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Materials Science and Engineering Commons

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Michigan Technological University

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sustainable development

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Full-Text Articles in Materials Science and Engineering

Decentralized Renewable Hybrid Mini-Grids For Rural Communities: Culmination Of The Irep Framework And Scale Up To Urban Communities, Blessing Ugwoke, Adedoyin Adeleke, Stefano P. Corgnati, Joshua M. Pearce, Pierluigi Leone Sep 2020

Decentralized Renewable Hybrid Mini-Grids For Rural Communities: Culmination Of The Irep Framework And Scale Up To Urban Communities, Blessing Ugwoke, Adedoyin Adeleke, Stefano P. Corgnati, Joshua M. Pearce, Pierluigi Leone

Michigan Tech Publications

The Integrated Rural Energy Planning (IREP) framework offers a unified road map for locating, planning and operating decentralized renewable hybrid off-grid energy systems for localized (rural) applications in low-income countries. This paper presents the culmination of the IREP framework and aims to illustrate the final step of the IREP framework for two communities in Nigeria. It is focused on two aspects. Firstly, the techno-economic modeling (investment and operation optimization) of a hybrid mini-grid system using HOMER Pro, a techno-economic evaluation tool; and evaluating the benefits of demand side management (DSM) based on energy efficiency on the overall system economics using …


High-Efficiency Solar-Powered 3-D Printers For Sustainable Development, Jephias Gwamuri, Dhiogo Franco, Khalid Khan, Lucia Gauchia, Joshua M. Pearce Jan 2016

High-Efficiency Solar-Powered 3-D Printers For Sustainable Development, Jephias Gwamuri, Dhiogo Franco, Khalid Khan, Lucia Gauchia, Joshua M. Pearce

Michigan Tech Publications

The release of the open source 3-D printer known as the RepRap (a self-Replicating Rapid prototyper) resulted in the potential for distributed manufacturing of products for significantly lower costs than conventional manufacturing. This development, coupled with open source-appropriate technology (OSAT), has enabled the opportunity for 3-D printers to be used for sustainable development. In this context, OSAT provides the opportunity to modify and improve the physical designs of their printers and desired digitally-shared objects. However, these 3-D printers require electricity while more than a billion people still lack electricity. To enable the utilization of RepRaps in off-grid communities, solar photovoltaic …


The Case For Open Source Appropriate Technology, Joshua M. Pearce Jun 2012

The Case For Open Source Appropriate Technology, Joshua M. Pearce

Michigan Tech Publications

Much of the widespread poverty, environmental desecration, and waste of human life seen around the globe could be prevented by known (to humanity as a whole) technologies, many of which are simply not available to those that need it. This lack of access to critical information for sustainable development is directly responsible for a morally and ethically unacceptable level of human suffering and death. A solution to this general problem is the concept of open source appropriate technology or OSAT, which refers to technologies that provide for sustainable development while being designed in the same fashion as free and open …