Build an open source, universal nut sheller (for peanuts) video reduce carbon too

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.redhat.com/magazine/026dec06/features/full_belly/

by Rebecca Fernandez

A dietary staple for millions around the world, peanuts have long required painstaking hand-shelling that has limited their potential as a cash crop for farmers in developing nations. But the Full Belly Project has made peanut shelling as easy as riding a bike by bringing their pedal-powered peanut sheller to tiny villages in remote corners of the world.

The universal nut sheller, in action.
Download this video: http://www.redhat.com/v/mov/fullbelly.mov

"They were processing peanuts by beating a sack with a stick," says Roey Rosenblith, director of partnerships and strategic planning for the Full Belly Project. "It's very hard for Westerners to conceptualize life when you wake up at 4:00 in the morning and your chores of the day are beating a bag with a stick and pounding grain until you make flour."

But for a half-billion people worldwide, peanut shelling is a task that consumes two months of every year. Methods for shelling the nuts vary as Rosenblith explains, "In Africa you will see seven-year-old kids with these big pieces of wood. They will make games out of it. Like one person will pick it up, throw it down. They'll just do that for hours."

It's hard work that usually falls on the shoulders of women and children. Director of engineering for the Full Belly Project, Jock Brandis first observed this labor while repairing a water pump in Mali. Brandis had no formal engineering training. His college major was anthropology. But his friend, who was working in Mali with the Peace Corps, knew he could fix anything and wrote to ask for his help.
A better mousetrap

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Brandis inadvertently discovered that peanuts were valuable to another group of people: cement companies. "We went to these cement companies and we were really shooting for a PR angle, like they were going to help feed the world with cement. Save paradise, not pave paradise," Rosenblith explains, highlighting the ongoing problem of pollution caused by these companies. But philanthropy didn't catch the cement companies attention. Peanut shells did.

Holcim, one of the largest cement companies in the world, had a surprising need for peanut shells. Burning peanut shells in their cement kilns cut down their carbon dioxide pollution, freeing up carbon credits. And carbon credits, in the open market, equal cash.

FULL story and video at link.