This is a great article that appeared in the Sunday Seattle Times newspaper. It will give you a personal level understanding of the ongoing largest human migration in history.
I sent the following note to the author,
"High human interest, touching character development, great charts and dense with economic and demographic information. A first cabin, "Atlantic Monthly" piece of work. I feel I want to learn more about John Devine, his MTI project and the role of inventive Westerners in the unfolding of China. This is clearly not a "sweat shop" entrepreneur."
Article Link: A New life for Susie Cheng (http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=susie09&date=20060709&query=alwyn)
(https://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/jraabe/china.jpg)
The village Susie came from and returns to with the reporter. This photo from an An Audio Slide Show (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/audio/news/businesstechnology/chinamigration/susiecheng.html)
Very interesting, John, thanks for sharing! I read the whole article & listened to the audio slide show in one sitting. Made me want to learn more about MTI... I've only read about the sweatshops. I can't imagine living in such a densely populated city... here we are living on top of a mountain in a mud & cob hut, growing our own vegetables, raising chickens... hmmm, I guess we have the best of both worlds! :)
I asked the author (Al Scott) the same question about the engineer/entrepreneur, John Devine, and his MTI project. He responded:
"John's company is called Mera Technologies (http://www.meratechnologies.com/about.htm). It's based here in Seattle, and operates out of a storefront on Nickerson St. off Queen Anne. He's an engineer who has an elegant new idea. And he has a special ability with people that allowed him to not only see Susie's potential, but bring it out through circumstances that would have bewildered most. Sadly, I had to leave most of his story out, for space."
Glenn said that our wind generator uses permanent magnets. MTI's brief description of their generators sounds like the way to go if they perform as stated.
Here is a link to Hugh Piggot's site and older plans to build a PM generator. Similar to MTI's description. It will be interesting to learn more about both aspects of this story.
http://www.scoraigwind.com/#older