We are glad to report that the LifeTrac-mounted, open source soil pulverizer has annihilated soil-handling limits from our compressed earth brick (CEB) pressing ability. Initial testing achieved 5 ton per hour soil throughput, while The Liberator CEB press requires about 1.5 tons of soil per hour. We have shown the pulverizer rotor development in a previous post. See the build and testing of the machine after the addition of the bucket and lift cylinder: Soil Pulverizer Prototype 1 Complete … [Read more...]
Bike-frastructure 101: Sharrows, Street Parking, Superhighways and More
Increasing the number of bikes on the road is becoming a serious goal for forward-thinking leaders. As Elisabeth Rosenthal recently wrote in the New York Times, there will soon be only two kinds of city leaders: those who are implementing bike amenities and bike-sharing programs, and those who plan to do so soon. But it's about more than just announcing a mission, or even making bikes available for free. A lack of bike infrastructure plagues many cities, causing would-be cyclists to shy away … [Read more...]
The London Fund
Extract from an e-mail I sent recently... My current focus is on building the necessary partnerships needed to launch The London Fund: a community finance, fundraising and marketing solution for social enterprises committed to building a sustainable collaborative economy. Apparently the Mayor's vision is "for London to become an exemplary sustainable world city". The London Fund will invest in building and maintaining the shared sustainable infrastructure needed to make this vision a … [Read more...]