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Remembering Dr. Chidi Nwachukwu

It has been nearly 15 years since the death of our dear friend Chidi Nwachukwu who was taken from us too soon by Leukemia. I am reprinting his obituary here as a means of helping to keep his memory alive.

At the time of his death in 2003 Chidi, Kip Bates (Philip K. Bates III) and I had been working for four years introducing more than 500 West African NGOs to the Internet which was still in its infancy - particularly in West Africa. Chidi was so proud to be a part of a pioneering effort to bring this amazing new technology to his native Nigeria. Kip and I were proud to be his teammates and his friend.

We teasingly referred to him as "Shoes Galore" a nickname spawned by the fact that Chidi never made a trip to Nigeria without a huge suitcase filled with shoes that he had gathered to give as gifts to his many friends and those in need in Nigeria. That suitcase of shoes was emblematic of Chidi the man whose big heart never stopped beating for his beloved Nigeria and he made us love her just as fiercely.

Chidi, you are forever in our hearts.

Dr. Chidi (Peter Clever) Obinali Nwachukwu (B December 23 1957, D. January 20, 2003 ) Dr. Chidi (Peter Clever) Obinali Nwachukwu was a citizen of Nigeria and the United States, having emigrated to Milwaukee Wisconsin in 1980. He would go on to receive a graduate degree from a prestigious American University (Purdue) and become a successful businessman and early Internet Entrepreneur, starting one of the first companies to use VOIP technology to provide affordable telephony between the US and Nigeria. Nwachukwu was politically active throughout his life and was among a small group of Social Entrepreneurs to create The Electronic Community Project under the aegis of the Ford Foundation and the East West Education Foundation, providing training and Internet connectivity to over 250 NGO (Non Governmental Organizations) throughout West Africa. Nwachukwu and fellow social entrepreneurs Wayne D. King and Philip "Kip" Bates III authored "Creating Electronic Communities - Accessing and Using the Internet" in 1997. The book was an early digital book, produced in hard copy only for the NGOs but widely disseminated on the Web in the early days of the World Wide Web. The Electronic Community Team continues to work in West Africa today, currently working on a project that creates Enterprise communities using the cleanup of oil spills in the Niger Delta as the driving force.

Born on December 23 1957 to Simeon and Patience Nwachukwu of Umuezegwu in Ihitte-Uboma local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria. To his family he was fondly known as Jonathan or Joe, as he was first baptized in the Anglican Church but later converted to Catholicism. To many others he was known as Peter Clever, his catholic baptismal name. He would later opt to go by his middle name, Chidi. Chidi Nwachukwu would grow up in the midst of the war known as the Nigerian-Biafran War.

Education: Chidi received his primary school education at Market Road (Holy Ghost) Primary School, Enugu from where he took and passed the high school common entrance examination in elementary five (5th Grade). He then proceeded to St. Vincent’s Secondary School, Agbogugu, now in Enugu state. After two years at St. Vincent’s, Chidi transferred to Dennis Memorial Grammar School (DMGS) Onitsha from where he received his high school diploma.

After high school, Chidi went to work for the then Nigerian Ministry of Communications, Posts and Telecommunications (now Nitel). He left Post and Telecommunications a year later to work for Union Bank of Nigeria where he worked until 1980 when he left Nigeria for United States in pursuit of his college education.

In the United States, Chidi attended and graduated from Tougaloo College, a small liberal arts college in the outskirts of Jackson, Mississippi. He completed his undergraduate work at Tougaloo in three years, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in political science. He then applied to and was accepted into the Woodrow Wilson department of political science at Princeton University in New Jersey to pursue a doctorate degree in political science. Chidi left Princeton after a year as it became difficult to secure additional funding to pay his school fees.

He returned to Jackson Mississippi and enrolled in a master’s program in Public Administration at Jackson State University. With the help of teaching assistantship, he completed the program and earned a Master’s degree in Public Administration.

At the conclusion of his master’s degree program at Jackson State University and still wanting to earn a PhD, he applied to and was accepted into the political science department at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. This time, he was awarded a package of fellowships and teaching assistantships to help him pay for the program. He successfully completed the program, earning a PhD in comparative politics in 1991.

Marriage: Chidi was united in holy matrimony to Ngozi Margaret Onuoha in 1986. To this union, four children: Onyekachi, Chima, Uzoma and Ukachi, were born.

Profession/Vocation: Through the years, Chidi held several teaching positions at various colleges and Universities in the Midwestern part of the United States. His last teaching appointment was at Marquette University in Milwaukee Wisconsin. After two years at Marquette University, Chidi opted to forgo teaching to pursue his entrepreneurial interests. For three years, Chidi successfully ran international trade workshops, with a concentration on trade between American businesses and African countries. These workshops brought together representatives from various African countries, including ambassadors, foreign ministers, other embassy staff, business owners from African countries, American businesses and representatives of the United States federal, state and local government agencies with the purpose of stimulating and improving trade between American businesses and African countries.

At the same time, Nwachukwu Nwachukwu founded and ran Same Day Express, a same day delivery service that picked up and delivered packages to and from banks around Milwaukee and Chicago.

During the four years prior to his death, Chidi worked with his colleagues at the Electronic Community, serving as a consultant to Ford Foundation and often travelling to various African countries to work on the Foundation’s projects.

At the time of his death, Chidi was the President and founder of UCON Telecommunications, Inc., a company whose products and services included the Uconnect Africa calling card.

Nwachukwu died Monday, January 20, 2003 after a long battle with leukemia. He was preceded in death by his father, Simeon Nwachukwu, leaving his mother, Patience Nwachukwu; his wife, Ngozi; his children, Onyekachi, Chima, Uzoma and Ukachi; his brothers, Anthony, Innocent and Lasbrey; as well as a number of nieces, nephews, in-laws and cousins.

News Release: Phoenix Project Aims at Cleanup and Job Creation in Niger Delta

The Phoenix Project - Niger Delta

Creating Sustainable Enterprise Recovery and Empowerment Zones in the Niger Delta 

A Market-driven Sustainable Cleanup Solution

News release

For Immediate Release

June 3, 2014

For More information: Wayne King 603-515-6001

Phoenix Project Aims at Cleanup and Job Creation in Niger Delta

Creating Multiple Positive Outcomes from Spill Cleanup

You’ve probably seen the photos of the devastation in the Niger Delta. They were likely a sidebar story to coverage of the Gulf Oil Spill. As cleanup commenced here in the US within days of the accident, an equal amount of oil was being spilled in West Africa’s most fertile valley and richest fisheries and little was being done by anyone. Further, on an annual basis the Delta has experienced spills equivalent to two Gulf spills every single year.

Oil Companies find the inconspicuous nature of drilling and harvesting oil in Africa an attractive alternative to doing so in the West where consumers are more organized and unforgiving. Many of the local Nigerian politicians find that oil money makes a very tempting and large target for illicit proclivities. Add to all this a spill cleanup funding mechanism that suffers from a complete lack of transparency, further tempting even aspiring “honest” politicians and distancing oil companies from the assumption of responsibility and you have a recipe for an amoeba-like environmental catastrophe - growing and spreading as it devastates the economic and social fabric of the region. 

Enter Project Phoenix, the conceptual brainchild of former NH Senator Wayne King of with the help of his Nigerian counterpart Osita Aniemeka. King began going to Nigeria in 1997, shortly after an unsuccessful run for Governor, Leading a team of social entrepreneurs on behalf of the Ford Foundation, King’s team, which included Santa Barbara-based Philip “Kip” Bates of the University of California, Santa Barbara who was the technology guru of the Team. Rounding out the team was the late Dr. Chidi Nwachukwu a native born Nigerian and US Citizen and CEO of Sameday Express and a unique startup called UConnet that was one of the nation’s very first companies to use the Internet for telephone services, now referred to as “Internet Telephony”. Since 1997 the team has continued to return to West Africa for Ford Foundation, USAID and the World Bank among others. Dr. Nwachukwu died from Leukemia in 2000, when the idea for doing something about oil spills in the Niger Delta was little more than a glimmer in the eyes of the trio, and the team has dedicated this pilot project in his honor.

The Phoenix Project officially has been in the works for more than four years when King got the idea that it might be possible to build an “Enterprise Community” around the oil spill cleanup process where the cleanup and associated funds - if they could be accessed - would drive the development of both cleanup jobs as well as jobs related to the bi-products of the cleanup, specifically electricity, biochar, and biofuels. The more the team began to explore and research the components they envisioned the mmore they came to realize that there may be a way to make the effort sustainable, replicable and taken as a whole - carbon-negative. The Kyoto accords, that took effect in 2005, also spurred the idea that there might also be an opportunity for Carbon Credit trading based on the Carbon-Negative

In most circumstances today the end results of an oil spill cleanup are hidden from the public, quite possibly because the companies want the problem and its accompanying bad publicity to simply go away. “This means” said King, “that the opportunities to generate revenues from the cleanup of the oil and the treatment of the oil contaminated absorbents - like booms - go unnoticed and and untapped. Our pilot project recovers and recycles as much of the oil as we can, using a patented cellulose absorbent from MOP Environmental Solutions for the cleanup on both land and water (MOPenvironmental.com) then using the remaining biomass (the cellulose after oil removal) to generate electricity with a small, mobile, pyrolysis power plant manufactured by EcoReps of Adelaide Australia (www.Ecoreps.com.au). In addition to the electricity, the plant will also produce biochar a highly acclaimed soil amendment that has properties that make it both a fertilizer, a water storage element and a carbon sink - capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequestering it for decades and perhaps centuries, releasing it only when called on for plant growth.” 

In addition to the jobs and opportunities created by the obvious products and processes The Phoenix Project - Niger Delta expects to seek out additional research and entrepreneurial opportunities that coincide with, and take advantage of, synergies that arise within the process. For example, research on biochar is at its very early stages and the use of it for bioremediation of oil spills is postulated but not thoroughly researched. Osita Aniemeka, Director of Nigerian operations, believes that the emphasis on research is consistent with Nigeria’s new emphasis on its agricultural sector and provides opportunities for the Phoenix Project to create jobs and ventures that empower women and young people who are particularly vulnerable to the economic woes brought on by these devastating and continuing oil spills.

Depending upon their ability to access oil spill cleanup funds and the extent of those funds, the Phoenix Project team believes that they can generate sufficient revenues to allow them to fund all or part of the cost of designating and cleaning up the next zone.

“We see this pilot project as our opportunity to develop an Open Source solution to the challenge of oil spills. Once we have tested the various aspects of the Pilot we will make the model available broadly to others who are seeking a solution to oil spills that creates a “Phoenix Effect” within an area devastated by a spill.” said Aniemeka.

The Phoenix Project is seeding the project with a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo to raise the funds needed to bring together the communities, the experts and officials from both the government and the oil industry in the Niger Delta. They will also be carefully choosing the first site taking into account the long term needs of the community after the Enterprise and Empowerment Zone is turned over to a local governing body. “With a little luck”, King says, “we can move on to the next zone with most of the funds needed for the next cleanup, leaving a 1 megawatt electricity plant in the control of a local governing body to continue to provide badly needed and reliable electricity to the businesses and homes of the community.”  

The total cost of the pilot will be in the range of 12 million dollars but the companies participating as partners in the venture have all agreed to discount their costs in order to create the model. The net cost is likely to be closer to 8 million dollars, most of that for the capital equipment like the mobile power plant. “Once we have the model down right,” King continued “the net cost of each succeeding Zone should be somewhere in the range of $2 million dollars per zone, before calculating in revenues from most of the bi-products. While only the real thing will allow us to be sure, we are confident that after Zone one the process should be self sustaining - as long as there are funds available for the cleanup.” and in the Nigerian environment . . . that seems to be the biggest question mark.  

To learn more about the Phoenix Project you can visit the Project Phoenix Blog at nigerdeltaphoenix.blogspot.com

The Crowd funding effort can be viewed at http://igg.me/at/PPND

Understanding the Problem in the Niger Delta

Understanding the Problem in the Niger Delta:

Fareed Zakaria 
 

The Phoenix Project - Niger Delta

Dedicated to Dr. Chidi Nwachukwu, colleague and friend, mentor, loving husband, proud father and proud Nigerian. A native of Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta, and a citizen of the US and Nigeria who's vision for his beloved homeland lives on even after he lost his fierce battle with leukemia. To this day we can hear his voice saying 
"Never Give Up!"

Overview

Creating Sustainable Enterprise Recovery and 

Empowerment Zones in the Niger Delta 

A Market-driven Sustainable Cleanup Solution

Carbon-Negative, scaleable, and sustainable oil cleanup model and reclamation 

process enabling the development of Sustainable Enterprise Recovery & Empowerment Zones 

Phoenix: a legendary bird which according to one account lived 500 years, burned itself to ashes on a pyre, and rose alive from the ashes to live again; also :  A symbol of regeneration, renaissance, recovery, revival or rebirth; also: a person or thing likened to the Phoenix.

Executive Summary

The Phoenix is an ancient symbol for rebirth and renaissance. The Phoenix Project intends to create an Enterprise Recovery and Empowerment Zone in the Niger Delta. This is a pilot project proposed by The Electronic Community Project,  The Institute for Communications and Development Assistance; and The Women’s Empowerment Network of Nigeria; in cooperation with MOP Environmental Solutions, Inc., Texas Aquatic Harvesters, Indian Country Environmental Associates, Vincent Corp  and local NGOs and communities in the Niger Delta. It is a concept that has been in the making for more than four years as members of our team have developed and researched the various components of the project and developed the capabilities.

In short, we will clean up oil spills and use the cleanup technologies to drive economic opportunity, local entrepreneurial activity, research and poverty alleviation within the Zone. Once we have restored the agricultural vitality of the Zone we will move on to the next identified area replicating the concept and making it available to others through Open Source distribution of the technologies.

Enterprise Recovery and Empowerment Zones:

•   Will create reliable electricity for the communities and businesses within the zone using a CARBON NEGATIVE technology for generating electricity in a region without reliable electricity. The results will be more reliable electricity, jobs and both research and entrepreneurial opportunities. The electricity can be used for the growth of indigenous businesses or sold into the grid to fund other important activities.
•   Use a Carbon Negative Green Technology that will sequester more carbon than it produces. Other than steam and a minimal amount of Co2, there is NO effluent or emissions from our closed carbon negative system. There are NO noxious emissions.
•   Will produce, for market, BioChar, a soil amendment that enhances agricultural productivity and plant growth by up to 400%. Biochar may also have bio-remediation capabilities and we will conduct research around this.
•   Will clean up Oil Spills that have plagued the Niger Delta;
•   Will qualify for and sell through a qualified broker, carbon credits under the Kyoto protocols. (***Note We are trying to determine whether this project will qualify***)
•   Will create a Zone of Enterprise and Empowerment where multiple streams of economic activity, training and research provide home grown benefits to indigenous people.
•  Will Create alliances with local and regional NGOs like the Women's Empowerment Network to provide training and entrepreneurial activities around the various profit centers generated by the activities of the ERE-Zone.

We intend to do what Oil Companies and the government have failed to do. Clean up the oil that has been spilled in the Zone, restore the agricultural vigor of the Zone and provide meaningful employment opportunities to local people.

We intend to encourage/compel the oil companies to act, to participate in the funding of future ERE-Zones by showing them that there is a way to cleanup oil spills that can benefit the community and demonstrate their goodwill and willingness to accept responsibility, AND LOWER THEIR COSTS.

About The Crowd Funding Campaign

We intend to launch a crowd funding campaign within the next 3 weeks to seed this pilot project. 

The Crowd Funding effort is targeted at creating the “Seed” funding for this project, including the reconaissance mission required to bring together community leaders, citizens, governmental leaders and oil companies and to identify the best site for the initial pilot.

The 8 million dollar cost of this project is largely for capital equipment costs and the more we can raise from the crowd funding effort the less we will need to rely on oil companies and others with a vested interest for funding. 

Our goal for the Crowd Funding campaign is still not set. However, anything raised beyond this figure will go directly toward the costs of completing the Niger Delta ERE Zone.

Introduction: A New Paradigm for Oil Cleanup

“The Niger Delta experiences oil spills equivalent to the Gulf of Mexico Spill on an annual basis.” - Amnesty International

It is a well known fact that the Niger Delta region has a growing environmental crisis precipitated by oil spills in a region that has become the site of a collision between the rich agricultural resources and traditions of the Niger Delta and the oil wealth that lies below the surface of these same lands and waters.  For example, according to the Vanguard Newspaper, “Yenagoa – The rural settlement of Emago-Kugbo, a border settlement between Bayelsa and Rivers has been hit by a series of oil spills leading to the destruction of community farmland and creek, their source of drinking water.” The community reports not only serious environmental problems but deaths among younger children.

This document proposes a pilot project aimed at Creating Sustainable Enterprise Recovery and Empowerment Zones in the Niger Delta Employing a scale-able, cost effective and sustainable oil cleanup and reclamation process to enable the development of Sustainable Cleanup Zones that drive the development of indigenous entrepreneurial ventures created around the opportunities created by the cleanup, and the profitable by-products of pyrolysis and electricity generation.  Additionally, research, capacity building and empowerment opportunities will be created; funded by the profit streams and outside resources and catalyzed by the energy and creativity of the partner organizations and other local individuals, businesses and organizations.

Description of the Lead Organization

The Electronic Community Project began as a Ford Foundation project to link and train NGOs throughout W. Africa in a community of shared interest to enhance professional development, technical skills and communication. The founders have continued to do work on Capacity development in the region especially in Nigeria and Ghana.

Organizations and Businesses Involved:

Managing Partners

The Electronic Community Project, New Hampshire/California USA 
ICDA The Institute for Communications and Development Assistance, Nigeria - In Country Administrative Partner
AWEP - African Women Entrepreneurship Program

Cleanup Partners

MOP Environmental Solutions, Inc.

EcoReps - USA and Australia - Pyrolysis Partner
Indian Country Environmental Services

Texas Aquatic Harvesters, Florida, USA - Oil Recovery Harvesting

Vincent Corporation, Florida: Providing oil recovery equipment

Commerce, Research and Training Partners
Wilbahi Investments Limited: Nigerian Holding Company with interests in agriculture and energy 

Legal and IP Partners: Still under consideration

Project information

Purpose of the Project

A pilot project aimed at Creating Sustainable Enterprise Recovery and Empowerment Zones in the Niger Delta Employing a scaleable, cost effective and sustainable oil cleanup and reclamation process to enable the development of Sustainable Cleanup Zones that drive the development of indigenous entrepreneurial ventures created around the opportunities created by the cleanup, and the profitable by-products of pyrolysis and electricity generation.  Additionally, research, capacity building and empowerment opportunities will be created; funded by the profit streams and catalyzed by the energy and creativity of the partner organizations and other local individuals, businesses and individuals.

Problems and Issues the Project Will Address

Environmentally effective and cost effective oil spill cleanup done in a sustainable and visionary way utilizing the financial resources for cleanup to also create profitable entrepreneurial, training and research activities benefitting local NGOs, businesses and individuals. Ultimately creating an industry training and research zone or park catalyzed by a small power plant and the by-products and opportunities created as a result of its development.

Estimated Overall Budget for the Project

8 million US Dollars

Funding for this important pilot is expected to come from a number of sources. We hope to secure a grant of approximately $200,000. to cover the cost of Pre-development administration: Meaning early -stage administrative and legal work. We hope to jump start the project with a Crowd-Funding effort to allow us to do an end run around the Oil Companies who will eventually buy into the project when they know that that can't kill it by ignoring it. Crowd funding to seed the project will be used to fund  Site Reconnaissance, site selection, local NGO meetings and other pre-development administrative costs.

The lions share of the funding will come from a combination of Spill Cleanup funds from oil companies and other leveraged funding from both traditional and non-traditional sources.

Oil Company funding for Spill cleanup should not be seen as a grant unless the company is paying for a spill for which it is not responsible. We hope to see the process of oil spill cleanup become less contentious as a result of this project and the processes involved and, in fact, see this as an opportunity to create a sort of legal laboratory for the development of innovative solutions to the legal issues surrounding oil spill cleanup, experimenting for example with voluntary consent agreements for cleanup and other instruments that will expedite the resolution of both the legal and environmental issues that too often fester because of the time required to get everyone engaged in a final resolution.  

The portion of the funding that represents the cleanup of the oil spill is not an additional cost to the Oil Company involved. Instead it is a matter of moving existing expenditures to a different line item within the cleanup and bioremediation portion of the corporate budget. It is NOT philanthropic spending it is a business expense. This portion of the budget of the EREZone Pilot and each succeeding EREZone will always come from an oil company as a business related expense. The incentive for the Oil Company will be that the EREZone concept is designed to reduce the cost of cleanup. Their voluntary participation in the creation of an EREZone will mean that they see a savings of about 25% on the cost of cleanup. 

Benefitting Locations for the Pilot

We hope to propose this for Ikarama In Bayelsa on the Niger Delta, but the concept is replicable anywhere.

Comments

This project has been under development for 4 years. It has evolved from a simple cleanup proposal to a much broader sustainable effort to create economic activity and entrepreneurial opportunity by using the resources devoted to the cleanup to both fund the environmental work and catalyze entrepreneurship, training, research and empowerment within the community. If the pilot is as successful as we anticipate we will move on to the next E&E Zone leaving behind a small power plant and a trained team of local managers that serves as the heart of continuing economic activity, producing electricity and other by-products that serve as profit centers for the continuing activities of the E&E Zone.

Imagine this . . .

A site is selected that has experienced a serious oil spill on land and in water. Nearby is a rice processing facility that generates tons of waste on a weekly basis in the form of hulls. Currently the company that processes the rice has no good choices about disposal. At this point the prospective EREZone has the makings of both a short and long term source of biomass for the operation of a small .5 - 1MW portable pyrolysis plant. The Pyrolysis plant can process both the oil absorbent and the rice hulls. Additionally, should the source of biomass disappear for some unknown reason, it could also process municipal waste or some other clean biomass.

The portable plant uses pyrolysis - an oxygen free process with no smokestack and therefor no discharge of emissions. It is a carbon capturing process and ultimately serves as the engine of a carbon negative system. The plant is mobile because it permits us to move it to the next EREZone or to leave it (the plant)- our preferred end game - as the ongoing source of energy and profit generation for the community.*

 The flexibility to leave the Mobile Pyrolysis Unit allows us to redirect resources where they can be most effective for the community or to reduce costs in order to assure sustainability.

As the spill is cleaned up the oil laden sorbent can be put through a screw press to recover and recycle the oil which can be sold into a secondary market. The remaining used sorbent can be burned in the pyrolysis unit generating electricity and/or biofuel as well as biochar - a highly effective soil additive that also serves as a carbon sink and a method of enhancing the bioremediation of soils both speeding up the final biodegradation of any remaining hydrocarbons as well as capturing heavy metals in the soil. Biochar enhances the productivity of the soil between 200 - 400%, supercharging the fertility as well as serving as a carbon sink. 

These processes and byproducts create multiple profit centers in the process. Creating job opportunities, training opportunities, research into other uses and markets for the products as well as research into the processes being used and other prospective processes. 

Working with local organizations such as agricultural NGOs, Women’s Empowerment NGOs, Environmental NGOs and NGOs fostering entrepreneurship as well as developing a professional management team for the long-term management of the EREZone we believe we can create a critical mass that catalyzes the growth of an Enterprise and Research Center within the community that provides indigenous electric power and economic opportunity. 

Want to help? contact us at TheElectroniccommunity@gmail.com

© Wayne D. King - Copyrighted only to protect the concept during development. It is our intent to make this an open source process after the pilot.

Enterprise Recovery and Empowerment Zones Around Oil Spill Cleanup

Pilot Project Planned for the Niger Delta of Nigeria

"We hope to jump start this project with a Crowd-Funding effort to allow us to do an end-run around the oil companies who will eventually buy into the project when they know that they can't kill it by ignoring it." 

The Crowd funding will be to seed the project. If you would like to know when we launch, please sign up in the email box on the right below. - Wayne D. King, Fmr NH Senator & Team Leader 

Oil Spill Cleanup and Poverty Alleviation 

The Electronic Community Project is leading a team of NGOs, businesses and social entrepreneurs in an innovative, replicable and scalable pilot project to create "Enterprise Recovery and Empowerment Zones" in the Niger Delta; Employing a scale-able, cost effective and sustainable oil cleanup and reclamation process that generates electricity and secondary by-products and drives the development of indigenous entrepreneurial ventures created around the the cleanup, and the profitable by-products of pyrolysis and electricity generation. Additionally, research, capacity building and empowerment opportunities will be created around this process funded by the profit streams or secondary financing.  Ultimately, we seek to create Enterprise and Empowerment Zones funded by the profit streams and catalyzed by the energy and creativity of the partner organizations and other local individuals, businesses and organizations.

Understanding the Problem in the Niger Delta:
Fareed Zakaria

Wayne King and friends - King is Team Leader of the
Electronic Community Project's team of social entrepreneurs

*  In order to make this pilot a self sustaining system for both creating economic capacity and cleaning up oil spills we have identified a means to make the most expensive component of our system mobile. Doing this gives us the most possible flexibility to create economic capacity in the ERE Zone. The ERE Zone will be characterized by multiple synergistic activities including but not limited to training, research, empowerment, jobs, and entrepreneurial activities around the by-products of the ERE Zone activities, If it is perceived that the value of one or more activities within the ERE Zone.

Cleaning up Oil Spills in the Enterprise Recovery and Empowerment Zone

Cleaning up Oil Spills in the Enterprise Recovery and Empowerment Zone

The EREZone project uses the most cost effective and efficient product we have ever known for cleaning up oil on both water and land.

Additionally, the strategic partnership with MOP Environmental Solutions will provide an opportunity to assist in the process of developing some equipment that will be able to take an existing patent from the prototype and testing stage to the field ready stage, thus benefitting everyone. Specifically, the MOP RESCUE process, developed and patented by Charles Diamond and now owned by MOP can be used for the cleanup of oil from soil. Diamond envisioned a harvester that would be able to achieve the cleanup - on site - by passing over the land, picking up the soil at one end and depositing it clean at the other end.

There are four important components to the oil spill cleanup process:

1. Cost effective, environmentally responsible cleanup: While the new managers of MOP are revising the calculus about how much oil a pound of MOP will absorb we have in the past tested it at as much as 30-1 absorption rate. MOPs various absorbents (called "sorbents" in scientific parlance) are capable of providing cleanup and bio-remediation on both water and land. For specific challenges within the zone we may also employ other companies and technologies. More

2. Recovery of the Oil: Using a screw press built by partner Vincent Corp,  we can recover roughly 80-95% of the oil for resale. The absorbent acts as a filter for the oil so the oil recovered is actually cleaner than when it was spilled.

3. Pyrolyze the used absorbent to generate sun-gas and/or electricity. Depending on whether we can co-locate with either a number of businesses or a community who can benefit from the electricity or need to work out some agreement for selling the power into the grid, we will be able to generate electricity that is affordable and reliable. See video.

4. Research: Partnering with Local Universities and NGOs and our environmental specialist Indian Country Environmental Services,  we will be doing research on more effective ways to clean up oil spills of various types. We also hope to take the MOP RESCUE Process from its prototype state to a field ready oil harvesting system for land. If you would like information on this, please email us and we will send a detailed overview.