Here's one that runs on hot air and produces bull scat.
Posted on 08/18/2012 2:34:37 PM PDT by null and void
Bill Gates has announced the winners of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge — an effort to develop “next-generation” toilets that will deliver safe and sustainable sanitation to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who don’t have it. The awards recognize researchers from leading universities who are developing innovative ways to manage human waste, which will help improve the health and lives of people around the world.
California Institute of Technology in the United States received the $100,000 first prize for designing a solar-powered toilet that generates hydrogen and electricity. Loughborough University in the United Kingdom won the $60,000 second place prize for a toilet that produces biological charcoal, minerals and clean water. University of Toronto in Canada won the third place prize of $40,000 for a toilet that sanitizes feces and urine and recovers resources and clean water. Special recognition and $40,000 went to Eawag (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology) and EOOS for their outstanding design of a toilet user interface.
One year ago, the foundation issued a challenge to universities to design toilets that can capture and process human waste without piped water, sewer or electrical connections, and transform human waste into useful resources, such as energy and water, at an affordable price.
The first, second and third place winning prototypes were recognized for most closely matching the criteria presented in the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge.
Teams showcased their prototypes and projects at a two-day event held at the foundation’s headquarters in Seattle on August 14 and 15, 2012. The Reinvent the Toilet Fair brings together participants from 29 countries, including researchers, designers, investors, advocates, and representatives of the communities who will ultimately adopt these new inventions.
“Innovative solutions change people’s lives for the better,” said foundation Co-chair Bill Gates. “If we apply creative thinking to everyday challenges, such as dealing with human waste, we can fix some of the world’s toughest problems.”
Unsafe methods to capture and treat human waste result in serious health problems and death. Food and water tainted with fecal matter result in 1.5 million child deaths every year. Most of these deaths could be prevented with the introduction of proper sanitation, along with safe drinking water and improved hygiene.
Improving access to sanitation also can bring substantial economic benefits. According to the World Health Organization, improved sanitation delivers up to $9 in social and economic benefits for every $1 invested because it increases productivity, reduces healthcare costs, and prevents illness, disability and early death.
Other projects featured at the fair included better ways to empty latrines, user-centered designs for public toilet facilities, and insect-based latrines that decompose feces faster.
“Imagine what’s possible if we continue to collaborate, stimulate new investment in this sector, and apply our ingenuity in the years ahead,” said Gates. “Many of these innovations will not only revolutionize sanitation in the developing world, but also help transform our dependence on traditional flush toilets in wealthy nations.”
Gates added: “All the participants are united by a common desire to create a better world — a world where no child dies needlessly from a lack of safe sanitation and where all people can live healthy, dignified lives.”
The Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WSH) initiative is part of the foundation’s Global Development Program, which addresses issues such as agricultural development and financial services — problems that affect the world’s poorest people but do not receive adequate attention. WSH has committed more than $370 million to this area, with a focus on developing sustainable sanitation services that work for everyone, including the poor.
The foundation also announced a second round of Reinvent the Toilet Challenge grants totaling nearly $3.4 million. The grants were awarded to: Cranfield University (United Kingdom); Eram Scientific Solutions Private Limited (India); Research Triangle Institute (United States); and the University of Colorado Boulder (United States).
Reinvent the Toilet Challenge Round 2 Winners
• Cranfield University: This nearly $810,000 grant will help develop a prototype toilet that removes water from human waste and vaporizes it using a hand-operated vacuum pump and a unique membrane system. The remaining solids are turned into fuel that can also be used as fertilizer. The water vapor is condensed and can be used for washing or irrigation.
• Eram Scientific Solutions Private Limited: A grant of more than $450,000 will make public toilets more accessible to the urban poor via the eco-friendly and hygienic “eToilet.”
• Research Triangle Institute: This $1.3 million grant will fund the development of a self-contained toilet system that disinfects liquid waste and turns solid waste into fuel or electricity through a revolutionary new biomass energy conversion unit.
• University of Colorado Boulder: A nearly $780,000 grant will help develop a solar toilet that uses concentrated sunlight, directed and focused with a solar dish and concentrator, to disinfect liquid-solid waste and produce biological charcoal (biochar) that can be used as a replacement for wood charcoal or chemical fertilizers.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people — especially those with the fewest resources — have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, WA, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.
Here's one that runs on hot air and produces bull scat.
“But to think that a $25 device could improve someone’s life so much is hard to believe.”
Exchange rate- our $25 might well make him middle class in his own currency.
SERIOUSLY!
I camp. I poo in the woods. I know how Nature intended things. The traditional toilet is not user friendly.
Trust me...
EXCEPT THE UNBORN, right Bill?
With the device he went from catching 8-10 rats a day to 20+ a day. With the extra rats (and grain), his wife would cook them up and sell them for 25 cents.
I suppose an entrepreneur with a composting toilet (not sure you would need too much??) could go around collecting crap from folks, dry it/ treat it/ whatever, and then sell it back as fuel or fertilizer.
I take you have never been to rural Korea?
“Nightsoil” is used just about everywhere. The Korean bid on pumping out our (US Military) sewage system, weekly.
No, the Korean that paid the most got the weekly run. Seems American poop was valued highly for ...”content”.
Silly hippies.
Whenever I hear of some hair brained idea like this to improve the world, -that is improve it in their bong brained haze of what they think reality is, then I like to play this little gem of an oldie, but goodie;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G880gxjj9dI&feature=related
Liberalism: It’s just wrong. Embarrassingly wrong.
Bill Gates is a one trick pony. Yes he was smart enough to see personal computers were going to be big and needed an operating system and an office application for word processing, spread sheets and email. That made him very rich.
Now that he has moved on, he like a lot of folks in the Pacific Northwest is drinking the liberal, big government, one world cool aide. He has wasted a lot of money in Africa on malaria control as he won’t back DDT as a useful tool and he is now looking for a wonder crapper for dolts who crap in a hole and won’t eat with the left hand as it is still full of ass crumbs. These are the ones who when they come here have to be told not to put stones or chicken heads in our crappers. Bill, let Melinda decide where the money goes.
...an effort to develop "next-generation" toilets that will deliver safe and sustainable sanitation to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who don't have it. The awards recognize researchers from leading universities who are developing innovative ways to manage human waste, which will help improve the health and lives of people around the world.Each of these improved toilets need to include Mohammed toilet paper.
Those gizmos would cost big bucks and be a waste of fertilizer. The better answer is shovel, cathole, defecate, bury, and leave untouched for a couple of years before using in gardening. Or do the fancy composting thing (if space is scarce). And ruralize the population more to afford space (despite the snotty effetes’ fear of Bubba).
Granted, nicer and easier-to-tend composting toilets exist. Gates and his kind are making our world too sterile and inarable. They are too far insulated from reality and the way things work. The answer to that problem might be to arrange vacations to Venus for the socialist rich (see “The Marching Morons,” By Cyril Kornbluth).
If people are given these things, then they won't be valued. You only need to look as far as any section 8 housing development right here in the USA to see that much. Ya got people living in their own filth, right here. Medicine (for now) and society (for now) here is developed enough to cover it up.
Gates has a noble idea, but its near worthless in practice.
(1) It's his money.
(2) Cholera. Worldwide, it affects 3–5 million people and causes 100,000–130,000 deaths a year as of 2010.
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