Thomas Culhane

T.H. Culhane (Ph.D. Urban Planning, UCLA), along with his German wife Sybille, is the co-founder of Solar CITIES e.V., a Europe based NGO that trains people to create their own  practical household and community level waste, water and energy solutions “of the people, by the people, for the people.” He is a National Geographic Emerging Explorer of 2009, and he was a recipient of the first two Blackstone Ranch Innovations Challenge Grants, awarded to research, improve, and implement low-cost small-scale cold weather biogas digesters. On these grants, and working with the US Embassy and the Arava Institute of the Environment, Culhane has used “waste to energy” workshops to improve health and education, fight deforestation and habitat loss, and to wage peace and understanding in places as diverse as Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Portugal, Slovakia, Germany, the frigid highlands of Nepal, the ghettos of Los Angeles, the suburbs of Northern California and Seattle, and the fishing communities of Alaska.

Culhane believes that every household, no matter where they are found on the planet, can start to eliminate their contribution to global warming, waste production, pollution, and our collective addiction to oil and nuclear fuels by installing a food grinder like an Insinkerator and then piping the output to a home or community scale biogas digester. He is now developing LED and CFL lighting solutions that run on waste aluminum cans and foil, and is working on modeling his Urban Planning visions in a 3D participatory gaming environment that he calls “A sustainable development simulator” that will enable everyone to pre-visualize their own vision of a utopian future.  Culhane believes that by empowering everybody to see and be able to utilize the hidden treasures in what we currently call “garbage” we can eliminate much of the resource deprivation and environmental degradation that lead to needless suffering and conflict.

Featuring Thomas Culhane …

National Geographic Article: Thomas Culhane and Urban Planning.

Living Green Magazine – Solar CITIES Founder Named a National Geographic Explorer: 
Thomas Culhane Brings Low-Cost Solar Systems to Cairo’s Poor.

Thomas Culhane’s Blog: Solar Cities.

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