“Waste Into Fuel” is a plan that will allow the Berkeley campus to harness the energy potential of the waste cooking oil that it currently disposes to replace various diesel-using appliances and utilities on campus — resulting in an overall savings of $30,000 annually after the first year of use. “Waste into Fuel” proposes that the campus convert waste cooking oil into bio-diesel by investing in 55-gallon steel drums and a Freedom Fueler Deluxe w/ Drywash, a machine which will conveniently carry out the process to create the biodiesel. The project will also use a MR-50 Methanol Recovery System to separate the byproduct of the energy extraction process into methanol. This will lower costs of the needed methanol and potentially result in a monetary gain, as the glycerin could then be used to make soap on campus or even sold to companies that process it. The goal is to not only create a system that can produce and use biodiesel, but also to execute the idea in a way that is most optimally cost-effective and environmentally friendly for the Berkeley campus.
Dengue virus causes the most common mosquito-borne viral disease affecting humans, with 3 billion people at risk for infection and an estimated 50 million cases each year. The goal of this project is to prevent severe illness and death from dengue through the use of a portable method in the field to identify the most at-risk patients. The first part of the project will develop risk scores to predict which patients presenting with fever in dengue-endemic areas are infected with dengue virus and of those infected, who will progress to develop severe dengue. In order for the risk scores to be used effectively in the field, the project team will also develop a mobile application for the iPhone that will enable any health professional to instantly calculate a patient’s risk score. The iPhone risk score application will enable physicians to distinguish dengue cases from cases of other illnesses that cause fever, as well as mild dengue cases from severe dengue cases, so they can provide patients with the appropriate medical care sooner. Additionally, it will help physicians prioritize the treatment of dengue cases in lowresource settings, where medical care and supplies are limited.
Energy efficiency represents a vast, low-cost energy resource—but it can only be unlocked with an innovative and comprehensive market based approach. There is growing demand for an alternate financing mechanism for the implementation of energy conservation measures to reduce energy consumption and thereby lower greenhouse gas emissions. Zaakta is a webbased marketplace that brings together customers, technology experts, contractors, and financiers to implement energy efficiency projects. This platform will target under-served markets that either lack the direct funds to invest in these projects or the scale and scope required to attract interest from current energy service companies or utilities for financing.
On Calle de Monte Verde in Nicaragua, poor farmers with no daily earning, depend directly on agriculture for their livelihoods and survival. Water is raised from wells by hand-cranked levers which lift small buckets from the depths to the surface where they are detached from the well rope and dumped into a larger bucket located on carts drawn by oxen. This project will seek to improve the efficiency of this highly labor-intensive process by testing solar or treadle pump technologies in this setting. If successful, this project will enable farmers to more efficiently manage their crops and their time. It would thus allow farmers to diversify crops and increase yields sufficiently to allow them to enter the market and generate income.
Today’s hybrid and plug-in electric automobiles are able to recover some of the energy normally lost to friction during braking. Even in today’s cutting-edge vehicles, however, a large amount of kinetic energy is still lost to braking during the typical stop-and-go urban commute. INSTAR is a system designed to greatly improve on existing technologies in order to recover the maximum amount of kinetic energy normally lost during braking. The energy recovered will be converted into usable electric energy. This recovered energy can then be used to power the vehicle, thereby increasing the travel-range and battery life of plug-in and hybrid vehicles. By increasing the efficiency and functionality of hybrid and electric vehicles in this way, the INSTAR system could make these vehicles significantly more attractive to consumers and increase adoption rates.
Like rural areas in many developing countries, India’s rural regions lack reliable electricity. Energy needs are often met by kerosene or highly inefficient power generators. This project will address this problem by developing micro-grids that will bring reliable, efficient and inexpensive electricity to regions of rural India. The project combines local, small-scale energy production facilities with innovative means of billing, storing and distributing energy to create a new “microgrid” system optimal for rural areas. The new microgrids will provide reliable, energy-efficient and inexpensive electricity to areas that were previously dependent on highly inefficient and expensive forms of energy.
The earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010 displaced over one million, and resulted in over 300,000 deaths, including a staggering 18,000 fatalities of highly-skilled professionals. Haiti’s largest public institution of higher learning, the Universite d’Etat d’Haiti (UEH), lost 90% of its physical infrastructure. In a response to the need that arose from this devastation, a group of UC students and faculty organized the UC Haiti Initiative (UCHI) to address the higher education and training needs that is critical to ensure Haiti’s long term success. UCHI believes that partnering directly with UEH students, faculty, and administration is the most promising poverty alleviation strategy that UC, as the world’s greatest institution of higher education, can engage in. UCHI will help train a new generation of leaders, researchers, and policy makers in the arena of global development. UC students and faculty will contribute to the creation of a progressive model of development: engaging an entire campus community in a respectful, sustainable advancement of higher education and community development in a global context, while also assisting in training Haiti’s future leaders and instilling confidence in the international community in a Haitian-led reconstruction process.
The goal of Pedal or Power Project (PPP) is to ease poverty through the proven power of a bicycle to solve transportation problems in developing countries. PPP will fabricate, assemble and distribute bicycles, both motorized and none motorized, in the country of Uganda depending on the need. The bicycle unique ability of having two power sources that can work simultaneously makes it efficient reliable and most important environmental friendly. Motorized bikes will be able to mount simple motors to bicycles or locally made wheelchairs in order to ease mobility for all. PPP is an attempt to solve Africa’s long standing ignored transportation dilemma especially among the poor in remote areas where infrastructure is lacking. For some villages even the limited resources are tens of miles away. These bikes are to be used by children, healthcare workers, and people with disability to more easily access limited resources.
A UC Berkeley student team, along with professor and mentor Laura Mason, will work in Tanzania in July to improve the quality of life of 2,600 people living in the Nyamagongo village of Tanzania, by constructing a rainwater harvesting system at a vocational school, a second brick oven, an improved waste management system incorporating pit latrines, and living quarters for the vocational school staff. The team will collaborate with the African Immigrants’ Social and Cultural Services (AISCS). Their mission is to assist African immigrants in the Bay Area adjust to life in the US as well as the people of Tanzania and other African countries with education, vocational training, medical services, and community organization. This project will ultimately increase water availability, food security, crop production, gender empowerment, economic development and significantly alleviate poverty.
