Category: Open monitoring

Double bucket

 

Couple of years ago me and Jakke where conducting some lightning measurements. We were in a hurry and on a budget. Well, perhaps not so much on a budget as I was (and am) fond of cheap solutions. What we came up with, was a way of using some 50 mm by 50 mm sawn softwood (likely spruce or pine), some plywood and a couple of polypropylene buckets to make a fairly durable weather cover. These could be used for example as part of an open monitoring project.

Since I’m lazy, I didn’t bother to dismantle them after the measurements ended and a couple of these have been out in the weather (Southern Finland)  for about four years. Today I finally decided to take them a part. I found out that they have been holding up pretty well and would likely have been up to their task for at least a few more years. So if you are looking for a way of making a similar system, below I explain how to make them. At the end are a couple of pics and comments on the dismantled set.

White buckets were used in an attempt to keep the electronics cool. Other colors may be used depending on location to make it less visible.

Figure 1 shows a rendering of the two ways we used to setup the systems. In the left the stud is driven to the ground. I used an iron bar to first make pilot hole and then carefully using a small piece of plywood as protection (between the sledge hammer and the pillar) hammered the stud to the ground.

In the right is the system we used on a (Melbourne) Florida roof top for a couple of months to create a more temporary measurement setup. We used some concrete blocks as additional weight just in case. If you are considering a more permanent system consider adding some steel wire to attach the system to something really heavy. You don’t want it hitting someone when it is picked up by hurricane winds or a tornado.

Cheap weather cover for measurement devices
Figure 1. Cheap weather cover for measurement devices

Figure 2 shows what you need. All sizes are approximately those we used, select your bucket size to match the size of your device and scale everything else accordingly.

  1. Two short pieces of wood. One should be short enough to fit side ways in to the bucket and one should be about 5 cm shorter than the bucket is high. One long piece of wood, it will determine how high the rest of the system sits.
  2. A piece of plywood, cut a circle that fits in to the bucket to a depth of about 5 cm
  3. Two buckets
  4. Some screws and hot glue
  5. a saw, (sledge)hammer, screwdriver, eye protection etc.
Figure 2. Things you need
Figure 2. Things you need

As shown in Figure 3 set the longer of the two short pieces of wood on top of the plywood. Use hot glue or two screws or both to attach it in a manner that it can’t rotate around the vertical axis. Before this, make any openings you need for electrical wiring and such.

Figure 3. Set one of the short pieces on top of the plywood.
Figure 3. Set one of the short pieces on top of the plywood.

The shorter piece of wood is then attached on the other side of the plywood. Select the correct length for the support pillar and after driving it to the ground attach the plywood to it. If any of the wood surfaces is curved using copious amounts of hot glue between surfaces before inserting the screws will make the system more solid. The inner bucket is attached with one screw, which is driven through the bucket bottom to the piece of wood shown in Figure 3. Note that you will be driving the screw in the direction of the grain, do it carefully or the strength of the attachment will be reduced.

Figure 4. Attach the shorter piece of wood as shown and put the bucket on top of the assembly
Figure 4. Attach the shorter piece of wood as shown and put the bucket on top of the assembly.

Add the other bucket, this one stays in place by gravity and friction. If you use a screw, rain will seep in.

Figure 5. Add the other bucket.
Figure 5. Add the other bucket.
Image 1. Two systems, the outer bucket has been removed from the one on the left.
Image 1. Two systems, the outer bucket has been removed from the one on the left.
Image 2. View from below.
Image 2. View from below. Looking good, all the wood is still healthy.

 

Image 3. View inside the protected area. Apart from some spider web its like new.
Image 3. View inside the protected area. Apart from some spider web its like new.

 

Image 4. The support structure. The limiting factor for the operating life of this setup is likely rotting at the air ground interface. I was able to snap the wood by tapping the sharp end to the ground
Image 4. The support structure. Limiting factor for the operating life of this setup is likely rotting at the air ground interface. I was able to snap the wood by tapping the sharp end to the ground.

Figure 4 shows the support structure and the weak point at the air-ground interface. Rotting has reduced the strength of the wood. If the place where measurement are taken is not very sensitive, consider using wood that has been treated to protect against rot. Using a larger size like 75×75 or even 100×100 mm2 will likely also give you a couple more years of service life.

Image 6.
Image 5. Ultra violet radiation has made the plastic brittle. Some erosion was also visible on the surface. Note the white stuff at the end of the screw. This screw was used to hold the inner bucket in place and the Zinc protection was showing signs of wearing out.
Image 6. Markings at the bottom of the bucket.
Image 6. Markings at the bottom of the bucket.

 

Sulfur directive and IPR

To be populistic: we pay now, but our industry has a payback time in 2020 and gets the money back from Greek merchant shipping.

[Local subjects for a change. Heavier IPR material moved to www.project-trogolodyte.org. // Paikallisia asioita vaihteeksi. Raskaampi IPR-materiaali siirretty ylläolevaan linkkiin.] 

[Finnish version: here. All the links in the article point to Finnish-language sources, but similar material can be found easily.] 

The sulfur directive has been  accepted in the EU parliament. By 2015, ships in the Baltic sea need to drop their sulfur emissions from the current 1% to 0.1%.
Finland is strongly polarized on this. Environmentalists (of whom I am one) against industry. The environmentalists “won” this round, but this is not the place for anyone to gloat, at least not arrogantly. On the contrary, both sides have valid concerns. The directive is positive for environmental and health reasons; it is negative for the Finnish economy and employment statistics.

How positive or negative? One should be skeptical of everyone and everything since it is such a complicated issue, but approximately:

  • The directive saves lives. Whether or not one believes the exact figures of the environmentalists (50,000 extra deaths a year), it is clear that sulfur and particle emissions do have large-scale health effects.
  • Finland will suffer economically. Whether or not one believes the exact figures given by industry, (600 millions EUR per year or 12,000 jobs), common sense and a look at the map says that Finland will suffer more than most countries. We are effectively an island.
  • This is not just an EU decision. The International Maritime Organization IMO has itself approved the limits already in 2008. The EU directive adds very little. If this directive really came as a surprise, someone has been sleeping soundly.
  • In 2015, the limit only affects the so-called SECA-areas, meaning the Baltic Sea, North Sea, English channel and the coasts of Canada and the USA. In the rest of the world, the limit will not be applied until 2020 at the earliest, possibly as late as 2025. It is easy to find this unfair: the directive hurts those countries the most which have already done a fairly good job reducing emissions in general.

The Finnish government has proposed to give 30 million EUR in subsidies to quickly attach scrubbers to ships, but this most likely cannot happen due to the anti-subsidy laws  of the EU.

If Finland had been prepared for the directive, there could have been a win-win scenario. That 30 million, rather than being used (or not used) for subsidies, could have been used to kick-start a major R&D program to create ultra-cheap ultra-flexible plug-and-play scrubbers that could fit into even the shabbiest ships of the world.

There are fewer limits on R&D subsidies, and the 30 million really would not be a major dent in the national budget.

In fact, the 5-10 years’ extension for the rest of the world is precisely what could have given us an opportunity. In 2020 (or 2025), everyone will be just as “surprised” as Finland is now, for example the Mediterranean countries. In the current economic situation, the Mediterranean countries really cannot afford large public R&D investments, even if they are awake.

The possibility would arise from using the IPR system correctly. To those who don’t know much about IPR, and to those who do but are skeptics (myself included), the word “patent” sounds like a boogieman. But this is exactly the kind of situation which the IPR system is meant for: to enable large investments now, in the hopes of recouping those investments much later via licensing. Patents are valid for 20 years. In these R&D programs, it would make sense to patent everything that moves.

To be populistic: we pay now, but our industry has a payback time in 2020 and gets the money back from Greek merchant shipping.

Ugly and heartless? Yes. IPR is ugly.

Unethical? No. This is what the IPR system is meant for, whether one likes it or not. This is not unfair against small inventors (a common complaint), because no one can build large-scale scrubbers in his garage. This is large machinery, requiring large companies.

The proposal may sound vaguely nauseating to everyone. But this is what I would do. It may be too late for the sulfur directive, which is regrettable. But when the next environmental “surprise” arrives, it would make sense to be prepared.

 

Net voyeurs: a national resource?

If only we could utilize Internet voyeurs properly, how much could we get done?

[Finnish version: click here].

Recent tragedies in Finland have shown a gap between official communications and what is available on the Internet. Official communications are terse and protect the privacy of the people involved. The mainstream media, for the most part, does not publish the names of victims. However, any and all information can be found on the Internet. There are forums for everything, in good taste and bad. We haven’t yet gotten to the stage where crime scene photos are circulated, but that day may come. Petteri Järvinen summarizes this well in his blog (my translation).

“The Finnish police communicate very little about accidents and their victims. Names are withheld, based on privacy arguments or “tactical reasons”. The principle is good, but is it valid anymore in the Internet age? Net detectives can sometimes know more even than the police … Voyeurism is improper and insensitive, but it is an unavoidable consequence of the information society”.

That is true. Where transparency, there voyeurism. And especially now, with the recession, Finland is filled with thousands of people who have nothing better to do than sit at a computer. Net detectives have competence and time, and everything that can be found will be found.

The old-fashioned high-quality media does seem lost. Names are only published when everyone knows them already. Details are omitted, even when everyone knows them. Old-fashioned.

So? Why are professionalism and ethics a bad thing? Let it be old-fashioned. It is no one’s loss if the real media reports with professionalism and respect, and lets others dig in the dirt. After all, if all information is available elsewhere, then everyone can find a source that suits his mental level.

In fact there is no need for the media to lower itself, because the “bottom” is already raising itself. I admit (with shame) that I have followed (with interest) on the Internet as people have filled in the puzzles of these tragedies. The motives of these detectives are fuzzy at best, but there is one uncomfortable fact about them: they are good.

Not good journalists, but good intelligence operatives, as it were. Which begs the question: since the net detectives have the time and resources to find out things that the police cannot find, what could they achieve if they turned their energies to something socially useful?

Here is a concrete example whose details I have fuzzified (the exact information can be found on the Internet).

A Finnish city wants to expand its municipal waste landfill. The operator has tried to use a “light” approval process rather than the “heavy” one needed for all projects with a major environmental impact. The decision-makers did wake up, and are requiring the heavier process. Much of the information is secret, but public documents and information on the Internet can be used to piece together a rough picture.

The amount of waste is planned to increase by a factor of five. The heavy process is needed if certain thresholds are exceeded; perhaps by coincidence, all projected values are exactly below these thresholds. The application cites a change in the municipal waste strategy. This strategy, however, is not yet public (which only becomes apparent by searching through multiple sources).

Nothing illegal has happened, this may not even be in the grey zone, but it should still raise some alarm bells. In fact it has, and the situation in now being monitored (on the Internet). With near-zero resources, but monitored nonetheless.

There are hundreds or thousands of such cases. If even a fraction of the best Internet voyeurs put their energy into these issues, what would happen? A lot, I would claim. I am not an optimist, and I do not expect to see anything happen, but there is a lot of potential.

More on open monitoring: here.

Open monitoring: Can citizens be trusted?


Many citizens to distrust the authorities when it comes to monitoring pollution from industry.  Here is a reverse question that few ask but many should: why should the authorities place any more trust on the citizens?

Self-monitoring by industry is criticized, but is self-monitoring by citizens any more credible? I have been driving for “citizen monitoring” of pollution, and this question needs to be asked brutally.  Here is what I claim: if we require independence and transparency from the authorities, then we need to require it from ourselves also. I am thinking of some ways to make this possible.

At the grassroots level, I have been following the plans to build a new waste incinerator in Turku, fairly close to where I live. It is a heated local topic, which is no surprise. No sane person specifically WANTS to live next to an incinerator (personally, I am neutral about it, but then it’s not quite in my backyard even though it is close). This NIMBY effect is well documented everywhere.

What seems less well documented is the POSITIVE potential of people who live next door to these things. The people here have had decades of experience with the old incinerator, and they have local knowledge of both the surroundings and the incinerator itself. From persistent monitoring, they know what parts of the incineration process cause the worst emissions. They have followed the color of the snow and the water in closeby streams. They have made measurements of the pH levels in the emissions.  They know what environmental conditions cause the worst smells.

The authorities turn a blind eye to these results. And — I hate to put it this way — perhaps that is the right thing to do. Even if one fully trusts the people, the scattered measurements simply do not fulfill scientific criteria. Since they are not fully documented, it is impossible to audit the results for credibility.

To me, the fundamental problems lie with confirmation bias. Locals are likely to measure only when something has happened, for example there is a particularly bad smell. Few people think of photographing the color of the snow on days when there are no problems. Or to mark down days on which there are no smells. These citizen measurements certainly give an indication of what the situation is on the worst days, but they are not calibrated and do not give much of an indication about average conditions.

This is NOT conscious manipulation! It is a psychological necessity. On those days when things are fine, it is important to forget the problems. Constant worry is more likely to lead people to early graves than any pollution.

To face these problems, I have two suggestions, one trivial and one less trivial.

A. Trivial suggestion

The trivial suggestion is to automate everything as far as possible. However, even with improvements in technology, there are major limits to what can be done. Real air quality measurements, for example, are expensive and difficult to make accurately.

A suitable user interface for odor measurements? Picture: YLE / Karoliina Hult

In cases where an accurate measurement cannot be made, for example with smells, there could be clever ways to measure near-automatically. One solution I am thinking about is to use “like buttons” next to peoples’ front doors (see picture). The face corresponds to subjective air quality.  Pressing the correct button will take half a second. The process would very quickly become automatic. And once the process is automatic (nearly sub-conscious) it will start creating credible time series of odor levels. These can be correlated with micrometeorological weather data measured by a weather station in a neighbor’s yard.

B. Non-trivial suggestion

The second, less trivial suggestion is that the people doing the analysis should be more or less indifferent about the results. In other words, any analysis of the data needs to be done at a completely different location than the measurements, preferably so that there is no personal contact between the observers and the analysts. Emotions should not exist.

There is a clear precedent for this in the human rights arena: Amnesty International members generally do not work on human rights issues in their own countries. This improves the impartiality of the organization (and also the personal safety of the members).

In exactly the same way, citizen monitoring of industry should be scattered geographically, and there should be a firewall between the people who measure and the people who analyze. The firewall cannot be perfect in practice, as each location is different, and the locals are best aware of the things that should be measured. Locals thus need to be involved in setting up the measurement systems, and they of course need to do the actual measurements, but they should be cut off from the analysis.

This suggestion goes against human nature in just about every possible way. Locals should agree to be lackeys of someone else, and measure what is asked without knowing why? They should potentially pay for instruments without knowing what they are used for? And they should trust that someone “out there” knows and will do right? I personally cringe at the idea.

However, it could be doable. In Finland, analysis of the Turku incinerator could be done from Lappeenranta, which has a university that specializes in waste management — perhaps student labor could be used? And conversely, locals from Turku could help set up the measurements in Vaasa, since Turku locals have the most experience on incinerators (the old Turku incinerator was for many years the only one in the country). People here could absolutely have the competence to know what to measure.

I suspect that the psychological obstacles may be the biggest obstacle. Local observers are motivated to monitor local conditions, since it is their environment and their health that is at stake. If someone is already stressed and exhausted about the situation in Turku, why would he care about the situation in Vaasa?

And what about the money, the resources, the leadership, the responsibility? I have no idea. The technology is not the chokepoint (challenging though it is). Human and political issues are.

More on open monitoring: here.

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