Apparently the one I have is fifty bucks now.
Kaito Voyager KA500 Survival Radio Shop 'em here.
Posted on 12/25/2010 3:30:35 PM PST by Pan_Yan
KIPTUSURI, Kenya — For Sara Ruto, the desperate yearning for electricity began last year with the purchase of her first cellphone, a lifeline for receiving small money transfers, contacting relatives in the city or checking chicken prices at the nearest market.
Charging the phone was no simple matter in this farming village far from Kenya’s electric grid.
Every week, Ms. Ruto walked two miles to hire a motorcycle taxi for the three-hour ride to Mogotio, the nearest town with electricity. There, she dropped off her cellphone at a store that recharges phones for 30 cents. Yet the service was in such demand that she had to leave it behind for three full days before returning.
That wearying routine ended in February when the family sold some animals to buy a small Chinese-made solar power system for about $80. Now balanced precariously atop their tin roof, a lone solar panel provides enough electricity to charge the phone and run four bright overhead lights with switches.
“My main motivation was the phone, but this has changed so many other things,” Ms. Ruto said on a recent evening as she relaxed on a bench in the mud-walled shack she shares with her husband and six children.
As small-scale renewable energy becomes cheaper, more reliable and more efficient, it is providing the first drops of modern power to people who live far from slow-growing electricity grids and fuel pipelines in developing countries. Although dwarfed by the big renewable energy projects that many industrialized countries are embracing to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, these tiny systems are playing an epic, transformative role.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
In the peaceful village of wing-a-what, a large pot, filled with captured white tourist, is slowly heated with solar panels.
Neat. I want one!
Food would probably be even more appreciated.
Made cooking with light difficult and "unproductive".
BTW, your typical AGW fanatic fails to accommodate that particular characteristic in his climate models with the consequence that he doesn't get it right and doesn't know he didn't get it right.
Turns out the greater part of the CO2 in the atmosphere is located in the thickest, darkest, nastiest, dustiest part so it probably doesn't count.
But there's still plenty of light to fire up the juice to make those ALL IMPORTANT CELL PHONES WORK.
You can give that lady a call and say "Praise God".
They used to communicate with drums. It worked and was eco-friendly. In the Bahamas people used to use vhf radios. They set up networks and would relay depending on the range. Amazing there is a cell tower but no way to charge a phone. I have a cheap radio with a dynamo that can charge a cell phone. The drug dealers could go over and trade them for HashHish. Probly get more than they did for electric yo-yo’s. Africa Sucks. 3rd world Sucks. I wish more Americans would travel to the places so they could appreciate what they have. I can not believe that Obama won the Presidency on an America Sucks Platform after the places I have seen.
I claim BS on this one. Like another freeper stated, what is powering the cell tower?
Also, you donthave electricity and lights, but you have a cell phone? Sounds like Michelle Obama’s soup kitchens where the poor people she is feeding all are taking pictures of her with their Blackberry’s..
Im just saying...
From what I've read from several sources that is very common in Africa. Cell phones are very cheap. Getting electricity hooked up, once it's availible in your village, costs $350 according to the article.
Cell phones can’t use
‘one use’ batteries ???
Thanks! It's not without its downsides -- it's more work to maintain than a grid connection -- brushing snow off the PVs in winter, keeping the battery levels topped up. But I find it is worthwhile.
> There are plans out there for micro nuclear generators that would power individual neighborhoods.
A local nuke would be way cool, and I'd go for that if I had neighbors near enough by. But nearest neighbor is about a mile away... having to run and maintain long cables doesn't sound like fun. Maybe they'll downscale it enough it works for a single residence, but I'll bet cost is prohibitive.
> Unfortunately, I don't think the government or the power industry is ready to let go of 'The Grid'.
"The Grid" is an amazing and useful thing for the vast majority of consumers, private and commercial. It's gotta remain the majority method, as far as I can see, for both economic and efficiency reasons.
Apparently the one I have is fifty bucks now.
Kaito Voyager KA500 Survival Radio Shop 'em here.
Thanks!
I live in hurricane country.
We get a taste of infrastructure breakdown every so often.
Stuff like the crank-solar radio comes in dang handy.
When Ike hit, we were without pretty much everything for a couple of weeks.
Me, I had fun with it.
Tons of other folks were pretty messed up by it.
We haven't had a real serious hurricane for quite some years, but we did get a big nor'easter last year that knocked out the power.
Did your property suffer much damage from Ike?
“Coming to a town near you, if big brother continues this global warming craze.”
Oh yes indeed! Coming soon to villages in the United States!
See your FReepmail.
Wrecked half my barn, my boat.. couple trees..
On the upside I learned that my house is good for at least 145 MPH winds..
Actually, I had fun with it. That's just me.
Same goes for education. Read The Beautiful Tree; it is sad but inspiring.
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