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Green, Wireless Networking

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the self-made-challenges dept.

spacepleb writes "A solar and pedal powered bi-directional satellite connection shared out over 802.11b. Given the difficulty of satellite connectivity alone in Europe, these guys turned some heads."

6 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. difficulty of sattelite connectivity in Europe? by jonbrewer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder why the poster thinks satellite connectivity is difficult in Eurpoe... what is s/he comparing to? I found that there are more satellite Internet providers serving Europe and the Middle East than North America, by far!

  2. Re:Green? by doc_side · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Think of it more like this.

    The world is more or less set up as a closed eco-system. Any sort of process occuring that is a build up of any substance probably has something that gets rid of it. Trees turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, and we turn oxygen into carbon dioxide. Everything is in equallibrium. I even heard this theory that if you burned a certain number of plants, the system wouldn't collapse right away, and even if you burned a lot of plants, the whole ecosystem wouldn't collapse, just scale down in size, thus keeping the equallibrium.

    This discussion leads us to how fossil fuels are causing us harm. See, these fuels are plants that died a long time ago, and for all intents and puroposes, are not within this above ground ecosystem naturally. Thus, we are bringing from outside an ammount of carbon dioxide that this system is able to handle. With nothing to process it or use it, we are creating an excess of it with nowhere to go except up. :)

  3. Re:Will the power be doubled if.. by notanatheist · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'll pedal with Lance!! Surely he'd whip my ass but the thrill of pedaling along side one of history's greater cyclists couldn't be beat. Oh yeah, this has to be one of the better received sites for a /.'ing. Never seen anyone prepared faster to accept that much incoming traffic.

  4. Re:not just stupid treehuggers by teqo · · Score: 2, Interesting
    What's the proportion of energy used to *make* all the comms gear they have vs. the energy it actually takes to power it? 100:1?

    Yep, you are right. That's one reason I said they address, yet do not solve the problem, because its not solved in an efficent way, plus its not very convenient... Alone considering the amount of energy and resources put into the production of their AirBases and notebooks outnumbers what they save through bike power by far. IMHO their approach does not qualify as a solution, but more as a hackish project, which can function as a reminder, maybe even as kinda proof-of-concept, and that's it.

    On the other hand, if somebody would try to develop some environmental-friendly way of powering outdoor notebooks or whatever, this development would initially waste far more energy than it would save, hopefully paying off in the long run. I see that their project is no research effort or something similar serious, but asking for 'greener' solutions and at the same time rejecting the trade-off of initially higher resource usage for the sake of resource-friendly solutions would end up in dumping all technology and doing LANs and WANs with drums, becoming the infamous treehugger person.

    That's my two Eurocent at least...

  5. Trouble in the best of times by Nkwe · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Even people expressing "anti-capitalist" views can fail to comprehend or apply the effort needed to avoid using heavily licensed corporate software, even though a viable community alternative is presented in a learning environment with on hand human support.
    I found this comment most interesting and telling. It seems that in a situation as ideally suited for open software and an open environment such as described, the audience would be eager to learn and use what is available. This comment suggests otherwise. Depressing. It seems that we have a long road and a long haul ahead.
  6. Re:if they were near a river... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    they coulda used a paddle-wheel to harness
    the river-current flow to eliminate the C02.