ENERGY FOR DHARAVI

 

The current world population is around seven billion. Based on the current growth rate of 1.5% per year, it is expected that the population will double in approximately 46 years.

The growth will focus in developing countries particularly in Asia, while the population of developed countries should remain almost stationary.

India has nearly a billion people. The growth rate of the current population is about 1.9% which result in a doubling time of 37 years.

 

The many environmental problems on the planet emphasize the urgent need to assess the available environmental resources and how these are related to the demands of a rapidly growing human population.

All of our basic resources, such as land, water, energy and biological resources, are inherently limited. As human populations continue to expand and finite resources will be divided by a increasing number of people, it will become difficult to maintain the prosperity and quality of life.

 

Dharavi, the slum that is the heart of Mumbai, is one of the greatest of India and Asia, one million people in less than 1.8 square kilometers. Dharavi, supported by activists, even after years, is opposed to the restructuring plans of the slum and speculation that would accompany the makeover of the area. The slum is no longer a slum of Tin and cardboard, but a city within a city. A fully self-contained system, that works as a basis for the new India, able to ensure to the town a strong economic entrance with over ten thousand small business present inside it it. Despite this perfect working, Dharavi still lives discomfort related to the lack of energy sources, and issues related to quality of life and health.

 

The functioning of the city slum can, however, be a reference model for a future of cities. This through its growth with a bottom-up system and adaptive character. A geometry and aggregative pattern, alive and highly interconnected. The geometry of a slum is the same geometry of a river, a tree, a lung or a rock. Without constraints, the human being is constructed through a basic geometry of nature.

 

AirFlow Tower is a artificial tornado able to create electricity, continuously and at zero cost using a natural phenomenon. It is estimated that the energy released by a major tornado would be sufficient to meet the needs of all humanity for over a year. The model studied in Italy, Russia and Canada on a small scale, is based on atmospheric convection, the process by which the warm air tends to rise to the top and back down once cooled. On the same basis of solar chimneys, the warmed air in the greenhouses is forced to be channeled into a hollow at the base of the cylinder where are placed turbines for electricity generation. But unlike solar chimneys, whose power is limited by the maximum height of the structure, artificial tornadoes may extend for several kilometres into the atmosphere.

Simultaneously exploiting solar energy, thermal and wind power into a single system would enable a high efficiency energy conversion without any fuel consumption and pollution-free air, water or soil.

 

A model that responds to the theme of verticality with no a pre-conceived control geometry but with a start to an autonomous system that is able to change its parameters to adapt to the amendments that the system can suffer during the performance of its duties as a result of its increase energy.