New 'Safer Water with Solar' article

Earthtoys.com, a large solar energy site, has published the next article in the 'Using Solar for Emergencies' series. You can read the article on using solar energy to make water safer and other solar related articles in their newsletter: Safer Water with Solar

Please email me your comments or suggestions for future articles. You can find links to the other three articles in the column to the right.

We applolgize that our archive is not active at this time. We are checking into it.

Emergency Management Institute Independent Study Courses

If you are interested in taking independent study courses from the Emergency Management Institute sponsored by FEMA, please go to this link for a list of the courses offered: Independent Study Course List

Courses are available in .pdf files that are downloadable with Acrobat Reader. Many courses are approved for college credit and a certificate of completion is issued if a final exam is passed. The courses are made available at no charge.

Safer Water with Solar

EarthToys.com will publish their August Newsletter on August 1st. An article on 'Safer Water with Solar' will be a feature of the newsletter. Following is an excerpt from this article in the series titled 'Using the Sun for Emergency Preparedness':

"Solar cookers of all types will safely pasteurize water of all harmful bacteria. Thousands are in use in third world countries to help eliminate rampant disease. Millions more are needed in poorer areas of the world.

Through the ages we have been told that we need to boil water for five or ten minutes to make questionable water safe to drink. This is OK if you have the fuel. Millions of families in the third world do not enough fuel, and in an emergency you may not either.

By heating water the “slow method” in a solar cooking device (home-made or commercial unit) you accomplish the same thing as boiling, only it takes longer. A simple inexpensive device called a Water Purification Indicator (WAPI) can be used to see when the water is safe to drink. When a small amount of soy wax is melted in the small plastic tube, the water has reached 160 F and the water is safe to drink. You can learn more about the WAPI at the Solar Cooking Archive web site operated by Solar Cookers International.

When I give seminars to school age children on solar cooking I usually see a student with a clear bottle of water and I ask them, “did you have to get that water out of a river running behind your house? Did you have to dig a hole in your yard to find that water?” They laugh. Millions around the world have to get their drinking water every day that way.

While pasteurizing will solve a lot of disease problems, it does not address other things found in the water such as chemicals, pesticides and heavy metals. These need to be eradicated by distillation, and there is an effective way of using the sun to distill water from any water source."

When this newsletter is published you can read more about water including; germs in our water, chemicals, water storage, WAPI (Water Purification Indicator), pasteurization, distillation and more. We will publish a link to the article when it is published. You can read the other articles in this series by clicking the links in the column to the right.

Thanks to those who have taken the time to rate this site on BlogHop.com. It helps our ratings with blog (web log) readers. Have a great day.

ARCHIVES (Temporarily) LOST

Blogger has updated their software that includes a much better posting system. Unfortunately during the switch, most of our archives were lost for a time. Some of the information in those logs is worth repeating. It looks like we have found a way to get them back. Sorry if there was any inconvenience. All the best, Michael.

Solar Basics Seminar

We are getting ready to schedule another Solar Energy Seminar in the near future (end of July or first of August). We discuss many aspects of solar energy, including; PV panels, controllers, batteries, wind, solar cooking, solar water heating, solar water pasteurizing, distilling, and more. We have had these seminars on Saturday mornings and Tuesday evenings, with the evening session being the most attended.

We normally schedule our seminars when I get enough interest. We have a few people who have said they want to attend and I would like to get some idea of the best time for you. Saturday evenings at 4:30 are best for me, but I don't know if enough people are free to come at that time. Saturday mornings next, then a weeknight. Please let me know if Saturday evening would work for you.

Have a great day! Mike