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 ...
It’s a 3 hour ride to the nearest town with electricity but there’s a cell tower near enough to have phone service? My guess is that if the cell towers are powered by solar, it would have been stolen or vandalized by now. I call bull 0bama.
Translation:
“NEWSFLASH - one more square foot of Africa joins 2010.”
I am SO not surprised.
Some folks get it, others don't.
You obviously do.
Nice! ;-)
What is the name of the group / organization doing this?
You're in the small/home power systems business? May I ask what segment? It's just curiosity -- been a reader of Home Power magazine since its start, and I've got quite an interest in what's working these days. I'm not in the business -- just another homeowner off-grid since 1989 (PVs and working on restoring a 1940's Jacobs windplant)....
Survivalizing is fun, if you’re prepared.
“Like another freeper stated, what is powering the cell tower?”
Maybe the tower is a major city? Maybe solar? Maybe generators
Wow. What a mess. How far inland are you from the ocean?
'Bout 80 miles.
Normally I should be fine. Ike was a freak.. technically worse than Katrina.
But it whacked a different group of folks, so it wasn't so widely publicized.
Whatever. I don't mind kerosine lamps and grilled chow.
Cart - horse.
Too bad we don’t make many household items any more. I can see a huge market for equipment that use little power or are cordless with rechargeable batteries. And, if some enterprising soul(s) can come up with a cheap battery to hook up to those panels, there’s a ton of 12 volt appliances already available.
The real scandal is that the UN and most all other big do-gooder outfits are against stuff like this. I guess their buddies get more profits from the large scale enterprises.
The article said that the useful small outfits who make these panels available don’t have enough money to order in bulk. I wonder how long it will be before some smart Chinese businessman pulls the deal McCormick did with his new reaper - buy on credit and repay with the savings.
Another good side effect is a lessening of lung problems since the users are no longer breathing combustion fumes - probably a bit cleaner too, with no soot particles drifting about.
Sho 'nuff!
Listening to the reports about the less fortunate folks..
killing each other over ice and gasoline.. that was interesting.
Especially since the "fortunate" factor only involved planning and common sense.
It's not like I'm a rich guy. Just practical.
80 miles? Here in VA we are only about 20 miles from the ocean, but we have not had a really bad hurricane in quite a while...
But it whacked a different group of folks, so it wasn't so widely publicized.
Aw, the media would never do selective reporting would they? /s
I don't mind kerosine lamps and grilled chow.
Grilled stuff! Yum Yum! Did you have to eat up all the meat in your freezer to keep if from going bad, or did you have a generator to keep the freeser going?
Oops... I meant freezer not freeser. lol
Did barry send solar panels to his brothers’ hut?
Through the amazing ability of PAYING ATTENTION I was able
to freeze jugs of water in advance and extend the freezer
capabilities for a week or so without power or having to buy ice.
Yep, I ate up all the meat.
Freezer needed cleaned anyway.
FEMA and the Government had "free" ice trailers giving out
ice here and there throughout the area, I passed on that.
By the time I needed it, I was done needing it if you know what I mean.
I had fun with the whole thing.
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