Greek Island Hopping

I've been in Greece for the last 2 weeks, for Luzmila's Wedding. I flew into Crete and then caught the boat to Folegandros and Milos, spending a few days camping and exploring in each, before meeting up with everyone for the wedding in Santorini. The wedding and parties were amazing, Luzmila looked amazing. I then went back to Crete for a couple of days before heading home. It was great to have a relaxing holiday, I read a lot of books, visited beautiful beaches and saw more white Greek Orthodox Churches than you can shake a stick at.

Below are a selection of photos that I took whilst out and about. The full album is available here.

SAM

Busy Busy

There hasn't been many photo opportunities over the last few months, so I've put up some random photos I've taken on my phone just to brighten up the writing!

Scrabble problems

I don't quite know where the time has gone since coming back from Nepal. I've been finishing my turbine selection section of my work, and now have an idea of where I'm going mechanically. I've even submitted a paper to the World Renewable Energy Conference 2011 in Sweden about my selection method and outcomes, as it's not the usual way to select a turbine. Now, I'm modelling the turbine in a bit more detail and looking to see how I can experiment with it. Which comes to one of the frustrations I've reached. I thought I'd be doing a lot more practical experiments, but I suppose you have to do the theory first and come up with some ideas before you can test them. It's not the sitting in labs and fiddling with switches and buttons that I thought it would be. Not yet anyway.

Swappable heads on top of my computer

In PhD-land I've also been reading into the electrical side of things - how grids are made, how generators are connected together, control systems for these and so on. It's meant reaching into the deepest depths of my memory and trying to retrieve my old electrotechnology lectures. This has actually been very interesting, realising why things are done as they are in this world: the choice of 50Hz as a standard frequency in Europe, reading the history of the electrical current wars between direct (constant) advocated by Thomas Edison and alternating with Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse beating its drum. (To read about the current wars see here). I've also spent some time looking at the National Grid here in the UK, as this can provide ideas on how to operate a remote electrical grid. There's an interesting bit on the BBC about how the National Grid copes (or doesn't as the case may be) with the peak in demand at the end of Eastenders here.

Lights in Bristol city centre

The Welsh translation of microwave - such an onomatopoeic description! From the Centre for Alternative Technology

I've been doing a lot outside uni as well. I've been asked to be Deputy Stage Manager in Horfield Theatre Company's latest production, Bad Girls - the musical. I think it's going to be fun!

I went to the Ashden Awards in London on the 1st July. These are awards for sustainable energy solutions. This year there were some interesting and a wide variety of finalists. I thought it was great to see Okehampton College and St Columb Minor School, as they were spreading the knowledge amongst children, which worked its way back to their homes. The Isle of Eigg in Scotland had formed a remote grid using hydro, wind, solar and diesel which was great.

I spent a long time talking to the MD of Eigg Electric about the operation of their grid. It is a fantastic example of how renewable energy sources can be used to link up and supply communities. Although it would be great to implement similar schemes across the UK, Eigg has several advantages. They are a solid community, with everyone working to the same goal - partly due to their island location. On the mainland this sense of community doesn't really exist as much. They also accept limitations on their power - a maximum of 5kW per household. I think that most consumers wouldn't like the power being cut whilst using their electric shower if someone switched on the kettle. And also the cost of it was very high. Pico and Micro hydro is normally quoted at about $1000 per kW generation (£700/kW). On Eigg, however, the cost was £5440 per kW - and that is including the two 80kW standby diesel generators. I just don't think it's commercially viable still. Soon, hopefully, the price of the technology will reduce and maybe this shining example will be replicated all over the country and the world.

Having a lie down on Bridge Valley Road in the Midnight Walk

Last year Lynne Richards, a most wonderful woman who I had the pleasure of knowing, sadly passed away. St Peter's Hospice in Bristol supported Lynne and her family. St Peter's was organising a Midnight Walk, where women would walk 10 miles around Bristol. It seemed very appropriate to us all, as it would be on the same day that Lynne died last year, so a team of ladies from church was going to attempt it. Not to be out done, a group of men, including me, decided we would support them all by marshalling on the route. I was posted on the closed Bridge Valley Road, and enjoyed watching all the women puffing and panting coming up the road. When we returned to the finish, I regretted my previous smugness as I was tasked in cutting the tags from everyone's sweaty ankle. Karma.

Lynne's Ladies, Me and Jim on Bridge Valley Road

It's strange how things happen, this morning I woke up with an idea. I think it may be the basis of the idea, the idea that is going to push my research into the unknown, which is where I should be heading. It's been exciting trying to write it down to understand how I'm going to accomplish it. It's going to take a long time to develop it properly, but I finally have an idea. Woo.

I'm off to Greece for a couple of weeks now, one of my close friends is getting married. I'm looking forward to the break, sunshine, and a chance to sleep.

For now

SAM

Back to Nepal!

After a little volcano trouble (grrr...) I finally made it back to Nepal, a year and a week to the day after I left. It was strange going back. I really wanted to see my adopted family again. Saru had had a baby boy, Bibek would be a lot bigger, and my Nepali language skills would be put to the test.

I also had some work I wanted to do. They were 3 main things:

1. Visit a project site for pico or micro hydro

2. Go to Kathmandu University at Dhulikhel, where they had a propeller turbine test rig installed.

3. Collect some data on river flow - which would probably mean a trip to a Nepal Government office.

It was weird descending back into the dust bowl of cacophony that is Kathmandu. It had been a year since I was last here. I had spoken some Nepali sporadically, I had tried - and failed - to cook Nepali food, and I had done my best to keep up with the politics (nothing had happened). But sitting in the taxi weaving in and out of the traffic, reminded me how much I really missed the place. Yes, it was noisy. Yes, it was polluted. Yes, it stank. But there were things here that really never failed to touch me. When the taxi pulled up to my adopted Nepali home, I forgot all the chaos around and remembered the joys of Nepal, the warmth of the people, the taste of the food, and the unpredictability of the electricity supply - which disappeared 10 minutes after I arrived.

I spent the first week re-acquainting myself with my old Nepal life. I went to the PEEDA office, and presented them all the T-Shirts I bought in Bristol, with bristolian slang on it (http://www.beast-clothing.com/). It did take some explaining what each meant though. I spent a lot of time with my adopted family. Saru had had a baby boy, less than 1 month old, and now was living at the house for a few months as is traditional in Nepali culture. I visited the International Church, KISC, and met up with my old lunch friends, those left anyway. A great catch up.

Biraj from the PEEDA office arranged for me to visit Krishna Panthee, a hydropower installer that I met in Bhanbhane (see March 2009). Krishna was currently installing a few micro hydro schemes in Ilam. Ilam was somewhere I really wanted to go. It was in the far east of the country, and known for its tea growing (map). There was going to be a strike in a couple of days, and as Ilam was at least a days bus ride from Kathmandu, I took a flight to Jhapa in the eastern Terai, then caught a jeep back up to Ilam bazaar.

In Ilam Bazaar, I met Kumar Shrestra from NCDC (ncdcilam.org.np), an office that operated as the government service centre for micro hydro. He delivered me to my hotel, and then left me to eat dinner. In my room, I had a visit of a local cockroach, a bit of a shock when it decided to climb over me whilst I was sleeping. The next morning, there was a knock on the door. I opened it, and stood there was a small little Nepali man. He smiled at me, came in and sat down. I didn't quite understand what was going on. So, I just started to chat. I found out that his name was Amrit Pandey, and was a resident of the village Krishna was working in. He would deliver me to Ekatappa, where Krishna would meet us.

Amchowk's power house

The destroyed dam site, with the locals clearing the rock

Sitting with the locals in Amchowk

Ekatappa was a 6 hour jeep ride from Ilam Bazaar. The jeep was rather full and uncomfortable. After an hour or so, we started to go off road, bouncing along between the ruts and stones. And as normal, slowly and surely, people disembarked as we reached their villages. By the time we reached Ekatappa at the end of the road, there was only 5 of us left. In Ekatappa, there was Krishna waiting for us. The next week, I went around 3 different micro hydro projects in different states of construction. In Ekatappa, the scheme was just starting to be built, with the base of the intake canal laid. In Amchowk, they were a lot further on. There was a few metres of intake canal to be built, the dam required rebuilding after it was destroyed in floods the previous year, and an extension to the intake canal was being built using penstock pipe. The third was up stream from the Amchowk site. It had been operational for the last 2 years, and was still working well.

The access road down to the power house site

The new intake, with bamboo scaffolding

Installing the transmission lines

I watched the people in Amchowk rebuilding their dam, and talked with them about their aspirations for electricity. Some people wanted TVs, others to charge their mobile phones, but most were just looking forward to clean light. Something that we in the west take very much for granted. In Amchowk, I stayed with the Baskota family, a wonderfully friendly family who welcomed me in with typical Nepali charm.

An old lady from Amchowk

A traditional grinding stone

With the Baskota family daughters and Krishna in Amchowk

At the time I was in Ilam, it was the same time as the UK General Elections. When I woke up the morning after the elections, Nepali radio declared Labour the winners. 2 hours later, the Tories had won an overall majority, by the end of the day the coalition Con-Lib was going to be formed. It was strange listening to UK politics on Nepali radio, another countries take on your so-called democracy. They were in awe of the way we voted. It made me feel a little bit guilty. This was the first election I was going to have voted in, and even this time it was by proxy (thanks Hannah!). But in a country like Nepal, the vote was something that was cherished, that people not one generation back had fought tooth and nail for, and there we were with turnout 65%. It felt pathetic - did we not recognise the importance of our votes?

The strike kept on going. After 5 days, I had seen everything that I wanted to, and really needed to get back to Kathmandu. However, there was no transport. When the strike finally ended after 8 days, the rain started, and the roads became impassible. So, Krishna and I had to wait a couple of days more before returning to Ilam Bazaar. Krishna saw me down to Birtamod in the Terai, from where I caught a bus to Didi's house. The bus ride was fairly uneventful - apart from the goat's backside in my face for a good hour - until I had to change buses. I was to catch a local bus to Lalbandi, which was 45 minutes from the road junction I was stood at. The first bus that pulled up I climbed aboard. It was packed, nothing new for a Nepali bus, but now the heat of the day had really started to kick in. Outside was a balmy 40 degrees, but inside it must have been over 50. There was nowhere to sit down, and I was forced to stand up with my head twisted parallel to the ground, the roof of the bus definitely not made for tall people to stand up in. By the time I fell out of the bus in Lalbandi, I had lost several stones through sweating and my clothes were reduced to towelling.

Bibek, Didi's son, had lived in Kathmandu during my year in Nepal. We went on several adventures together (here and here). But now, he had returned to live with his Mum and Dad in the Terai. I got a lift on a bike from Lalbandi to their village, about 5km away, and saw Didi outside her house working. We chatted for a long time, then I succumbed to the heat and fell asleep upstairs. I was warned about the snakes that would be there. next thing I knew, I was woken by Bibek staring at me shouting 'Sam-mama' (Uncle Sam). Kathmandu didn't seem the same without him, but I was glad he was here. In his village he could play, be with people his own age and do all the things that naughty little boys should do. We spent the next day walking around the village, Bibek showing me the maize that they were just about to cut, the cobra holes and how low the river had got - it was non-existant now, very different from the time I bathed in it with an audience.

After two nights in the heat of the Terai, I returned to Kathmandu, via Samjhu's house in Hetauda. Samjhu had got married just before I left last time (here), and now was the proud mother to a first son, her son was born one day before Saru's. I was really happy to see that Samjhu was looking well and enjoying her married life. Back in Kathmandu I spent my last week with my family. I had named Saru's son Bob, mainly because it was a name that Nepali people would be easily be able to pronounce.

'Bob'

After getting hopelessly lost around Dhulikhel, I went to visit John Cannell at Kathmandu University's Engineering Campus. There, he had set up a full size low head pico hydro test rig, and was conducting experiments on different propeller turbines. It was really interesting to speak with someone who had spent so long in Nepal working as a missionary, trying to build engineering capability, and seeing how he saw the world. I also had the great pleasure of visiting Kathmandu Alternative Power and Energy Group, who were currently running a project to build wind turbines out of locally made material and with local wood carving skills. Rakesh from KAPEG was a proper engineer, ready to turn his hand to anything and a fantastic experimenter. I left Dhuilikhel more inspired to get things up and going with my PhD in the UK.

And as always is the way, far too quickly it was all over again. I found myself packing, and getting ready to go to the airport. As I left, I was sad that I hadn't spent a long time here, a month flies by especially when last time was a whole year, but re-energised with the real life situations that I could put my research into practice with. I now have the task of trying to keep hold of that enthusiasm...

SAM

Easter Holidays

So, for the last few months I've been working on finding a way of selecting a turbine. This has meant going back to basic theory and looking at how turbines work, which has been very useful. It has reminded me of the fun I had in my undergraduate times, we did experiments with Pelton wheels, jets, flow measuring devices and so on. It also has brought some things to attention, why propeller turbines are normally used at low head, the problems with Pelton and Turgo wheels when the jet is slow. Here's some pictures of turbines if you have no idea what is what...

Pelton Wheel

Turgo Wheel

Crossflow

Francis Turbine

Propeller Turbine

Waterwheel

Archimedes Screw

The PhD is in association with Engineers Without Borders - UK (www.ewb-uk.org). So, I joined EWB for their annual research conference at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London, where I presented a poster about my research. The poster didn't say too much about the solution of my research problems, but I think describes the problem quite well. It was interesting to listen to the other EWB researchers, what they were up to, their motivations and so on, and also see who was up to anything hydro-like.

EWB Poster

This term, I've helped out in my first undergraduate lab. My supervisor was doing a series of lectures on Electrical Product Design, and part of this included a lab on designing a solar powered motor - the product itself wasn't the most useful, the process is the important part. So I helped out in the lab. I was rather scared, as I still really hadn't done much practical electronics apart from building the SMPS (see last time's blog), and I knew they would ask questions that I couldn't answer. But, it wasn't too bad, I managed to answer most things, and with the help of George, my lab-mate, we survived.

I had an afternoon out in Bristol with a friend, which as many people know is the home of the engineering genius Brunel. I met the man himself at his iron ship, the SS Great Britain.

Brunel and Me (yes, I needed a haircut)

I've also booked my tickets to go back to Nepal again. I'm going to arrive there exactly one year after leaving last time, 16th April, which is a bit of a coincidence. I'm really looking forward to seeing all my friends there and just having a relax. The plan is to do a bit of research into small scale hydro as well. I'm very very excited.

For now

SAM

The first 3 months

I don't know quite what I expected from PhD-land. I knew I had a lot to learn. I was very scared about this. I knew that there were going to be a lot of people who knew a lot more that me. I was very scared of this. I knew I was going to be a lot older than most of the other post graduate researchers, and even some of the post docs. I was very scared of this. And I knew I was going back into full time education, somewhere I had escaped from 5 years before. I was very scared.

However, I knew I was going to be doing some work that could have a real impact, and this was the thing that excited me the most.

On the first day, I had my bag all packed with the text books, note books, pens, pencils and everything one would need for the first day of school.

Things for the first day

The first month or so was getting used to everything. I spent time researching different turbine types, looking at their performance characteristics and where they are used. I learnt a lot about power electronics, the basics on how they work, what they do and so on, and build a switch-mode power supply (SMPS). This can take any voltage level input and give a constant voltage output, and is the backbone of many modern power supplies.

The switch-mode power supply

It was fun building the SMPS, I hadn't really build many electronic circuits before, so the method and testing of it was quite new to me. However, after a quite a few burnt fingers, a little bit of swearing, and putting things around the right way, I eventually got it to work.

I then started to look at the research in the field of pico hydropower. There is surprisingly large amount out there, different people experimenting with new turbine concepts, controllers, generators and loads. The whole spectrum. I realised that although I was going to become an expert in this, it would be just a small area. I would though need a good understanding of all the issues surrounding them as well.

In November, I took a few days off to see a friend in Cockermouth, up in the Lake District. The weekend I planned was one week after the terrible floods up there, the devastation was incredible. The high street was free from water again, but all the shops and houses along there were ruined. We went to nearby Keswick, which didn't get any flooding. It's amazing how localised things like that can be.

Derwent Water

At the beginning of December all the press were focussed on Copenhagen. All the world hoped that an agreement could be made to help stop the climate change calamitous spiral we have set ourselves on. Although everyone is responsible, we do look to our governments for leadership as well. As a part of this, I joined a march in the centre of London called the Wave. Groups from all across the UK, religious, environmental activists, aid organisations, and ordinary people turned up to show how important getting an agreement was. At 3pm on a rainy afternoon, we all waved at the Houses of Parliament to show that we cared and wanted them to represent us with action. However, as we all know, they all left Copenhagen with nothing. Another seemingly impotent gathering of world leaders who can only talk and not actually do anything.

During the Wave march in London

And then it was Christmas. I wasn't quite sure where the time had gone. I had achieved some things, a plan of what I wanted to do for the next few months, I'd found a number of useful papers and was slowly understanding where the level of technology was that I wanted to use. I also was learning about practical electrics, and so decided to light up the lab a little.

Fairy lights in the lab

As Christmas party season approached, I was looking forward to seeing my old office friends, and going home. I had only really had a couple of weeks at home since returning from Nepal in April, what with work, university and other things.

And so here I am. So, Happy Christmas, and here's looking forward to a great 2010!

SAM

The Return of the Student...

Something quite exciting has happened. Whilst I was in Nepal, I was talking to Brian at PEEDA about what I'd do when I returned to the UK. I said I'd like to do something in hydropower, ideally something pico or micro scale, however, I realised that I'd probably need some sort of further education to be able to work in the field. So, I began looking for hydropower courses, and found a PhD at the University of Bristol in Low Head Pico Hydropower.

After a few telephone calls from Nepal, and a rather scratchy telephone interview later, I somehow got the PhD. I would be starting in October 2009. I couldn't really publicise it too much when I returned, as I had to go back to my old job and earn a bit of cash.

So six months after my return, and here I am ready to start my PhD. Its full title is Modular and Scalable Low Head Pico Hydro Generation in Off-Grid Networks, which can be roughly translated into - how to connect lots of low head pico hydro units together.

I'm really rather scared. It's been a long time since I've studied, I'm going to be a lot older than most of the other post graduate researchers and its main focus is going to be on the electrical side of the technology which is something I don't have a lot of background in. However, it will be a challenge, a project with a proper real world application and hopefully will allow me to travel out to Nepal and maybe other places in the world to do some testing.

Fingers crossed!

SAM

Two Weeks after

So, it's been 2 weeks since I've got back and my feet have hardly touched the ground. I was at home in Cornwall for less than 12 hours before heading up to Chester to see Dan and Rachel get married - a most amazing wedding.

Then it was back to work on the Monday morning. When I say work, it was more a day on the internet at work's expense. Unfortunately, my office, like many others across the world, has been hit quite hard by the global financial crisis. Consultants are the first to go when their clients are trying to cut costs and safeguard their own employees jobs. So, for the last couple of weeks I've been on the beach - no work. I'm sure it will pick up soon.

I've got no room to stay in at Bristol at the moment, so I've had to rely on the kindness of my friends - thanks Chris and Shirin - who have very kindly put me up.

I'll try and keep the blog updated when anything interesting happens. I may no longer physically be in Nepal, but part of me will always be there.

SAM

Just a thought: as a traveller you should try and leave a place as you found it, have no affect on it, but what about the affect it has on you?