Biodigestion uses ubiquitous, safe microbes to transform manure, food, and various wastes-food processing, agricultural, yard, garden, and toilet-immediately, and at its source into safe, useful fuel and high-quality fertilizer. Within 24 hours, biodigestion eliminates 99% of pathogens that cause waterborne diseases, all odors, and the attraction for disease-carrying rats, insects, and vermin.
Solar CITIES commits to establishing two biogas hubs in Jordans Zaatari refugee camp, each with one Intermediate Bulk Container (IBC) tank-based biodigester. These hubs will create opportunities for individuals to learn, share and implement clean and renewable energy solutions in isolated settings.
Solar CITIES commits to educating and empowering 50 new biogas technicians at Zaatari. These micro-waste management experts and closed-loop farmers will gain income by building farm- or community-scale biodigesters, selling the fertilizer and biogas, and working with Solar CITIES to schedule a series of workshops with local community/municipal members to scale expanded biodigester construction. This biodigester rollout will reduce fossil fuels usage and control the disease-carrying rodent and insect populations by better managing food waste at its source.
Through its partner organizations, Solar CITIES hands-on biogas workshops and projects will educate youth through university/college service learning programs and school trainings. The organization expects 25 attendees at each of six annual workshops around the world.
The initial focus will be on assisting women living in Jordans Zaatari refugee camp, many of whom have already experienced gender-based violence and who face serious health risks due to wood-fire cooking. Many core Solar CITIES members are women who live with the benefits of biogas and will actively conduct trainings to address issues facing women. Solar CITIES initial project will be duplicated in the Asraq Camp in Jordan, as well as other refugee camps in Lebanon, Turkey, and Greece.
In addition to on-site education, Solar CITIES has the capacity to educate and empower hundreds of thousands of individuals and communities through its social media sites.
Third Quarter 2016
Biogas Conference and Biodigester Make & Take at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. All funds will support Solar CITIES Syrian refugee projects.
Site visit with tour and resource/needs assessment at Zaatari Refugee Camp, Jordan.
First Quarter 2017
Solar CITIES and partners convene at Zaatari to begin initial biogas training to provide educational and vocational programs for youth and adolescents.
Two IBC-based biodigester systems and associated vertical farming systems installed and commissioned. Our experience shows that the training, construction, and inoculation for each system takes approximately 2-3 days, with the resulting installation capable of handling the organic waste from 1-2 families.
Additional training is available at the permaculture training farm of partner Mohammed Atiya in Israel, an approved, permanent training ground for Solar CITIES initiatives and experimental research. The farm will provide year-round support for the Zaatari Camp project, as well as a home base to build teams and gain experience with local stakeholders in a sociopolitically stable environment.
Second Quarter 2017
Solar CITIES conducts a 2-3 day site visit to gather performance data, answer questions, and conduct any necessary troubleshooting. Both the digesters and the vertical farm are living systems. They require regular care and can go down if improperly fed or maintained. A three-month window is sufficient to see if problems arise correct them.
During this visit, Solar CITIES representatives work as side coaches and outreach supervisors/troubleshooters for the local team as they conduct additional workshops and builds to expand the reach of the program. If the biology is working well, and the team has gained confidence in using the systems, they could potentially build and install a dozen or more new digesters.
Solar CITIES designs a charrette where experienced stakeholders conduct a site analysis and decide on the design types most appropriate for a community scale build during the next visit.
Solar CITIES will have establishes a project plan at Camp Asraq in Jordan.
Solar CITIES Puxin molds transported to Greece to begin biodigester builds in refugee camps in Southern Europe.
Third/Fourth Quarter 2017
Solar CITIES conducts a 12-14 day community build and integration project (including greenhouses and potentially Jurgen Klienwachter's SunPulse Stirling Engine to provide electricity and cooling energy)
Solar CITIES conducts a follow-up visit to the first two IBC home-scale systems, in order to build a larger (10m3 or larger), community-level system capable of handling market food wastes and collective toilet waste. This system is integrated with larger community garden and water cleansing interventions, and can possibly be integrated with the SunPulse.
First/Second Quarter 2018
Solar CITIES conducts a 7-day visit, preferably timed to bring together the other systems integration trainers to present the pilot as a holistic working demonstration and replicate the community digester The team discusses lessons learned from the last community build and addresses any tweaks/changes/innovations that may be needed.
Third Quarter 2018
Non-local Solar CITIES team makes one more site visit to check biodigester performance, address any biology/material/process breakdowns, and resolve any long-term care and operations issues.
Local trainers are assisted in conducting their own workshop/training for the deployment of an additional community-sized digester/garden system (we assume a demand for such decentralized system will grow as they are seen).
Translation of educational/training materials and construction guides into Arabic begins. The finished materials include text and photos with video and 3D animation. Translation and production are done in house and shared digitally.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), globally around three billion people cook and heat their homes using open fires and simple stoves burning biomass (primarily wood, animal dung, and crop waste) and coal. More than four million people die prematurely from illness attributable to the household air pollution that results from cooking with solid fuels. The highest percentage of these deaths affect women and children; more than 50% of premature deaths due to pneumonia among children under the age of five are caused by the particulate matter inhaled from household air pollution.
Many of those forced to cook and heat their dwellings this way are refugees. This population currently includes some 43 million victims of conflict and persecution worldwide, 4.8 million of whom have been displaced by the ongoing Syrian Civil War. This total comprises those individuals who have fled their countries, as well as those who remain displaced by conflict inside their own homelands (i.e. internally displaced people).
In many countries, traveling long distances (through sometimes dangerous areas) in search of cooking fuel has become the norm. Because men are more likely to work in the field or elsewhere outside the home, the responsibility for collecting cooking fuel often falls to women and children, placing them at an undue risk.
Whats more, the consumption of cooking and heating fuel on such a large scale causes devastating levels of deforestation, which is naturally followed by soil degradation, erosion, water contamination, and desertification.
Taken together, these factors indicate a growing need for self-sufficiency among the worlds refugees and those who are forced to use solid fuel. Solar CITIES shows how biogas, a clean cooking fuel, can improve individual and community safety while significantly reducing the effects of deforestation.
