nearly two hours away from my warm apartment on a particularly cold november afternoon, i found myself playing drums and shaking maracas inside a large barn with inventor and patent agent jaquelin spong, who has a ph.d in applied physics.

the day only got more interesting.

i was in awe as she led me through her house and her large backyard, pointing out every homemade invention we passed along the way. she is particularly interested in solar energy, and her 2 acres are littered with prototypes and working devices she uses on a regular basis. she had built a homemade rock wall and offered to hook me up to give it a try; i got to feel the warmth coming out of a solar powered invention that she uses to heat her house; she showed me a hot tub and sauna that she had configured to run off of a small wood fireplace; and she showed me her fresnel water purifier. by the end of my visit i had heard turkey gobbles and even fed her two sheep.

dirty and cold, i hopped straight into the shower the moment i got home. as i slowly warmed up, this reminded me that a simple shower is easily taken for granted, as many people in developing countries don’t have access to something we consider a necessity. according to the united nations human development report, an american taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the average person in a developing country slum uses for an entire day. 

global water scarcity means that people not only don’t have access to safe water to drink – but they also do not have water to cook with, water to clean themselves or their food with, and many people are living without access to something as simple as toilets. more people on our planet have a cellphone than people who have access to a toilet; meanwhile my little sister uses both by texting me from the bathroom to ask for more toilet paper!

lack of clean water for sanitation and hygiene perpetuates a cycle of disease in developing countries. diarrhea and other related diseases that are spread from lack of sanitation are the number one cause of child mortality, killing an estimated 2,000 children under the age of five every single day.

while the problem may be clear, the solution is murky. humanitarian organizations seem to be doing their best, yet many water purification systems are expensive and hard to fix if broken. dr. spong’s background with degrees in engineering and applied physics from yale and stanford, coupled with her intense passion for solar energy solutions, led her to creating the fresnel water purifier. her goal was to create something different from what is already out there by making it affordable, environmentally friendly, and easy to set up.

she and her team are confident that the purifier will fill a much-needed void, especially in rural villages that don’t get much attention from larger organizations.  i’ll be watching with baited breath as she works to deploy her purifier across central america, and looks to africa for her next invention.

i am not a fiber optic specialist and i need to know if ultra concentrated solar energy can be transmitted through fiber optics in thick pipes over long distances. can fiber optics handle intense solar heat and light without melting?

there is a new technological field called photonics. i am not entirely familar with photons except that photons create light. i wonder about the heat itself that go in hand with light riding on photon flow. i am not completely sure about the potential of photonics to transmit light and heat together through fiber optics over long distances. photonics are generally used for signal technology like computers and communications but i often wonder about energy technology as well.