Fueling Thoughts

I almost stepped on a rake again the other day, driven by the urge to jump into a field that is, in theory, indispensable, yet in practice sits squarely in the paradox of "high need with zero demand". The subject: Low-energy water pumping. I have spent years obsessing over designs that use a river’s kinetic energy to pump water into fields - pontoon-mounted Darrieus or Gorlov turbines driving pumps, to more esoteric ideas like the Hydrautomat water staircase. The wake-up jolt came when my own shadow asked : fine, you build a working prototype, then what? Who, exactly, will use it or buy it? A sobering question. Experience and data both show that most community-scale alternative energy or WASH projects collapse the moment they are no longer underwritten or subsidized by governments or NGOs. While riding through the upper reaches of Arunachal Pradesh, I was initially awed, and eventually irritated, by the number of water-driven prayer wheels lining the roadsides....