Changes

Solution of the week 4

1 byte removed, 10:52, 14 December 2009

no edit summary

If you want to make a borehole (the quickest way to make wells), you have two options. The first is hiring a big machine, which will arrive on a truck from the city, and gets the business done in a few hours. For at least 5.000$, up to 20.000$. Quick, easy, but far from cheap. The second is doing it by hand, using a manual drilling technology. It takes longer, it is heavy work, but it also gets the job done. For about 500$. Now there is an interesting difference in price, don’t you think?

Of course, manual drilling does not work everywhere. Clay, sand, and compacted sand are ok, but rock or large stones are not ok. But it just happens to be the case that hundreds of millions of people live in areas which have just the right soil types. One such country with the right soil type is Bolivia. It is home to two different manual drilling technologies, the EMAS method (which we will meet in one of the next blogs) and the Baptist method.

[[Image:baptist.jpg|thumb|center|300px|A team of 5 drilling a well in Bolivia. Courtesy Terry Waller]]</em>

Marktielewestra

Akvopedia-spade, administrator

3,247

edits