Add a hand-crank or pedal-powered generator to the solar and you have a reliable supply of electricity day or night, by sunlight or muscle power, a secondary solar source. Solar IS Civil Defense
Add a bicycle and you have transportation too.
Sanitation
PeePoo bag – lowest cost sanitation solution, which is also a treatment system and creates compost.
For more permanent situations, like refugee camps, perhaps Gobar gas would be a better solution, small anaerobic methane digesters to handle human and animal waste.
Food cooking
SolSource – a new parabolic solar cooker, which has a supposed production cost of $10.
Candidate technologies
Food cooling
Solarcool – a potential candidate for food cooling. They have working prototypes of cardboard solar powered refrigerators.
Vinay Gupta is the designer of the Hexayurt and here are his latest thoughts on village infrastructure systems [pdf alert]
Global Swadeshi was established by Vinay and has over 300 members building global self-reliance, swadeshi, for sarvodaya, the betterment of all. It’s an example of Gandhian economics.
cross-posted to dailykos, eurotrib.com, and greenmassgroup
