Idea 412 of 500. Cluster 21: Energy, water and waste at small scale
Solar-powered cold rooms for the fishing harbours and the farms
The mechanism, from the book
The sun shines on every roof and the island imports its fuel.
Every idea in cluster 21 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Spend a morning at the nearest fishing harbour when the boats land, and ask the boat owners and the buyers how much catch is sold cheap or thrown away because there is nowhere cold to hold it. Ask three of them what they would pay per crate per night to store fish until the price recovers. Come back with a daily price and the names of those who would rent space first.
- Who pays first
- A boat owner or fish buyer at the harbour who currently sells at the landing price because the catch cannot wait for a better one.
- What leaves today
- Catch and harvest sold at glut prices, or left to spoil, is value lost before it can be graded, packed or exported; cold storage keeps it.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. FourteenThe List
Energy: first, stop importing it
More from cluster 21
- 411Rooftop solar leasing for households, paid from the electricity bill
- 413Biogas plants for the dairy and pig farms, with the gas sold locally
- 414Rainwater-harvesting installation for the dry-zone villages and the hotels
- 415Waste-collection and recycling businesses in the tourist towns, paid by the businesses they serve
- 416Composting of hotel and market waste into a branded soil product
- 417Plastic-recycling units making building products from the beach and river waste
Idea 412 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.