Outscape's Explorations

Wood Construction in Yao minority village in GuangXi, China

Having built a house from locally cut wood in Panama, I'm always curious how people in other countries do these things. We fought with all kinds of difficulties - so I know what to look for.

When I spent a weekend in a Yao community named Tou Tian, near Long Cheng, Guangxi, I was delighted to see that new construction there resembled the older houses in the area very closely.

Absolutely beautiful wooden buildings, up to 4 stories, built entirely without nails, in an area without road access.

So how do they do it?

The short answer is: skill.

Here is the longer answer:

Each family owns a piece of land in the mountains above the village. They cut trees there for lumber. (When I walked across the ridge, I saw that most trees were gone, but most of the land has been replanted. I later found out that indeed the families are responsible enough to replant when they cut).

The wood is carried by horse to the construction site. 

The frame for the structure is built by hand, without nails. Holes are chiseled into the posts to stick the beams into, and wedged in. Very impressive work. The chisels they used look like the metal may be hundreds of years old, just the wood is replaced.

The roof goes up next, to have a good place to dry the wood.

A sawmill is put together with an electric motor, a belt, a giant circular blad (4ft, perhaps), and a thin piece of sheet metal. All these items can be carried easily to the construction site, and the rest is built locally with wood. (table, guide, etc).

Boards are cut, then dried, first outside, then under the new roof.

To get the edges of the boards straight, they use a table saw with a sliding rule made from - wood. The moving piece has nails sticking out from below so that when you put a work piece on it, it doesn't move. You then slide the piece by the saw.

Tungs and grooves are cut into the floor boards by hand, with not much more than another ancient piece of metal, a piece of wood, and a nail, see pictures. 

So, total power tools used:

- one giant table saw as a saw mill, built from pieces that are easy to carry
- smaller table saw to get the edges straight
- one electric hand planer

Hand tools:

- a chalk line setup, made from wood, beautiful carvings on it (40 years old)
- chisels. an old piece of steel with wooden handles jammed onto it.
- hand planers and routers. Basically a piece of wood with a metal blade wedged into and held down by a nail. (one of about 20 nails I saw in the whole building)
- broken pieces of a sanding disc, used to sharpen the blades
- hammer
- no rope, but pieces of bamboo used to tie down scaffolding

About 30 guest houses were built here in the last few years. The cost of building a 20 room guest house is about 500,000 RMB at this point. The "master" carpenter makes about 150 RMB per day. It used to be much less. So, in an amazing way, the mass tourism in these villages is trickling through. But that will be another post, when I find the time.

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Bloom Energy is going for cheap publicity instead of a viable market

Recently there has been a lot of hype about Bloom Energy's announcement for their "energy server"  - a fuel cell that converts fuel into electricity.

The coverage in the media is designed to leave most people thinking that it's a small magic box that produces electricity like a battery. Barely is there mention that fuel is required to produce electricity with it. The 60 minutes pieces was probably the nastiest example of misinformation, which is to be expected from mainstream TV.

But even on slashdot, an engineering geek community, someone asked how long the product will power a home - someone else quickly responded and explained it, but the question was still a good indication that most people don't get this aspect of what the confusingly named "energy server" actually is.

Bloom Energy pitches their product as an alternative to getting electricity from the power grid. As this article in Forbes points out, the product is only economically viable because of subsidies, and only where gas is cheap and electricity is not.

They are very excited that the product can be installed right where the power is used. Why is this a good thing? For the few of us who noticed that we are just replacing a power line with a gas line, two reasons are given, both if which I think are flawed:

(1) The heat produced as a side product can be used for something on-site. That makes sense for a brewery, or for a heated pool,but not for a data center.

(2) Transporting gas instead of electricity reduces transmission losses. However, only 7-8% of US electricity is lost in power lines, So even if gas lines are lossless (which they are, I suppose, until there is an earthquake or other accident), and if the gas line is already there and the capacity is sufficient, we can AT MOST save 7-8 % by having the decide on site. Against that stands the problem of having to install and maintain lots of small units. So this argument is weak too.

Now, you might ask why I get worked up about a company that burnt only $400M to build an undoubtedly useful technology and a product that is, right now, only viable because of subsidies. After all, the entire solar industry was kickstarted by subsidies, and even today, solar panels on roofs are only viable because of subsidies, and I still think this was a good decision.

What bothers me is that there is no honest discussion about this. With solar, everyone talked about it, and the consensus was that it's ok to subsidize solar panels, because creating a huge market for them will bring the price down, and that way they will eventually become viable.

Perhaps the same is true for bloom energy's fuel cell - but we should have an open discussion about this.

The management and investors at bloom aren't stupid. They have carefully designed the PR campaign that we are witnessing, not bothering the public with all the details and tradeoffs, probably with the following rationale:

The obvious, reasonable application for their product is to replace gas generators that currently run with the same kind of fuels (natural gas, diesel). After all, a fuel cell is exactly like a generator, except it's quiet and more efficient. (I want one for Panama, and I wish my neighbors had them too. There are even better applications in places where the natural gas is almost free - for example, I lived in a house in West Virginia that had its own gas well, and the gas was literally free.)

But this straightforward doesn't work for them. The problem with going for the rational application for this is that it's too small of a market for a company with a valuation of $1B.

So they needed to find a bigger market - and decided to created public excitement for this. Their strategy seems to be to produce pressure to further subsidize their technology, and create the same kind of situation that was created for solar panels. Get lots of people excited about the great new technology, get them to want to install it, and to push politicians for susidies.

I think there is no doubt that this is a great useful technology. But do we need to finance its further development indirectly by encouraging its use in inappropriate places, just to create more demand? We did for solar (sun-poor Germany being a leader), and that's fine.

That may or may not be a good idea. We need to figure this out, and we should have an open discussion about this, before the decision is made through public opinion and the media instead of common sense.

And if we do decide it's worth it, can we please use it where it makes sense from an economical and ecological perspective, rather than only because of subsidies?

 

 

 

 

Sourcing Solar Panels in Foshan, China

I've always wanted to visit a factory in China, and never had an excuse to actually do it, until yesterday. I need about $15,000 worth of solar panels (at Panama prices) for www.cocovivo.com, and since I'm in China right now anyway, I thought I might as well buy direct.

I had been told before that doing any such business in China involved playing golf and getting drunk with your suppliers. While that sounds like an interesting cultural experience, it's really not my thing, and I also had my doubts on the effectiveness of this approach to begin with.

Here is how I see it: You're either straightforward and honest, or you're not. If you're not, you deserve to end up dealing with counterparts who aren't, either. You then engage in a competition of sleaziness, of misleading others to think there is more business to come, more money to be made later on, etc, while they respond in kind. I have neither the time nor the lack of ethics for that. So rather than trying to squeeze favors out of people by making friends, I think it's better to gain respect and trust by being honest, straightforward, and real, and not wasting their time and money on trust exercises.

So I decided to test that theory, ignore the advice from the "how-to-do-business-in-china" book, and was my usual, no-BS, get-it-done, self - friendly, but firm and solid.

But first of all, getting to the place was an interesting lesson. Looking back, I can now see my mistake, but it's not immediately obvious. Here is the address:

Sontasun (Foshan) New Material Co., Ltd.
Datang Industrial park,Sanshui district,
Foshan city,Guangdong Province,CHINA.

Looking at this, I thought the place was,well, in the city of Foshan. But after many previous experiences with this kind of thing, I thought it would be safe to look at a google map and find the place. And indeed, there is place near Foshan called "Sanshui". It's about 38km away, well in range for a taxi. Except - that's not where it was either. It ended up being another 50km further way, and actually closer to Guangzhou than Foshan. And there were more duck raising ponds and rice fields than anything resembling a city. Could I have known? Yes, apparently all foreigners go through the experience that "city" is a mistranslation and it should actually say "district" or "area".

Ok, so I did finally get there.

I was greeted by my email contact, and another woman who was apparently an engineer. They then introduced me to the factory owner. Everyone was really friendly in a very normal, down-to-earth way and came across as genuine and wanting to help. The engineer asked me how many appliances my house had and how much power I needed. To skip past this, I asked for a piece of paper and drew a diagram of my power setup, including numbers wherever appropriate. The boss (who spoke no english) nodded in approving ways, they apparently realized that I knew what I was talking about. As a result, they started talking about solar panels instead of the refrigerators I can power with them, and the price they were asking for the panels dropped immediately.

They then gave me a tour of the factory. It was a rather small setup; big shop, but few people. It looked like they had good equipment and knew how to use it. The solar panels looked fine. They come with cables and connectors, so easy and convenient to use.

The basic process is making strips of cells, then testing them, then putting them on a panel, laminating the whole thing in a big machine, putting a frame around them, then testing the final product. Most equipment was testing gear.

You can see the final testing setup in the picture. I carefully eased into asking them to show me how they test the panels and pointing at a random panel leaning against the wall. They were eager and happy to show me, and even let me take this picture (they were funny about it on their factory floor). I watched the test results of the panel show up on the PC screen, it all made sense. Then I decided to push it further and asked if I can send someone to observe the testing and packing of my panels. But of course, no problem!, they said. And if I want, they'll print out each test result and give it to me, for each panel.

Overall, I was very impressed by the transparency. I don't know much about solar panel manufacturing, but my impression of the people was that they are solid, down to earth, and real. Very much in line of what I've seen in Guangzhou among those people who run reau businesses and get things done.

Of course, in a few months I might find out that all of what I just wrote is wrong, or I might not. Such is life in China.

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Avoiding insane AT&T iphone roaming charges in Canada

I use about 400 MB per month of data on my iphone when I'm in the US. AT&T charges $15/MB for international roaming in Canada. That's $6000 per month. Totally insane.

AT&T has an "international roaming" plan that lets you prepay for data. It's $25 for 20MB. There are larger packages, pricing is about proportional. However, it's not that simple. The data is credited and billed on a per day basis, prorated to the month. So you get about 600kb per day of having the plan active. Moreover, the billing cycle is the same as your normal phone billing cycle. So if you activate the plan 1 day before the end of your billing cycle, and then use 20MB of data, you will be billed for 19.4MB of overages - almost $100! The good news is that if you ask nicely, you can get the plan activated retroactively as of any day you like.

Another quirk was that although the rep told me the plan would be activated within 5 minutes, it wasn't. The reason was that I had my phone for less than 90 days. So they had to connect me, I kid you not, to the "under 90 day dept", asked me a bunch of useless security questions that were semi public information anyway (bank that issued my credit card, cities I've worked in), and then activated the package retroactively.

Anyway, here is the HOW TO:

(1) Estimate how much data you will need until the end of your billing cycle. I use about 1.5MB per day when being really careful. The "Usage" in the Settings menu of your iphone is a good way to track this.
(2) Pick a plan (20MB, 50 MB, ...) that gives you enough data per day.
(3) Calculate to which day the plan needs to be backdated so that you don't go over. It's not the end of the world if you go over the package - $5/MB, still better than 15.
(4) Call AT&T, 1-800-331-0500, 0, 0, then ask for the international department, then get the plan activated.

Theoretically, if you have the guts, you could wait until the last day of your billing cycle, and then you will know exactly what day to backdate it to. But again, at $15/MB, this is a bit risky.

I talked to Jaime, JS977S, he was very helpful and said that the backdating is something AT&T will generally do.

Signs at CouchSurfing base camp

I spent last night at CouchSurfing.com's base camp in SF. They have 4 apartments there with about 25 people living and working together, and it's working well. I was curious how people manage to live together and keep the place clean, happy, and efficient - I think we can learn from this for my CocoVivo live/work space in Panama. (www.cocovivo.com).

One thing I noticed was that they had a lot of signs everywhere. So this is something we should try at CocoVivo. I think it's important to keep the signs friendly, informal, and funny, and use them to basically idiot-proof the house. 

Some examples in the pictures below.

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Bamboo roofing in Laos

In northern Laos, bamboo roofs are very common. The pictures show how it's done. The tiles are held in place by sandwiching them between the bamboo they rest on and  a strip of bamboo above them. The knot keeps them from sliding out. There are 3 layers, so this weak spot where water could get in is covered by two more tiles. 

For a roof covering a total of 40 sqm (i.e. 56sqm worth of roofing material), it would take 2 guys 5 days. i.e. 5.6 sqm per man-day. That's much much less than the penca roofing we use in Bocas. A well made roof will last 7 years.

The species of bamboo used is much thinner-walled than what we have in Bocas. I doubt it would work with our bamboo.

In Laos, they have the same problem with the bugs turning the bamboo into dust that we have. To protect against that, it's important that the bamboo is at least 3 years old, and harvested in... december. Not clear why.

I'm wondering whether this would even work in California - perhaps prohibitive because of labor cost; then again, we have machines and could probably do this a lot faster. And it's not like your typical roof in the US installs itself, either. But most of all - it looks pretty. And in California, the climate would probably let it last much longer.

One of the pictures shows how to fix a leak: you simply stick in another tile. That's another benefit over the bocas penca material, which basically can't be fixed, you have to replace the whole roof.

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Long-tail boats in Louang Prabang

Using my traveler sign language skills (including a rather pathetic impression of a horse) I managed to learn a few interesting things about the long-tail boats that people use here on the Nam Khan river.

The picture show pretty clearly how they work - it's basically a direct-drive propeller shaft attachment mounted on a gas-powered engine. Super simple design. The engine is mounted on a pivot point and balanced so that the propeller and engine stay roughly level. To start the engine, you pull the propeller out of the water by tilting the whole engine down (which lifts up the propeller). The propeller will turn as you crank the engine - which is why it needs to be out of the water.

Here is the cost of the whole setup:

Chinese-made 16hp engine: 2M kip = USD 240
Thai-made 2-degrees-of-freedom mounting hardware: 350k kip = USD 40
Thai-made propeller shaft, attachment to engine: 1.1M kip = USD140

Total about $420, compared to $1600 for a proper 15hp outboard engine.

My guess is that these boats are a lot less efficient than our boats in Panama - on the other hand, more flexible, and the engine is certainly easier to fix.

The boats have a flat bottom, and the sides come up at a 45 degree angle. They are made from straight boards joined together. The floor board is about 15" wide and bent near the end. I suppose this is a good way to use a warped piece of wood.

I wonder how they do in bigger water. We saw a couple on the Mekong, but there were some mini-whirlpools with weird eddylines that could easily flip a kayak. Then again, the 45 degree angle might mean there is no edge for the eddyline to grab... anyone have any experience with that? I'd love to buy a boat like this in Thailand and then spend 2 weeks exploring Laos by boat, camping on the river, staying in villages along the way, etc. And the bigger "cities" like Louang Prabang would make for nice luxurious breaks from the rough river life.

You have been sent 3 pictures.

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2009 Total Solar Eclipse at 1600 year old monastery (Tian Mu Shan)

Four of us flew to Hangzhou to see the eclipse there. Unfortunately, the weather was bad, so we got up early, hired a car and headed west to Tian Mu Shan. A golf cart, cable car, and hike later, we were welcomed by the relaxing sounds of monks chanting.

 I decided that there will be too many pictures of the eclipse itself anyway on the web, and not enough pictures of people *viewing* the eclipse. Results below.

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