Our research group and students from appropriate technology classes are exploring opportunities to collaboratively introduce these technologies along with domestic lighting and cell phone charging systems at the grass roots level with AidAfrica in Uganda, and Kuyere! In Malawi. The technology is briefly described in this publication and video. Our Photovoltaic Electric Cooking technologies may be important in poor communities by displacing biomass fires and the associated deforestation and indoor air pollution responsible for an estimated 4 million deaths annually - more than malaria and AIDS combined. Presently the traditional “3 stone fires” consume resources, tax families’ time and financial resources, produce CO 2 and emit other pollutants. One particular interest is cooking in poor countries. How will free solar electricity and micro processing affect the way we use energy? My students and I work with these and other energy/environmental/society questions with implementations at my home, on campus, at the Student Experimental Farm (where I am the projects facilitator) and with partners in communities lacking electrical infrastructure. Already the cost of PV panels is a small portion of the cost related to PV deployment. Simple “Moore’s Law” extrapolation of the well-established price decrease of both photovoltaic (PV) panels and integrated circuits will render these technologies essentially free. Our research team develops radically inexpensive DDS (Direct DC Solar): using DC electricity directly from solar panels. My classes are “flipped” with all instruction from online videos, freely available on my Shared Curriculum Website. Besides physics, I teach classes on Appropriate Technology, and Energy, Society, and the Environment. Subsequently, I took sabbatical in the Energy and Resources Group at UC, Berkeley. The changes to our house and lifestyle make our home a laboratory, documented in this video and this book chapter. I transitioned to sustainability research from nanotechnology in 2006 due to a realization after I purchased a house for the first time: that I would now hold myself accountable for the way I live. In what I see as an imminent transition in energy, resources, and information, I am interested in both the technologies and the related societal transitions. I’m interested in sustainability in all facets: energy, resources, equity, and collaboration and community building especially with people in developing countries. B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1986.
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