Peter Borgo

Taking a trip “back to the future” can put us on track to solve to the “energy crisis” in (1) buildings (to energy-efficient construction and systems), (2) transportation (to electric cars and trains), and (3) electricity generation (to renewable resources and distributed generation).

Solar power dates back to 212 B.C., when Archimedes advised Greek soldiers to use their curved bronze shields to concentrate beams of sunlight on Roman ships. Over 10,000 years ago, Native Americans used passive solar design in buildings and settled near hot springs that they used for cooking and heating. In the 15^th century, Leonardo da Vinci described the concept of a solar concentrator that could generate heat and replace burning wood to save forests. In the early 1830s, the invention of the steam engine/electric generator turned heat into electricity. The first windmills were developed in Persia about 500-900 A.D. to automate the tasks of grinding grain and pumping water. The first large windmill used to generate electricity was built in 1888.

A good place to start – Buildings

Globally, buildings account for nearly 40 percent of all energy use and contribute more to world greenhouse gas emissions than all transportation systems combined. Yearly carbon emissions from US buildings are “greater than the total CO₂ emissions of any country in the world except China.”¹ We need to design buildings that work with nature, transforming them from structures that consume energy into structures that produce energy; from air polluters into air purifiers; from resource hogs into resource savers.

The Santa Fe architect, Ed Mazria, recognized the importance of energy-efficient buildings when he issued The 2030 Challenge to the global architecture and building community. The challenge asks that new buildings and renovations of existing buildings increase energy efficiency incrementally to become carbon neutral by 2030. According to Mazria, The 2030 Challenge targets can be met by implementing innovative, and sometimes quite simple, sustainable design strategies, generating on-site renewable power and/or purchasing (20 percent maximum) renewable energy.²

The most direct, immediate way to save energy and reduce greenhouse gases is to retrofit the nation’s 4.9 million older commercial buildings. In 2004, the Green Building Council created a standard to encourage retrofitting. In 2007, Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, the largest commercial building in the world, officially became the world’s largest “green building,” using recycling, installing energy-use meters, reusing non-potable water and fixing leaky pipes. These simple, common-sense changes immediately dropped utility bills by 10 percent and water use by 35 percent, saving $100,000 annually. Chicago now has more than 250 similar projects. In 2009 the Empire State Building also launched a $100-million green retrofit that included 6,500 window replacements and a new air conditioning system, at an estimated energy savings of $5 million annually.

Secondly, we need to build new buildings better. In 2030, according to a Brookings Institute report, about one-half of the buildings in the USA will have been built after 2000. In 2005, Wal-Mart, the biggest private consumer of electricity in the US, opened an energy-efficient store in Aurora, Colo. The store’s foundation incorporates more than 500 tons of crushed, recycled concrete for mass. The store burns used vegetable oil from its deli and motor oil from its Tire and Lube Express for heat, generates electricity with photovoltaic panels, and uses waterless toilets and efficient lighting, refrigerators and air conditioning systems.

Another example—the new Bank of America tower in New York City—is the world’s first skyscraper to win the highest platinum rating from the Green Building Council. The building incorporates a wind turbine to generate electricity and unique techniques for cooling, lighting, air handling and water use. For example, a hollow 14-inch chamber beneath the floors freely circulates cool air through floor vents, and “ice batteries” (large, water-filled steel tanks) are frozen at night, when the building’s power demands are low, and slowly melt to cool the building during the day. Low-E, double pane glass windows, coated with “ceramic dots” to prevent overheating, provide natural light, and sensors track the arc of the sun throughout the day to automatically dim lights and turn off electrical equipment when not needed. The ventilation system monitors CO₂ and exhausts cleaner air than it draws in. Rooftop cisterns capture rainfall on the 2-acre roof, the water is cleaned and funneled by gravity into bathrooms equipped with low-flow fixtures, and wastewater is recaptured, filtered and reused, saving about 7.7 million gallons of water annually. These examples demonstrate what can be done, but we need to do more.

A Second Huge US Energy Sector – Transportation

Americans consume 1.5 gallons of gasoline per person per day—four times that of the average European. Our national car fleet averages less than 23 MPG, which is about the same as Ford’s Model-T in 1908, and about half the MPG of current cars in Japan and the EU. This was not always the case. In 1889, Thomas Edison engineered an electric car with a rechargeable battery. By 1896, American car dealers were selling mostly electric cars. In the early 1900s, the U.S. automotive industry was split among three technologies—40% electric powered, 40% steam powered, and 20% gasoline powered. Detroit and the oil industry began to buy and destroy electric cars, close cable-car and bus companies and lobby against train travel. In 1996, General Motors built the EV-1, the first all-electric car produced by a major manufacturer. For the next 3-years, GM leased these cars to satisfied drivers and then recalled and crushed them.³

We are beginning to take a step “back to the future” in the transportation sector. We are incorporating electric vehicles that use renewable sources of electricity as “fuel.” The hybrid Prius went on sale in December 1997. Today in South Korea, Japan and Detroit, the auto industry is designing hybrid gas-electric and all-electric cars including “plug-in hybrids” to transition from a gasoline to an electric transportation infrastructure. In addition, cars spend more than 90% of their time parked—time when they are useless for their primary function. With an electric fleet and “smart grid” technology, the two largest and dirtiest industries in the nation (power utilities and the automotive sector) will be able to seamlessly and efficiently use the enormous battery-power generation capacity of the US. The current US national power grid was designed for a “one-way conversation” between power plants and consumers and wastes 5-10 percent of its generated power in transmission. In the same way that computer technology moved from large mainframes to network architecture, “smart-grid” technology can efficiently support a 24-hour-a-day “conference call” among millions of small power generators.

The Big Climate Change “Gorilla in the Room” – Coal-fired Power Plants

It is not realistically possible to stop global warming while coal remains in the electric power generation mix. Even if the US eliminates all its coal burning, China and India are building two conventional coal power plants every week. In the last five years alone, China has built the equivalent of the entire US coal power plant fleet. By 2030, new coal-fired power plants worldwide will send 30 percent more CO₂ into the atmosphere than all the coal that has been burned in human history.

Burning coal is a well-known local concern in New Mexico, given PNM’s Four Corners Power Plant and the neighboring coal-fired San Juan Generating Station. According to the EPA, the 45-year-old Four Corners plant is the largest single-source emitter of nitrous oxide in the United States. Unfortunately, PNM is challenging EPA cleanup directives and state law to include more renewable energy sources in its portfolio. PNM must be more responsive. With one small wind farm, five new solar plants, and the Prosperity Energy Storage Project (battery storage) funded by the US Department of Energy, PNM is still out of compliance with current state renewable energy requirements.⁴

Most US power plants are more than 50 years old and have effectively reached the end of their life cycle. By replacing these plants with smaller, decentralized renewable-energy power plants located near demand centers, we have an opportunity both to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to jump-start the sagging American economy. For example, the Bank of America tower in New York City uses an on-site natural gas-powered 5.1-megawatt “microplant” that captures and recycles its waste heat. This “combined-cycle” system generates its own power three times more efficiently than getting it from the grid.

The Road “Back to the Future”

America’s lead in wind energy and solar systems forged in the 1980s has disappeared. Today, six of the world’s ten leading wind turbine manufacturers are located in Denmark, Germany, or Spain. Only one, General Electric Wind Power, is a US company. More than 90 percent of photovoltaic panels are manufactured outside of the US, mostly in China. The picture is not entirely bleak. The long-starved US energy R&D budget received a historic windfall in 2009 when Congress, under the Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, committed $70 billion over the next 10 years for R&D on clean-energy technologies, “smart-grid” upgrades, and fuel-efficient vehicles.

Given NM’s huge solar potential, we must convince state and city government, the private sector and many citizens to participate in solar-energy development. Small projects are being implemented. The Kit Carson Electric Co-op in Taos encourages members to buy solar panels or shares of panels that are added to a grid-connected community solar array. At the Foothills Community Solar Array at Taos Charter School, community residents can invest $500-$600 for a share in a community solar project.⁵ In Albuquerque, the Albuquerque Academy is home to a one-megawatt PV solar array—most likely the largest secondary school solar project to date in the US. A private developer assumed the cost of the $5 million array that will provide the Academy with more than 2 million kilowatt hours annually, approximately one-quarter of the school’s annual electricity use, under a buy-back agreement. In Santa Fe, the Buckman Direct Diversion project water-treatment plant has a 1-megawatt PV system and is considering expansion. The Santa Fe Community Convention Center is installing PV panels for 10 percent of its electricity, albeit a bit “after the fact.” The Santa Fe Skies RV Park on South 14 runs on 55 percent solar energy, and for 11 of the last 12 months, the owner has gotten a check from PNM instead of paying the utility. More and more people are choosing to generate part of their residential electricity with PV panels. During 2011, Santa Fe County and Santa Fe city reported 53 and 69 building permit listings for solar installations, and more than 500 systems were installed between Las Cruces and Santa Fe.⁶

No area today has the potential to reflect “American ingenuity” more than “clean technologies”—nonpolluting energy sources and the energy-efficient buildings, transportation systems and power plants that will use them. The shift away from fossil fuels and the maximization of energy efficiency equipment and techniques in a 21^st-century energy sector require support from the US government and the private sector. There is no “silver-bullet” solution to the changes needed to develop an economically and environmentally sustainable 21^st-century energy sector. It will be more of a “silver-buckshot” solution, where a complementary set of existing technologies, and some innovations, will dramatically improve energy efficiency in our individual and collective lives and diversify our power sources to provide clean, pollution-free energy. We can successfully move into the future in energy technology while reconnecting with the past!

Peter Borgo is an engineer who has worked for over 30 years in the US, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Asia, Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Most recently he worked for the United Nations Development Program to identify renewable-energy and energy-efficiency projects in the electricity sector in Iraq and for the US Agency for International Development on a 5-year strategy to support renewable-energy and energy-efficiency project implementation in Jordan. He can be reached at paborgo@comcast.net.

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On Sept. 17, a $53-million, state-of-the-art, international smart grid project powered up in Los Alamos. The New Energy and Industrial Technology and Development Organization (NEDO) of Japan, Los Alamos County and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to unveil a photovoltaic array, a battery storage system, a smart house and an energy management system that will serve Los Alamos residents.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, together with NEDO Chairman Mr. Kazuo Furukawa, Congressman Ben Ray Lujan, Los Alamos County Council Chair Sharon Stover, LANL Director Dr. Charles McMillan and Toshiba CEO Mr. Norio Sasaki, along with other key executives from major participating companies were part of the event.

The project will show how to provide a high proportion of renewable energy on the electric grid to meet a community’s residential needs, while making the grid more efficient and stable. Data will be captured that describes the most successful configurations and approaches. This will contribute to establishing international standards for energy solutions and help minimize environmental impacts worldwide. The demonstration will be conducted through March 2014, after which there will be opportunities for other companies and institutions to conduct additional academic research and product testing.

The first system includes nearly 5,000 solar panels with 10 types of cells to evaluate efficiency levels. Affordable Solar of Albuquerque oversaw the array’s design and layout. It is one of the first systems nationwide ever constructed on a landfill. Other components of the project include batteries that provide 8.3 megawatt hours of energy storage with state-of-the-art controls, a smart house equipped with its own PV and battery system, a smart meter and smart appliances. Together they will smooth out the output of the PV, maintain voltage requirements under the feeder, and/or control the power costs faced by Los Alamos County by controlling peak usage. Electricity from the PV will provide power to a Los Alamos neighborhood of about 2,000 homes with smart meters.

The Los Alamos Smart Grid and the Mesa del Sol project in Albuquerque are two NEDO-sponsored projects within the NM Green Grid Initiative, which is fostering five smart grid projects. Other partners include Sandia National Laboratories, PNM and UNM. NEDO is Japan’s largest public research and development management organization. For more information, visit www.LosAlamosSmartGrid.info

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Charles Bensinger

From July 26-29, the Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid hosted the annual Extraordinary Technology Conference. And indeed, extraordinary was a good word for the information sharing that occurred during the data-packed conference. Just what was extraordinary in this context? The physics, the chemistry, the math and the many individuals who participated, when taken together, created an experience beyond what one would normally expect from a traditional technical conference.

The conference was sponsored by TeslaTech Inc., of Queen Valley, AZ., whose mission is to champion and nurture advanced concepts and products in science and technology. Many of the concepts they promote originated with Nikola Tesla at the turn of the 20^th century.

Foster Gamble kicked off the conference with an introduction to his popular and provocative film, THRIVE. The film has played to over six million people and has been translated into 20 different languages. This is an impressive feat for a non-Hollywood film—accomplished in just seven months.

“We set out to connect the dots,” said Gamble. “Our intention was to facilitate the discussion of critical information. And energy is at the core of the problem—the problem being the massive amount of largely unnecessary human exploitation and suffering in the world. Energy (or the lack of it) is used to control people. Nothing faster than giving everyone access to energy could transform the world.”

Responding to some of the criticism of his film originating from both the right and left sides of the political spectrum, Gamble explained, “People are hungry to talk about what’s really happening in the world. This film is not about political ideologies. It’s about finding solutions biased on integrity and freedom. We are dedicated to finding ways to decentralize everything.” Gamble said, “There’s never been a more dangerous moment in history. And we’ve never had such an opportunity to make change.” To help with the transition to a more peaceful world, Gamble encouraged everyone to log on the Solutions Hub on the website: www.thrivemovement.com

His last comment, “we never had such an opportunity to make change,” seemed, in retrospect, to nicely describe what I observed to be the overriding personal motivating force of the conference presenters who followed. Time after time in my individual interactions with the attendees or those on the podium, I felt the deep heartfelt expression of a personal commitment to making a better world. For the inventors it was about creating breakthrough technologies by spreading the good news about how affordable, non-fossil-based energy could be generated in homes or vehicles could be operated on easily available gases or liquid fuels, and how debilitating diseases could be cured. The excitement about potentially game-changing technologies and new ways of harnessing nature’s miracle elements was ever-present and palpable. And certainly, extraordinary change would result if and when some of the following technologies come into commercial application.

The conference covered a dizzying range of unusual technologies. Some focused on providing health and wellness optimization, and others concentrated on so-called free or zero-point energy.

A sampling of conference topics:

• Decrypting Rife’s Extraordinary Technology
• Rejuvenation of Telomeres
• The GyroKinetic Prime Mover (Noble Gas Engine)
• Cavitating Electrolyzers: the Key to OverUnity
• GEET: New Horizons
• Tesla Waves, Biofields and Aetheric Energy
• CymaScope and the Science of Sound
• Practical Rodin Coil Generator Application
• Inertial Propulsion Breakthrough
• Qualar Physics: Wave of the Future
• Top 5 Exotic Free Energy Technologies

   

The GyroKinetic Prime Mover

Robert Rohner presented his “gyrokeinetic” engine that utilizes a hermetically sealed telescoping gas charger filled with a relatively inexpensive, abundant and harmless volume of inert gases. These gases, a combination of argon, krypton, rubidium, phosphorus and helium, are subjected to controlled electronic pulse effects from an anode and cathode charged to 1,000 volts. Varying magnetic fields are induced to create a powerful expansion effect, which is used to move two opposing cylinders back and forth. Electrons are released in sufficient quantity to produce significant horsepower.

Often referred to as a Noble Gas Engine, the engine was invented in 1980 by Joe Papp. Rohner worked alongside Papp for many years. Although Papp died without revealing precisely the physics of the engine or the optimum combination of gases, Rohner and his team claim to have reconstructed working engines. Moreover, they’ve begun to establish a worldwide manufacturing network that could soon begin distribution of the technology. The engine design parameters are now in the public domain, and Rohner will sell the electronic control systems to licensed dealers.

The engine is very energy efficient, generating 70 percent less heat than a traditional combustion engine, and its weight-to-power ratio is astounding. A 300-pound Papp Engine can generate approximately 270 horsepower. According to Rohner, the engine is not a heat engine and is thus not subject to Carnot Law limitations. Nor is it a thermodynamic engine. Rather it runs on a plasma cycle that makes use of the energy density of nuclear sources, which Rohnert states “is at least 10 million times that of chemical processes.”

A non-working model of the engine was displayed at the conference. Rohner reps described how they would begin distribution of key electronic parts and engine assembly information. If they can pull this off, this could be a major game-changer. Noble gas engines could power a new generation of transportation vehicles and provide community-wide central-generation power plants, assuming the technology can successfully be scaled up. The website is: www.plasmERG.com

The Power of Water

Clayton Nolte of the Arizona-based company Natural Action Technologies introduced the concept of structured water and described its many benefits. Structured water is really water in its natural state, akin to water moving across and over rocks, twisting and turning and becoming infused with oxygen and sunlight. Structurally, it’s different from tap water. Whereas tap water crystals when viewed under a microscope create 90-degree angles, structured water creates 60-degree angles. According to Nolte, structured water, when used in agriculture, can reduce water use by 40 percent, can reduce or eliminate water-borne toxins and contains greater life-form energy. In his words, “Structured water is hungry water, freed from limitation.” He added that, “Water’s destiny is to protect us from the dangers of our environment. Water also has memory. Water remembers what it passed through.”

For more information on structured water, see www.naturalactionwater.com.

The CymaScope

Erik Larson presented a scientific instrument he designed and refined, which he calls the CymaScope. Cymatics is the science of sound and wave dynamics. The CymaScope converts individual sounds or the resonant structures of multiple sounds, particulate matter, water and biological systems into high-resolution two-dimensional images. For example: an individual voice can be sampled, and elaborate and elegant pictures are created. The resulting images are termed CymaGlyphs.

Larson exhibited many very impressive visuals via a large-screen video projector. One biological application of the technology is co-inventor John Reid’s recent research using the CymaScope to create dolphin “picture words”—imaging what the dolphin sees with its bio-sonar. More info on this research can be found at www.SpeakDolphin.com. Another recent application, accomplished in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, was imaging the sounds of stars.

The imaging device is designed to sense and record the phenomena of magnetic particles or sand grains reassembling themselves when spread across a taut, stretched membrane of the appropriate material and exposed to a particular sound. When the membrane is impacted by a sound, the particles create elegant and symmetric shapes, depending on the sound source— much like ripples in a pond. It’s also called “resonant geometry”— how the sounds we make resonate with nature and probably visa versa. I suspect this phenomenon may have something to do with the formation of crop circles in fields.

Larson emphasized how water can serve as a powerful medium for sound expression as well. Quoting famous psychic Edgar Cayce as saying, “Sound and water will be our next medicine,” Larson noted that since our bodies contain so much water (60 percent), the best way to utilize sound to create a resonance with our bodies is through water. Thus, great potential exists for using sound and water for healing purposes. Most interestingly, he described how when we speak we create toroidal bubbles. The toroid is a donut-shaped energetic structure. Although we can’t see these bubbles, they can be imaged with the CymaScope. For some reason, dolphins are quite fond of producing toroidal bubbles, which are easily visible in water.

When asked to contrast analog sound reproduction systems with digital, Larson answered that he considered analog as superior to digital. He believes analog reproduction is able to capture a wider range of multiple resonant frequencies than digital. He described digital as a kind of stripped-down sound. For more info on the CymaScope see www.cymascope.com

The Amazing GEET Engine

One other engine technology received lots of attention at the conference— the GEET Fuel Processor. The Global Environmental Engine Technology was invented in 1983 by Paul Pantone, who created the GEET International Institute. Pantone’s goal was to teach prospective engine builders how to utilize the plasma/vacuum process that underlies the engine technology. Over the years, hundreds of students have attended GEET workshops from the US, Europe and other countries. GEET engines are being used in city vehicles, farm equipment, as generators and in boats and jet airplanes.

The GEET engine combines several scientific principles, most of which fall within the normal rules and laws of thermodynamics. But an operating engine exhibits numerous phenomena or anomalies not yet fully explained by conventional combustion physics. The GEET engine apparently operates on a plasma medium that is created by utilizing the exhaust heat of the engine transferred to the incoming fuel vapor, which must be maintained in a vacuum. The liquid is vaporized in such a way that a molecular breakdown or reaction occurs, liberating significant amounts of energy. Certified GEET technician and instructor Daniel Gonzales demonstrated a working model at the conference built by one of his students in California. He explained that the GEET engine is a miniature refinery that has the ability to transmute elements into other forms; that is, liquids into plasmatic gases. He termed it thermoinertia. “The engine runs much cooler,” he said “and the process increases energy efficiency by at least 50 percent and reduces emissions by 70 percent.”

But, don’t think you can easily convert your current computerized, fuel-injection vehicle to a GEET engine. The GEET requires a carburetor-type fuel introduction system. Conversion would necessitate a bypass of the fuel injection system and computer logic control, standard in most vehicles.

Daniel fired up the demo engine, a small lawnmower unit fitted with a GEET carburetor using a fuel mixture of 20 percent gasoline and 80 percent soda and coffee. Yes, you read that right. After adding a small amount of gasoline, he poured in a can of Dr. Pepper and one large cup of coffee. Much to everyone’s amazement, the engine fired right up and seemed to be running quite well.

A large GEET network exists called the GEET Club. GEET training and dealer opportunities are currently being offered. To sign up go to www.geetinternational.com

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The Top 5 Exotic Free Energy Technologies

Sterling Allan, creator of the Pure Energy Systems or the PES Network, wrapped up the conference with a presentation of his Top 5 Exotic Free Energy Technologies. Allan, more than anyone else, has doggedly tracked the development of clean/free energy technologies over many years. His New Energy Congress, founded in 2005, seeks to bring together credible and knowledgeable scientific talents to evaluate the range of emerging energy technologies with commercial potential. His efforts have been critical in terms of distinguishing the scammers and hucksters from what might truly have the potential of shifting the world away from our near-total reliance on fossil-fuel energy systems. His goal is to encourage and identify those new energy technologies that are, in his terms “environmentally friendly, scalable, sustainable, robust, affordable and practical, and have behind them a solid team of technical and customer support.” He assured us that no less than 30 genres of free energy concepts/devices exist.

His top choices as detailed in his PowerPoint presentation are as follows:

1. Rossi E-Cat: a cold fusion device. Founder Andrew Rossi demonstrated a ½ MW (Megawatt) device in Italy in October 2011. The company claims that a 1 MW unit could sell for $1.2 million. They plan to introduce a 10 kW (kilowatt) home unit in the near future.

    

2. Praxen Defkalion Green Technologies: This Company demonstrated a 5 kW reactor in September 2011 in Greece, which attracted much attention. See www.defkalion-energy.com for more info.

    

3. Solid State Power Generator: Inventors in Salt Lake City demonstrated a solid-state power generator the size of a postage stamp. The process has received third-party confirmation. The device generates very low but continuous power by harnessing the movement of atoms. This technology would be ideal for powering cell phones and small electronic devices. Commercial distribution is planned for late 2013.

    

4. The PlasmERG Noble Gas Engine: PlasmERG. This engine’s outstanding features include only five moving parts, negligible fuel cost, high-power plasma effect and very high power-to-weight ratio. See www.plasmERG.com

    

5. Brillouin Energy Corporation. www.brillouinenergy.com. This technology is based on what’s called LENR or Low Energy Nuclear Reactor. It utilizes a boiler that produces 600-degree Celsius heat through a “controlled electron capture reaction.” This device would serve as a convenient and very clean home heating unit, eliminating the need for oil, propane, natural gas or electricity for heating and cooling. Stanford University is currently testing the technology.

    

Allan emphasized that Free Energy could serve as a bulwark against certain major global challenges that our world currently faces. Free Energy Technologies can:

• Counter the rising price of food and buffer economic collapse by reducing transportation and energy costs
• Bring about a more peaceful world by reducing or eliminating destructive global competition for fossil-fuel resources
• Give hope to people that a new, clean-energy revolution is on the way
• Offer perhaps the only practical means to avert additional global warming and eventual catastrophic climate change
• Facilitate building a new economy by decentralizing and localizing energy production
• Dramatically reduce the deleterious environmental effects of our current extractive energy industry

   

Allan provides an E-Newsletter that tracks how these technologies are developing. For more info see www.peswiki.com

In Summary

In summary, two key focus points seemed to emerge from the conference— water and the torus. Certain presenters highlighted the generally unacknowledged healing qualities of water and others focused on the enormous energy hidden in the molecular nature of water.

Water, of course is ever-present in our reality. It covers two-thirds of the planet’s surface and comprises a major component in our terrestrial biomass, including all our food products and 60 percent of our body weight. “Water is everything,” one presenter noted. “It’s the most powerful energy on earth. It can take the form of a crystal, and it’s piezoelectric and pyroelectric. It has memory and responds to sound and emotion.” The water molecule is composed of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, both normally highly explosive gases when separated, but when joined together, they readily extinguish fire. Without water, life would not have been possible on Planet Earth. Humans would not and could not exist. Many of the technologies presented at the conference rely on water in some form for their effective operation.

The torus or toroid is a fascinating universal structure that describes how energy is processed and recirculated in nature at microscopic and planetary scales. It also figured prominently in the explanation of the workings of the various exotic technologies. When the researchers stove to explain how their devices could generate and recirculate enormous amounts of energy in ways that appear to challenge standard laws of physics and chemistry, the mechanism that surfaced time and time again was the toroid. The Torus is a central character in the THRIVE film. The film documents how ancient civilizations the world over often cited the torous as the source of fabulous power and universal equilibrium. Perhaps now we are rediscovering how the powers of water and the torus can reshape our global future into one of profound healing and abundance for all.

Charles Bensinger is Biofuels Program Director at SFCC. He also developed Renewable Energy Partners of New Mexico, which manages the biofuels dispensers inside the Giant Conoco and Phillips 66 retail stations on Cerrillos Road. Email: newworld@cybermesa.com, 505.466.4259

[SIDEBAR:]

To learn more about how a GEET engine works, how you can build one yourself or become a dealer, consider attending a GEET workshop. See www.geetinternational.com. An abridged GEET workshop may be presented in Santa Fe in 2013. If you are interested, send an email to newworld@cybermesa.com

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Green Tech Firm to Lease Schott Solar Plant

McCune Works, Inc., an innovative green technology firm, has announced that within six months it will lease Schott Solar’s 200,000-square-foot Mesa del Sol manufacturing plant in Albuquerque for photovoltaic panel production. Because of a competitive domestic and global market, Schott closed the plant, which employed 250 people, in June. Beginning in early 2013, McCune Solar Works LLC will make solar modules under the new logo “Hott Solar PV.” McCune Works also intends to produce other environmentally conscious products at the plant and expects to employ about 130 people, many of them former Schott employees.

Founded in 2005, McCune is a federal contractor that produces green materials, products and building components and specializes in solar-powered, disaster-relief shelter and housing. The company sells in domestic and international markets, as well as to developing countries, and offers consulting, research and development services. In addition, McCune is currently developing an affordable electric vehicle.

“We look forward to providing affordable and non-polluting renewable energy throughout New Mexico,” said CEO Chuck McCune. “Furthermore, we intend to provide 100 megawatts of installations in 2013 through our Power New Mexico Program.” www.mccunesolarworks.com

First Solar to Build NM Projects

First Solar, Inc. has signed agreements to construct four solar power plants totaling 20 megawatts of generating capacity for PNM Resources, Inc. First Solar will provide engineering, procurement and construction services, using its advanced thin-film photovoltaic modules. PNM has the option to expand the agreement to 22 MW. The solar plants will generate enough energy to power about 7,000 homes and displace about 31,000 metric tons of CO2 annually. The plants could be in service by the end of 2013 if approved by the NM Public Regulation Commission (PRC) in November.

Because of a worldwide glut of solar panels, the new facility will cost about 40 percent less than a similar facility PNM built in 2011, which cost $90 million. The PRC approved a rate rider in August that will cost the average customer about $16 per year to pay for that project. PNM is likely to request another rate rider in 2013 to cover the cost of more renewable energy facilities. PNM also has about 25 megawatts of solar capacity through customer-owned PV installations, plus 200 MW in wind generation on the grid.

PNM Seeks to Reduce Renewable Energy Credits

Under a proposal submitted to the state Public Regulation Commission, NM’s major utility, Public Service Company of New Mexico, would reduce its Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) Program, which provides credits to customers who install solar photovoltaic systems to power their homes. The REC program has also helped PNM address the renewable energy portfolio standard set by the state, although the utility has failed to meet the standard for the last two years and has asked for a waiver from the regulators.

Credits were already slashed by more than half in the last year after PNM sought to eliminate the program. Under PNM’s current proposal, credit would be further reduced along with the contract period. The utility would pay four cents a kilowatt-hour for systems of 10-kilowatt capacity or less, and cap contracts at eight years. Systems between 10 kW and 100 kW would decline by half a cent every six months for four years. Systems that generate over 100 kW would make two cents per kilowatt-hour.

For the average home, solar photovoltaic systems currently cost $12,000-$16,000. RECs, as well as state and federal tax credits, have helped offset this significantly. Besides saving money on electric bills, however, self-reliance and reducing their carbon footprint by not relying on fossil fuels are other reasons people install PV systems.

PNM has justified its position by citing the declining price of PV systems and the costs the company charges other customers to offset the program. PNM also says it would be more cost-effective to build and own its own large solar power plant and expand its three current PV facilities, than to rely on hundreds of thousands of customer-owned rooftop systems.

PNM’s net metering program, which provides about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity a building produces, will not be changed by the proposal before the PRC.

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Dedicated to teaching sustainable knowledge and practices, the Carbon Economy Series returns to Santa Fe Community College from October 2012 through June 2013. The monthly weekend workshops teach principles and practices for land, soil, water, waste, organic food production, and how to positively affect climate change from a local perspective. There will be opportunities to learn aboriginal living skills, regenerative agriculture, sustainable tourism, Permaculture site design, and creating edible food forests. There will also be a women’s symposium on ranching, gardening and farming.

A partial list of speakers includes: Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm, who, without pesticides, fertilizers, tractors or oil, has produced more pounds of protein per acre then any other farmer; international Permaculture designer phenomenon Darren Doherty; Gunter Pauli-trained zero-waste guru Gary Liss, and author/ecologist David Jacke.

Organizer Iginia Boccalandro says, “The knowledge these workshops offer is vital to stabilize climate change, make our land more resilient, increase public health, create jobs, reduce waste, increase productivity, revitalize property and increase revenue.”

Local businesses, schools, nonprofits and community groups are sponsoring the series. They are helping make it possible to provide some discounts to deserving students. Sponsors include: Arete Consulting Group, Camino de Paz School and Farm, Ecological Living Center, Green Fire Times, Inn of the Governors, Joe’s Diner, La Montañita Food Co-op, Los Alamos National Bank, Santa Fe Farmers’ Market Institute and Soil Symbiotics.

Carbon Economy Series Schedule

Each weekend workshop is preceded by a public talk at 7 pm on Friday evening.

October 20–21: Aboriginal Living Skills with Matthew Brummett

November 10–11:Local Food Systems with Joel Salatin and Tom Delehanty

December 8–9: Regenerative Agriculture with Darren Doherty

January 12–13 Tourism and Sustainable Development with Daniel

Mirabal and Maria Boccalandro

February 23–24: No More Garbage: Zero-Waste with Gary Liss

March 16–17: Permaculture Boot Camp with Iginia Boccalandro

April 13–14: Women’s Gardener, Farmer, Rancher and Land Owner Training

May 25–26: Gardening Like the Forest with Dave Jacke

For details or to register, visit: www.carboneconomyseries.com,
call 505.819.3828 or 818.913.2877.

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Gary Vaughn

“Grid integration” is utility-speak for adding photovoltaic (PV) and wind power sources to the traditional fossil-fueled electrical power system. There are very real challenges to adding high levels of PV and wind power to traditional utility grids. These issues are now getting a lot of attention, not only from some of the more progressive utilities themselves, but also from university researchers, National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) staff and the US military.

Many traditional ultra-risk-adverse utilities still cling to the belief that even a modest percentage of wind and PV power integration is too expensive, intermittent and unreliable to bank on. At the same time, the US military has committed to a major investment in Renewable Energy (RE) precisely because it wants cost-effective, reliable and completely self-sufficient power sources that are immune to fuel supply disruptions and potential utility grid failures. Fascinating, isn’t it?

A state-regulated electrical utility usually fits the definition of “big business.” It has deep pockets, powerful political clout and access to teams of seasoned lawyers, sympathetic expert witnesses and cooperative financial wizards. The utility’s costs related to rate cases, regulatory hearings and even pollution lawsuits are normally completely covered by customer rate increases. The issues involved are complicated, highly technical and often involve mind-numbing accounting methods using proprietary financial information. And utilities have access to powerful national utility lobbying and advocacy resources. Consumer advocates, nonprofit organizations and even state utility regulators are at a huge disadvantage in these contests.

“Benchmarking” is the process of comparing a business’s policies, practices, performance and even strategy to industry “best practices.” It’s a well-recognized business-school-approved method for encouraging “continuous improvement.” Turns out that benchmarking is also a potent weapon for energy policy advocacy and citizen empowerment. While it’s difficult to counter an entrenched utility’s PR machine, sophisticated misrepresentation of information and hidden financial flim-flam, it’s relatively easy to point out crystal-clear examples of what other similar utilities are successfully doing in nearby states. Let’s take a look at some of these examples and contrast them with PNM’s current positions.

Adapting to Renewable Sources: Wind and PV power sources have very different characteristics than standard fossil-fueled generators. Utilities that expect RE sources to “conform” to traditional utility rules complain a lot. Utilities that adjust their operating procedures to be more compatible with their RE sources are far more successful at “integrating” RE. Not that many years ago, the Colorado division of Xcel Energy was highly resistant to integrating RE. A combination of political pressure and common sense changed Xcel’s point-of-view. Xcel has now joined a growing number of “progressive” utilities in its attitude toward renewables. PNM still complains a lot.

Distributed Generation: Many researchers and several utilities have documented significant advantages to distributed generation, including a reduction in transmission line loss, reduced maintenance costs for transformers and other components and improved power system “robustness.” Traditional utilities like PNM are all about centralized power generation and distribution—a business model that may well be challenged in the not too distant future.

Time of Use Rates: Utilities use relatively low-cost nuclear and coal-fired “base-load” generation to satisfy average daily power demands, and relatively high-cost natural gas-fired “peaking” generators to meet afternoon peak demands. Many utilities adjust their rates hourly to compensate for this difference. This means that PV and daytime wind power sources should be credited with much higher “earning power.” But not in PNM’s territory.

Energy Storage: The lack of utility-scale energy storage is often cited as a major barrier to the adoption of wind and solar power. Yet there are a growing number of utilities in the US and around the world that are already successfully managing grid integration levels that far exceed what we have here in NM—without utility-scale storage. NREL published a 2010 study, which found that in the western US, a wind/solar penetration of 24 percent was practical without requiring storage, assuming that utilities were willing to make certain operational changes. PNM is touting their involvement in the “stimulus”-funded “Prosperity Energy Storage Project.” Fair enough, but PNM’s recent PR campaign seems to be using the Prosperity Project to bolster its argument that RE isn’t practical without utility-scale storage. That’s clearly not true, and there are plenty of examples to prove it.

RE Penetration: SMUD, the Sacramento city-owned electric utility, which is actually larger than PNM, achieved 24 percent RE penetration in 2011, and they are heading for 30 percent. Xcel Energy in Colorado is on track to meet the state’s 30 percent RE mandate. Utah utilities are adding wind power as fast as they can, without any state mandate at all. North Dakota, Wyoming and Minnesota already get at least 10 percent of their power from renewables, mostly wind. Iowa and conservative South Dakota already have the highest wind-power penetration in the country, at 20 percent, without either utility-scale storage or state mandates. After missing the 2011 target date, PNM has promised to reach 10 percent RE in 2013, but only because the NM Public Regulatory Commission (PRC) is forcing it to.

Peak Shaving: Researchers and a few “engaged” utilities have confirmed that PV systems can do a good job of reducing expensive summertime afternoon peak loads, even without utility-scale storage. In the summer they orient their PV panels about 45 degrees west of due south to match the peak PV output to the afternoon peak demand. Utilities on the coast have reported that a 70/30 mix of PV and wind works well for peak shaving. The wind turbines fill the early evening demand by harnessing the dependable late-day sea-to-land breezes. PNM is claiming that it needs sophisticated utility-scale energy storage solutions to “time shift” the output of its fixed, due-south-pointing PV installations.

Intermittency: PV systems temporarily turn down or even off when cloud shadows roll by. That’s just a fact, and one that certain utilities like PNM love to emphasize. But researchers working with interested utilities have confirmed that PV systems that are more than a few miles apart don’t turn off at exactly the same time. The more PV systems and the more geographical diversity, the smoother the average PV grid-tied result. This is essentially a “free” voltage-smoothing benefit, and it is quite significant. The same is true for wind turbines. PNM’s recent public presentations ignore this benefit. In addition, many utilities are starting to pay very close attention to site-specific weather forecasts and weather satellite data. The result is that they can anticipate cloud cover and wind events and thus greatly reduce their use of expensive and polluting standby generators. Xcel Energy in Colorado used to keep its backup generators operating all the time. It doesn’t do that anymore. PNM still does—which unnecessarily drives up its RE-associated costs.

Cost Caps: Many states, including Colorado and NM, have imposed “cost caps” to limit the amount that utilities must spend to meet state-imposed RE mandates. Colorado’s cost cap is very similar to NM’s. That hasn’t been a problem for Xcel Energy, which continues to add renewables by choice. In NM, the cost cap has been used creatively by PNM to try to avoid adding additional renewables. PNM doesn’t admit to ANY benefit from RE sources other than fossil-fuel cost displacement.

Interconnect Rate Riders: A few years ago, several major SW utilities attempted to impose extra charges on customers who “grid-tied” their PV systems to the utility system, arguing that these PV systems were actually costing the utility money. In the two most prominent cases, independent third-party studies concluded that these grid-tied distributed PV systems were, in fact, saving the utility money, so the rate riders were not approved. PNM has promised it will demand a grid-tie PV rate rider in 2013.

Energy Efficiency: Many utilities talk the talk, but then adopt only modest initiatives such as efficient lighting and appliance rebates. In general, electrical cooperatives have been much more supportive of energy-efficiency programs. In ultra-conservative Oklahoma, Oklahoma Gas & Electric is leading the nation in energy-efficiency initiatives, having concluded that it can earn serious profits by helping its customers save money. PNM continues to struggle to meet NM’s modest energy-efficiency mandates. PNM’s “energy efficiency committee” has no trouble coming up with good ideas. PNM executives veto most of them.

Electric Vehicles: EV sales this year are lower than some had forecast, but make no mistake, EV is a big deal. And the combination of plug-in hybrids and full electric vehicles with PV charging stations is starting to take off for sound economic reasons: the payback for EV owners can be impressive. GM is partnering with SunLogics; Tesla is partnering with Solar City; Nissan and Ford are partnering with SunPower; BMW is partnering with Active-E. NRG, a Texas utility, is leasing residential EV charging systems bundled with special time-of-use rates. The buzz is that “forward looking electric utilities are active in promoting electric vehicles.” PNM executives are apparently looking in the opposite direction.

PNM deserves some credit for not being a member of the dwindling “no-way” utility club. At one time it might even have been fairly described as “not opposed” to RE, but these latest utility benchmark “best practices” prove that current PNM management is stuck in “de Nile.” In fact, some of these best practice examples completely undercut PNM’s current strategy as well as several of its recent formal proposals to the NM PRC. This just shows how ordinary folks can use a few “best practice” examples to expose utility-scale “untruthiness.” Are you feeling empowered yet?

Gary Vaughn is a licensed professional engineer, a renewable energy advocate and vice president of the New Mexico Solar Energy Association. www.nmsea.org

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Biomass energy is like a solar battery. Through the process of photosynthesis, the earth’s hydrocarbon economy is constantly banking the sun’s energy as biomass while fixing atmospheric carbon and releasing oxygen. In contrast to other biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, biomass energy technologies are primary energy sources that can utilize the raw, solid and usually by-product forms of organic resources. Two specific technologies that can be extremely compatible to New Mexico’s abundant daytime sunshine and existing solar/wind technologies are anaerobic digestion and wood chip gasification.

Anaerobic digestion is a wet, bio-chemical process that harnesses a primeval consortium of microorganisms to yield a methane-rich biogas. This biogas can be used to generate electricity and heat directly, be scrubbed and compressed for use as bio-methane in automobiles or natural gas grid-injection, or be used for the one remaining gap in the small-scale renewable energy portfolio: instantaneous cooking and water heating. The other co-product of anaerobic digestion is an NPK-rich organic fertilizer that is actually more valuable than the gas. Therein lies one of the principal tenets of biomass energy: the co-product is usually more valuable than the primary product. With anaerobic digestion we are investing in our soil-building and food-producing capacity just as much as we are investing in decentralized, 24/7, and carbon-neutral energy production.

On the other side of the biomass energy spectrum, wood-chip gasification is a thermo-chemical process where we use heat to deconstruct solid, biomass hydrocarbon molecules into the constituent gases, primarily hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Hydrogen is widely known as the hallmark of a renewable energy future, and carbon monoxide, along with being an insidious poison, is also a fuel gas. These gases are collectively called producer gas and can be used to run a spark-fired, internal combustion engine to generate electricity. The co-product of an electrical generator set is copious amounts of hot water: 4-5 times the amount of electrical energy will be available as hot water, which can also be more valuable than the electricity. With wood-chip gasification, we are running micro-heating districts as much as we are powering communities with clean electricity, independent from the sun shining or wind blowing.

The other main tenet of biomass energy technologies is that they are not static energy devices like solar panels that are made in some factory and when installed produce energy without any further community involvement or economic rippling. Biomass energy involves many segments of a functioning economy by providing jobs year after year while contributing to positive stewardship of our farmlands, forests and atmosphere. There is always feedstock procurement (civil collection, farmers or forest product workers), transportation from source to bio-refinery, operations and maintenance (mechanics, fabricators and bio-refinery technicians), and the administrative support staff to keep it all happening.

Biomass energy installations can also have a very favorable EROI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested) of 85 percent and potentially more. In the words of municipal wastewater treatment engineers who operate plants of 2-4 megawatts electrical, biogas is like “free energy,” available for the taking in the things we are already doing with organic materials we are already treating.

Similarly, in the series of simultaneous and instantaneous gasification reactions, the gasifier ends up liberating its own oxygen supply in sub-stoichiometric conditions from the biomass itself, thereby releasing more energy as gas and heat than the endothermic reactions require to sustain themselves.

Biomass energy technologies are ready for deployment from the bottom up, for communities and by communities. In this same movement, we find we will also be keeping organics out of landfills, localizing fertilizer production, tending diseased forests, and displacing fossil fuel expenditures and associated carbon release.

[Note:  To see the full tables,  select the tables, copy them and paste them into a Word or equivalent document.]

Nicholas Chambers is a small farmer who operates Living Arts Systems, LLC, a design, build and installation company for food and energy systems operating in southern Colorado and northern NM. He is also the Biomass Energy instructor for Santa Fe Community College’s Biofuels Center of Excellence. You can reach him at nick@livingartsystems.com.

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IAIA Demonstration Garden

Seth Roffman

Although the faculty had integrated agricultural curriculum into the Indigenous Liberal Studies and Museum Studies departments, opportunities for hands-on student agriculture and scientific research at the Institute of American Indian Arts was lacking until two years ago, when a garden was planted to demonstrate and promote Indigenous agricultural methods for food and medicinal crop cultivation. The garden includes corn, beans, squash, peaches, lettuce, onions and other fruits and vegetables, some of which are used in the school’s cafeteria.

The plot is designed and maintained by the school’s Center for Lifelong Education, local tribal members, students and faculty. The assistant garden manager is Paul Quintana Jr. of Cochiti Pueblo. Teresa Kaulity (Kiowa) and Jacki Smith (Navajo) are the work-study garden and greenhouse staff.

IAIA is now one of several tribal colleges across the nation engaging in programs to revitalize traditional food cultivation, harvesting and cooking. IAIA students are mentored in small-scale traditional food crop production, including soil preparation, irrigation methods in dry climates, and the benefits of organically produced foods. The project is representative of IAIA’s 1994 Land Grant mission to offer culturally sensitive curriculum that incorporates cultural and historical identity. This includes work-study, internship training and community outreach that promotes tribal sovereignty and self-determination. Students also survey family participation in farming, gardening and a healthy eating program, and IAIA’s research team is providing mentoring to Santa Fe Indian School students in agricultural and environmental science.

A US Department of Agriculture grant has strengthened IAIA’s collaboration with New Mexico State University, a fellow Land Grant institution, through NMSU’s Alcalde, NM Sustainable Agriculture Science Center and NMSU’s extension services, which offer beginning farmer and rancher programs. A USDA grant also made it possible to build a greenhouse to start plants and serve as an experiential classroom.

“The overall intent is to teach how to help build a whole community food system,” says Luke Reed, USDA Research & Extension Project Manager. “Local year-round food production can improve people’s food habits by infusing greens and healthy foods into communities’ diets.”

For more information about IAIA’s agriculture and nutrition research programs, contact Reed at lreed@iaia.edu.

[SIDEBAR:]

IAIA’s 50^th Anniversary Celebration

The Institute of American Indian Arts is the nation’s only four-year institution dedicated to the study of contemporary Native Arts.

IAIA will host an open house and 50^th anniversary celebration from 10 am-5 pm on October 13 at the IAIA campus at 83 Avan Nu Po Road in Santa Fe. Events will include panel sessions on IAIA’s impact on creative writing, Indigenous studies, museum studies, studio and new media arts. There will also be campus tours, storytelling by Stephen Fadden (Mohawk), oral history presentations, faculty and student exhibitions and demonstrations, and opportunities to view IAIA’s museum collection, which includes artwork created by students since the school opened in 1962. In addition, there will be a foundry bronze pour at the Sculpture Complex, and experimental video by students and staff in the world’s only fully moveable Digital Dome, as well as food, music and games.

For more information, call 505.424.2351 or email IAIACommunications@iaia.edu.

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Don Bustos

In August 2012, I had the opportunity to travel to China as part of a farmer-to-farmer cultural exchange program. The farmers I met there were able to sell what they grow in the open markets, and after they make their state quotas, have brokers sell the larger amounts. Wholesalers drive their trucks to the farms, buy directly from the growers, and then transport the produce to the city to sell to restaurants and stores. On several occasions, I saw vendors selling directly to the hotel where we were staying. Also, each day, local street markets sold live seafood. What they didn’t sell would be offered for dinner at restaurants.

Korean Farmer-to-Farmer Exchange with the US

While in China, as part of our tour, I was able to meet with four farm managers from North Korea. China and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK, commonly referred to as North Korea) are both Communist countries but function differently. Under the direction of the government, the North Korean farm managers are in charge of cooperative farms, which are given quotas for agriculture production. Because of the different regions where the crops are growing and infrastructure limitations, their farming operations are very diverse. The woman manager I met ran a 1,750-hectare operation with fishing boats, farmland and orchards, along with the mandatory rice and corn production. Her challenges include steep slopes, erosion of soil, and very limited infrastructure and resources. The four managers were very intelligent, and had keen eyes toward learning new technology for winter production using solar energy, soil management and conservation.

One of the main points of interest for me was the tour of the University of Shenyang’s Agriculture and Sustainability program. We went to three different research centers there. The first was focused on winter production. It had walls built from brick and pumice blocks, and there were some freestanding cold frames. The North Korean farmers were given cold-frame kits to extend their growing seasons. They were interested in growing high-value crops for their cooperatives and communities. They hoped that these crops could generate sales, which could then be reinvested into their communities.

Accompanying us was a North Korean translator by the name of Mr. O. Mr. O has apparently been one of the few North Koreans who have regularly traveled outside of their country. I believe he is one of their more progressive thinkers and has gained respect from some of his countrymen. Our group also included a chief engineer from one of the North Korean farms. He was very quiet and respectful. His main responsibility is to keep all of the equipment running. A soil scientist from the ASE, a branch of the North Korea agriculture services, was especially interested in the soil laboratory at the Chinese agriculture station where soil is tested for all the Chinese farms. Extension agents then distribute the recommended kind and amount of fertilizers needed. The seventh member of the North Korean delegation was Mr. Ling. He was the only one who actually stated that he works for the DRPK prosecutor’s office. I think he was the assigned government officer.

The whole tour was very well designed, and protocol was always followed. In some instances we were told in what order to enter rooms, and the seating arrangements were studied before the meetings. When we met with Chinese delegations, we usually had a Chinese Cultural Affairs attaché with us. I had the sense that the Chinese were watching the North Koreans, the North Koreans were watching the Chinese, and both sides were watching me, the American farmer.

The education system in China is very different. Not only do students not get to pick their education levels; they do not get a choice of their career. That is determined by several factors, by others. Another strange thing is that the professors charge for their services. First they negotiate a price for a tour and a short introduction to explain what services they offer. If more is wanted, then a contract can be entered into if the government approves. In those cases the government officials are offered a fee for their services. The season extension researcher in Shenyang was a professor at the solar greenhouse research center. He had several students working with him on design and placement. When asked by the North Korean farmers for very specific details on building, growing times and methods, he said if they wanted more information he could provide construction and materials for a fee. He has his own consultation firm.

The North Korean farmers were very interested in experiencing other methods and then taking those observations and adapting them to their needs for growing food to feed their communities and country. It was clear that both counties were withholding information from each other. And after spending time with the other farmers, I could understand why. The reasons are many, and in some instances, historical in nature.

On one of the travel days I asked the farmers what their country looked like. Immediately, all the other folks in the van were listening. I was given three publications from North Korea to look at from the government official. One of the most eye-opening things I witnessed was the first time the other folks from North Korea saw pictures and stories from their countrymen and women. My understanding is that living in their country, people are not encouraged or sometimes cannot travel inside their own country. One of the impacts of that is that there is very little farmer-to-farmer exchange, and this hinders the ability of the ASE to spread the information needed to change and improve their food system.

Recommendations for Change

These are a few of the experiences I had on what I believe was the first farmer-to-farmer exchange program between North Koreans and New Mexico farmers. I witnessed the power of regular people sharing ideas and having some of the same values of family and community. It was an effort toward building trust and learning what it is really like in each other’s countries. On this tour, I felt that some of the participants saw the North Koreans as inferior on several levels. I think more exchange programs of this sort should be developed. It will take a culturally sensitive approach, one that utilizes respect and equitable treatment.

Don Bustos is an International Agriculture and Trade Policy fellow working for American Friends Service Committee. DBustos@afsc.org

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Patrick W. Staib and Sayrah Namaste

“We wanted to dispel the myth that you can’t make a living farming,” says Don Bustos, director of the New Mexico program of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). AFSC is an international nonprofit organization and Nobel Peace prize recipient that has worked in NM since 1976 tocreate economic viability through training small farmers in sustainable agricultural practices, thereby protecting land and water rights and traditional cultural practices.

AFSC’s hands-on, farmer-to-farmer training program teaches beginning farmers high-value-crop selection, sequential planting, crop aggregation, year-round production in passive-solar cold frames, and managing a farmer network. Teaching farmers to aggregate their produce was Don’s idea to help them access larger markets.

AFSC partnered with South Valley-based community organizations La Plazita Institute and Valle Encantado in 2009, with significant funding from the USDA. These organizations recruited community members who wanted to learn to farm and provided training sites that were developed into more than a dozen small farms in Albuquerque’s South Valley.

The trainees participated in AFSC’s popular year-long program by working together on their farm tasks, processing and marketing. The group training provided an ideal opportunity to learn the cooperative approach to aggregated production and marketing. “You’re like my brothers now,” said a farm trainee to the others in his class. “If anything goes wrong at your farm, I’ll come out and help fix it, and I know you’d do the same for me.”

AFSC, La Plazita Institute and Valle Encantado established and operated a farmer-owned network that conducted sales, marketing, processing, permitting and coordination. The trainees named this farmer-owned network The Agri-Cultura Network (ACN). By the end of the first year of the project, ACN was servicing seven restaurants, two grocery outlets, had obtained vendor status and won a bid to supply produce to the local food program at Albuquerque Public Schools (APS).

The project partners and AFSC staff soon discovered that coordination of a produce-for-market [program, operation?] over several sites required significant oversight and logistical support. By the second year, ACN was operating seven sites, with six farmers working to aggregate their harvests. ACN was supplying almost 150 pounds of salad mix to APS a week and had developed a system for ordering, processing, packaging, labeling, distribution and invoicing. In one year, the trainees more than doubled their food production and more than tripled their sales.

AFSC also taught trainees how to construct cold frames for year-round greens production for wholesale and institutional markets. This kept the farmers busy in the cold months. An important facet of this effort was to emphasize collective planning events. AFSC worked with the Bernalillo County Cooperative Extension office to conduct business-planning workshops and held group seed selection workshops that culminated in a collective seed order. The AFSC project team also worked with ACN farmers and incoming trainees to schedule planting dates and varieties around seasonal availability and marketability.

One innovation as a result of these events was to coordinate farms to share the expense of early-season plant starts. ACN farmers worked with AFSC staff to select diverse heirloom tomato varieties and then to get the tomato starts in the cold frames before the last spring freeze. ACN farmers grew a wide array of tomatoes and were able to bring them to market much earlier in the season.

As a result, the farmers learned to target higher price points through maximizing the appropriate technology of cold frames with drip irrigation to get a head start on tomatoes and then extend their harvest into November. It was the farmers themselves who enacted this innovation, based on their observations and experience from the previous growing season. AFSC simply provided technical and logistical support.

One wonderful but unexpected impact of the program was the community participation. Much of the land the trainees farm has been lent to them by community members, including a few widows, who saw the farms in their neighborhood that AFSC and the partners developed and wanted their land to produce food again. The inter-generational relationships and community revitalization that resulted exceeded everyone’s expectations.

As this project draws to a close in October 2012, AFSC is proud to be implementing similar training and aggregation models in Anthony and Embudo, NM. While there is no uniform approach to community development through sustainable farming, the shared experience of farmers and communities willing to collaborate will help ease new groups’ transitions. There is much work to do, but this innovative approach is likely to help accomplish the goals of preserving water rights and reducing food insecurity within New Mexico.

Patrick W. Staib and Sayrah Namaste work for the American Friends Service Committee and were key to the success of this project. Contact: 505.842.7343

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