Projects

The Solar CITIES Swaziland team, co-led by Sundowner's Backpacker's Lodge owner Sergio Almeida, the construction expert and innovative philanthropist who built two digesters with us and made his staff, vehicles, workshop and tools available for our build at the farm.

August 19 2014 saw Dr. T.H. Culhane and Google Science Fair Finalist Rohit Fenn (an Indian youth who designed a more efficient toilet) and his older brother, evolutionary biologist Amit Fenn, travelling to Swaziland to work with Science in Action winners Sakhiwe Shongwe and Bonkhe Mahlalela, adding the 'food waste to fuel and fertilizer' biogas  solution to their toolkit for improved low cost hydroponics in Swaziland.

Culhane teaches participants to build a mini biodigester

At Principia College during the sustainability conference we built a functioning mini-digester out of paint buckets.  It really works and not only teaches the principles but gives a few minutes of daily gas!

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/2014/0516/Thomas-H.-Culhane-teaches-people-to-build-fuel-sources-powered-by-garbage

Rotoplas engineers pleasantly surprised Culhane during his spring 2014 Mexico visit by showing him a  Solar CITIES style modified ARTI digester (with the "microbial motels" we put in to increase surface area in Kenya with the Maasai in 2010) that  they built in anticipation of his visit for testing as the company explores its own line of rotomolded home biogas systems (Rotoplas is already the top producer of home scale "biodigestores" in central and south America for treating toilet wastes, though these systems capture no gas).  For Rotoplas to enter into the small scale bi

On Sunday August 10 at 11:00 am in the Stillsuit Room, Solar CITIES co-founder Culhane led a session on "Open Source and DIY Citizen Science for Sustainable Development: Simple Solutions for Energy, Water and Waste Management".  Throughout the weekend in the demo area  he displayed Solar CITIES brochures, descriptions of our projects and a 220V Insinkerator, a gift of Emerson Electronics, that he was bringing to Swaziland for the biogas for hydroponics system build occuring August 19 through 27 with former Scientific American Science in Action award winners and Google Science Fair

 A couple of years ago a young man named Jorma Gorns from the Gymnasium Altenholz in Kiel, northern Germany,  wrote Solar CITIES a letter asking if it would be possible to intern with us on some project around the world.  A year later he took the train down and  came to stay with us in Essen and helped Culhane redesig the ARTI gas holder on the porch.  A year after that he raised funds from his school and came to work with Culhane at Mercy College in New York for a week and then in Niteroi and Rio in Brazil for a week, gaining expertise in IBC and Puxin designs.&nbs

Visionary permaculturists Paulo Mellett and Fabio Poesia Sambasoul in front of their Insinkerator and Solar CITIES biogas system in Sao Paulo

Basic training opportunities in small scale biogas build confidence and familiarity with biogas before launching into a larger community size build.

Puxin in Rio

When the pours were finished in Niteroi T.H.

In January of 2014, Professor Culhane took students from "Envisaj Mercy: The Mercy College Environmental Sustainability and Justice League" on "the mother of all Biogas tours" visiting Eco-gas Israel installations throughout Israel and Solar CITIES installations in Palestine.  At the end of the two weekd "service learning field trip" Culhane and  his students and Alex Cicelsky and Mike Kaplin and the students and alums of the Green Apprenticeship Program (like Leo Adler, who also builds with Cuhane in Brazil)  built a new Solar CITIES hybrid IBC/ARTI home biogas design for th

Solar C³ities works around the globe "connecting community catalysts integrating technologies for industrial ecology solutions".  We run our own projects and we work on other organization's projects, creating synergies and shepherding symbiosis.   We specialize in the nexus between Natural and Industrial Ecology, looking for ever more productive co-evolving relationships  between Microbes, Plants, Animals (human and non-human) Fungi, Protzoa and Geophysical Processes.

Photo by Jorma Görns - Architecture for Humanity architect Luis Felipe Vasconcellos and Solar CITIES' T.H. Culhane discuss placement of an additional gas holder once the concrete has been poured for the three digesters at the elementary school in Niteroi

Working with the American NGO  "UrbanBioRecovery: Digesters for Development" (originally called "Solar Cities Solutions" from 2012 through July 2014)  Solar CITIES e.V. intern Jorma Gorns joined T.H. Culhane on a project bringing Puxin 10m3 biodigester molds to sites in Rio De Janeiro.  The initial work was done by Solar Cities Solution's "Biogas Education Team" members T.H. Culhane, Yair Teller and Marcello Ambrosio, working with Dr.

The project in Al Najaf, Iraq was run by our member Taha Majeed Lafta, Chemical engineer form the Ministry of Science & technology, Renewable energy directorate.

On June 17th, Joseph Grimaldi and Christopher Lindstrom and T.H.