it is far more acceptable to have CO2 floating around rather than methane, isn’t it?

But most people living in rural East Africa are not interested in that, they are too busy surviving.

So, what about the charcoal makers? They will not be happy seeing their livlihood disappearing as people convert to methane for cooking.

So, show them how to make methane collectors, install them and maintain them. Yes, they need maintaining. A 45 gallon methane collector will produce gas for about six months before it needs refurbishing. But, the by-product is fertiliser, just what is needed on a shamba.

So, to recap:

• Methane is free
• Using methane saves trees
• A methane collector produces fertiliser
• Using methane helps to eliminate a potent greenhouse gas that would normally escape to atmosphere.
• Methane is a clean fuel, so there are no particulates to irritate and inflame eyes and lungs.
• Charcoal producers can be easily trained to make, install and maintain methane collectors, so they will not lose their income. In fact, with a little persuasion, maybe they will even promote the use of methane.

Methane can also be used as an alternative to petrol, so it will run a generator or water pump.

What is the next step?

KCIS has produced a working model. We can produce free methane. We are willing to spread the word.

We have contacted various charities and NGOs who are supposed to be interested in saving trees and protecting the water catchment areas. What is their response?

NOTHING!

If you are interested in saving trees in Kenya, contact us. We will work with anyone who is serious about making people’s lives better in Kenya, or even East Africa.

Also published at Baba Mzungu’s blog

I went to a good school, a state-aided grammar-style, guild school. OK, so it was in east London, the Cray brothers were just around the corner, but all that meant to a schoolboy was that he was pretty safe on the streets. For all their brutality, the Crays did not tolerate anyone who harmed kids, or so I was told.

But that is not what this blog is about. As I said, I went to a good school – and I managed to make the very least of it, escaping with just three passes at G.C.E. ‘O’ level, English, French and Maths.

In that last term of school, we were all paraded before the Careers Advisor, who just happened to be our geography teacher.

It went something like this:

Ah, BabaMzungu. You father is in banking, is he not?

He was, Sir. he died in January.

Well, I suggest you get in touch with his colleagues and play on their sympathy to follow your father’s footsteps. There is little hope for you anywhere else.

Thank you, Sir.

Next!

That was really helpful. I was not asked if I had any aspirations, interests, ambition. It was assumed that, because I had not done well in my exams, I had none of the above. But he was wrong.

Since I was a small boy, I had always been fascinated by Africa. Initially, I wanted to be an explorer, like Livingstone (as well as being a policeman, like most little boys). My fascination with Africa is still with me.

In the event, upon leaving school, I went into an engineering apprenticeship and I found that I had an aptitude for it. I actually enjoyed college, and became a tool-using thing-maker as well as a half-decent draftsman. Mr Careers Advisor didn’t foresee that, did he?

After the apprenticeship, I fulfilled my boyhood dream – no, not becoming an explorer – I joined the police. I was helping society, serving a community. I liked this. But I didn’t like the reams of paperwork. I wanted to be out on the streets, not pushing a pen in an office. So, after six years, I left, totally disillusioned.

But, I did learn something in the police. I learned observation – and I haven’t forgotten it. Even now, 30 years later, I observe, and  then I study.

My first real opportunity to observe something different was during an extended visit to South Africa. It was during the apartheid era when Africans were herded into townships, existing, not living. And I observed. Then I noted. I brought my notes home and with the advent of the Internet, I researched. I wrote a book.

So, I have been a school drop-out, apprentice engineer, policeman, engineer (again) and IT consultant. But, all this time, I should have been a social anthropologist. It’s too late now.

Too late to be a “proper” social anthropologist, but … when I conceive, research, design and build a system to do something useful in Kenya, I have some idea of what is acceptable to the people I am designing it for, and what is not.

And another thing … I met up with three pals from school a few years back. Two of us were considered no-hopers. We have both lived and worked in several countries. We have travelled (and I am not talking about 2 weeks in Majorca, although I have done that as well), we have seen the world.

The other two got good exam results and have never lived more than 20 miles from the school we all attended.

Kisii, in south-west Kenya is luckier than some parts of Africa in that it enjoys some rain all year round, although this year, it has been less than normal.

As a consequence, the vegetable plot at the Twiga Children’s Centre suffered (there isn’t someone there all the time to watch over the newly planted seedlings). The heat of th esun, together with a few days without rain has decimated the crop.

There is a river on the western border of the centre, but it is at the bottom of a steep hill, and it would be no mean feat for the kids to bring water up to irrigate the vegetable plot.

So, I have put on my tool-using thing-maker hat on to devise a way to either:

• raise water from the river to a storage tank at the plot – about 40 to 50 feet, or
• sink a borehole near the plot.

Looking at the second as a better solution, I set about drafting a design for a manually operated borehole drill, as it would be impossible to get a drilling rig onto the site until we have built a road to the site, which will be quite a task when we get around to it.

Here in the UK, I have a tool used to make holes to plant fence posts. I think it is called a post hole auger and it is like an over-sized bit for a brace, with a T handle to turn it and bore through the soil.

Obviously, this tool is only about 3 feet long so, without modification, it would not bore a very deep hole. But, what if extension rods were attached as the drill went deeper into the soil?

That should not be too difficult. The problem is finding a post hole auger in Kenya that can be modified – or find someone who can make such a tool. I reckon the latter would be easier.

As for the extension bars, they need to be easily attached and detached, but not when they are down a 20 foot hole, of course.

So that is my project for the moment. If it works, we could sink boreholes anywhere where there is not bedrock above the water table (although I have ideas for breaking through that as well).

It beggars belief! John Prescott, the biggest mangler of the English language ever to set foot in Parliament, is to be appointed as guest professor at Xiamen University in China, where he will give lectures on climate change – this from a man who ran two Jaguar cars when he was a minister.

And, just how will he get to China to deliver his lectures? I would assume that he will use an aricraft, those that the greenies will have us believe are akin to the Devil’s own work.

Of course, the other problem is that that there will be simultaneous translation so that the students actually understand what he is talking about. That will be a first. No one in the UK has yet managed that one.

Good luck, Chinese students.