Pure Plant Oil Fuels for Cuba:
This is an opportunity for you to support a community development initiative using renewable energy in a truly sustainable model. Together, we can make a difference in people’s lives, reducing reliance on expensive imports of dirty fossil fuel energy.
Cuba’s eastern provinces exhibit some of the most disadvantaged conditions in the country. The land is rough and the region is distant from prime tourism and economic activity of Varadero and Havana. In response, we aim to support an agricultural energy solution that is tailored to remote communities and explicitly aims to avoid conflict with food production.
We will cultivate a hardy and drought-resistant oil-bearing bush, jatropha curcas, along roadsides, in marginal land, and as living fences, creating ‘ribbons of gold’ which can be harvested by hand and oxcart. A community power system will crush the seeds to extract plant oil, where it will be cleaned and used as fuel in robust engines modified to accept the fuel. These engines will drive power generators, irrigation pumps and battery chargers, creating useful energy and value-added services for the local community, all within a compact multi-functional platform (MFP).
Following the example of similar programs by the UNDP in Africa, among others, this application of simple, robust and serviceable technologies will generate economic activity in agriculture, value-added processing, fuel production, fertilizer production, power generation and irrigation. With only locally-available inputs, the system relies on the productivity of locally-grown oilseed crops, rather than state-rationed fuel, to drive the local economy.
Together with the Center for Energy Efficiency (CEEFE) at Santiago’s Universidad del Oriente and support from the Cuban government, we have identified over a dozen communities in the region that would like to be chosen as the site of this pilot, and government support has provided at least three local staff members to run and coordinate the system. Your financial contribution will bring this important project one step closer to fruition.
Please give generously in your support.
Project founder,
Adam Gagnon
For a taste of what is possible, see below:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=punchbuggy+no+return