Slashdot Mirror
Solar Powered Computers Planned for Rural India
securitas writes "BBC Technology correspondent Ram Dutt Tripathi reports on India's Uttar Pradesh state where authorities plan to use solar energy to power computers in rural village schools. The cost to run the solar panels is anticipated to be £1,000 per school. According to the report, up to 80% of homes have no power and most government-run primary schools have no power at all. In 2003 the Uttar Pradesh state government bought '1,000 computers for selected primary schools in all 70 districts' with another 1000 to be purchased this year, 'but most of these will not work because there is no power available.' The project is similar to a solar-powered school computer lab on the Isle of Wight."
This is a great idea, something similar has been happening in the Paupa New Guinea highlands - link.
Perhaps they could also harness the power of flies?
Ummm. There's nothing in the article about MS sponsoring this. In fact, based purely on my own experience from grade-school to grad-school, Macs make up the lion's share of computers in US public schools. But that's all besides the point: this is article is about novel power sources for schools.
Giving children an education is fundamental to long-term economic development.
A radio, I'll give you. There could be some real benefit from that.
It comes with the lightbulb.
As for light at night, candles and oil lamps have been used for longer than lightbulbs have been around.
Ironically, here in the first world, within sight of where the first carbon filiment lightbulb was made and where until a few years ago 90% of the entire worlds electrical generators were made I rely on oil lamps, but back them up with lightbulbs.
They suck compared to lightbulbs
No they don't. They have certain advantages, but do have certain disadvantages. Fire risk is one of them, especially if you have children around the house. Mine had grown up and left.
would you rather provide for your children's future or would you rather have a lightbulb to see at night when you:
Why do you think I want the lightbulb?
1. Already have the means.
Third world does not in any imply you don't have the means, but even if you have the means first you may well need the infrastructure.
2. Have no real pressing need to see at night.
How about reading to your kids and helping them with their schoolwork, in a low fire risk enviroment?
KFG
> I mean, I'm all for computers for the poor, but first things first... clean water and electric power.
... apparently priorities are slightly different :)
.
I'm in India and often I see houses with no running water have TV antenna sticking out of it
That aside, if you go to my home state Kerala, and ask a maid servant (who earns about 50 USD per month) where her son is , you'll be surprised to learn he's in college and studying engineering. Government funding and cross subsidisation ensures that education is cheap for the merit students. Unfortunately this phenomenon seems to be isolated to Kerala
What I wanted to say is that this bold and risky investment on the future happens only when the people see a bright future ahead. These computers might bring hope to a few people in India and might urge them to not quit school before they're 14.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
just to tell you, most things in india are that way. My parents grew up in india and I have been there more times that I can actually count, and I have had many times where we don't have reliable power, there are beggars outside the front door on the street, and there is a computer in the household. Its the way it works, India is the country that seemed to miss out on the 20th century(a line taken from my dad).
This is how india improves itself, massive poverty, massive infrastructure and road problems, and yes, people still using that cart and horse at times in larger cities, and then guess where lots of high tech jobs go. Its hard to believe, but its how India see's its future going. Its a strong belief that if someone can get a good education, that next generation can go live somewhere with a decent power supply and clean water. Its really driving towards that future. Now, if things like textile industries weren't foolishly protected in the US(namely, making me pay a higher price for clothing) these 3rd world countries would improve even faster because what infrastructure they do have becomes a lot more profitable and they can expand faster.
Don't underestimate how hard it is to provide power to rural india. It's no small task and my uncle who lives there for the longest time had on site generators for his farm(large plantation, and actually my mother's uncle, though I make no distinction). It takes years to put these things up. Imagine, no matter how advanced we are, we have several places in the US without access to cable TV because that infrastructure is too expensive to put in. What do you think India is looking at with almost 4x the people and a microscopic percentage of the money.
Anyways, in your worryment about places like hospitals, they usually have onsite generators for small draw power items and if this type of electricity works, it could easily be expanded into the other fields. Keep in mind in many places in india, they are used to doing many complex medical procedures without power. An example is syphoning the blood from a person as you cut to do surgery. You can't have all htat blood in the way and if you don't have power you need to have some way to get the blood out of there. Just 30 years ago they used an interesting system where the tube that was used to siphon was connected at a 90 degree angle to a larger tube that they ran water through. Fluid moves, lower pressure, suction without power. This was used by my father when he worked in the Capital before coming to the US. If the capital didn't have a good power supply 30 years ago, what makes anyone think it will be all that spread out now?
I do agree that many of the items we have in our schools gathering dust could do a lot of good in India and similar countries and should be sent there, but this is how India will deal with this. This approach has led to the tech boom that we in the US degrade as outsourcing. Maybe they are onto something we can't understand?
The Materials Engineering Lab at Colorado State is doing some really cool stuff with thin-film PV modules. They are able to get 12.44% efficiences from cells that they make evaporating CdS/CdTe onto a glass backing.
The really cool thing (lots of pictures in the linked site) is that the manufacturing process is very simple (a conveyour belt passes glass into a vaccum-chamber and over several crucibles containing the CdS/CdTe to be evaporated onto the glass) and produces no liquid and virtually no solid waste. As well, if I can remember correctly from my visit to the lab, the raw materials (metals that will be evaporated onto the glass) are readily availible as by-products from other industrial processes.
Hopefully this technology will be out of the lab and in wide-scale use in the near future.
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
"Probably" indicates an unresearched assumption...$8,000 - $10,000 per kilometer (EEI, EPRI, others,) just to string wires, over relatively unchallenging terrain, in the West, with skilled preexisting crews, from an existing power station, assuming there is a major power substation, then gives you the right to begin *paying* the power bill. Since few or none of these conditions exist pervasively in rural India, let's say the high end of that.
Meanwhile, an off-grid solar system (if you get it from, e.g. India's new homegrown PV industry) - panels, charge controller, racks, and batteries - will cost you about $8 / Watt. For distributed small loads (and by "small" here, I mean up to the sort of village power scale - 50,000 Watts or so - solar power is generally cheaper on an *installation* basis than conventional power sources, even before you account for O&M and fuel costs. Beyond that scale, even something like a natural gas microturbine (see Capstone et al.
In the US, these DG projects have a major financial disadvantage due to the existence of the grid - built in large part as a massive public works / employment project during the New Deal. In the developing world, with dispersed, rapidly growing populations, DG makes more sense, provided people can get past the wires and stacks mentality.
I would say "damned expensive" is no longer quite true...In 1976, 1 WWatt of solar power "retailed" for about $60 / Watt. In 1986, $10 / Watt, in 2004, bulk buy, about $3. (It's the batteries, balance-of-system stuff, and labor that more than doubles that.
And remember, solar power is "right now"/"I brought it in on the yak" power, not "wait for four years, we'll build a power plant and associated rail line and get the grid right over those Himalayas to you." power....that has real value, as well.
In Kerala, the southwest state of India, everybody has cellphones.. i mean everybody, even the fishermen!!!! When I was on vacation there, I saw numerous cell phone towers on top of buildings, kids, older people, taxi drivers, fishermen, etc all have cell phones. Its much cheaper AND easier to get a mobile phone. To get a land line phone, you had to sumbit a request with your town phone company. It would take anywhere from 1-3 years for you to get approved (heh in Kerala, you can see red commie flags all over, oh and our state gov't is Communist; CPI-M: Communist Party of India: Marxist). I know this because it took 3 years for us to get a phone. Now with mobile phones, its faster and nobody wants the landline phones. Plus, with a strong wind, the telephone poles would fall (and knocking off electricity too) and your landline wont work. O Yeah, the cell phones outside the U.S are wayy cooler. SMS (or text messaging as known in U.S) has been around since 1995 for the World. Its only catching up in the U.S now!
I don't agree with the fact that India is a "poor nation". Most states in India are self sufficient, meaning they have their own farms,cows for milk, crops for vegetables, food, etc. Other goods they can easily buy for cheap. Since these are produced in a farm that you own, they dont factor in the GDP (no exports or imports). That is why India's GDP is #30 or something like that
But if you use the PPP method (purchasing power parity) and count these self-sufficient households, India ranks #5 in the world!!!
I will use Kerala (my state, also National Geographics Top 10 Paradise in the world) as an example. In Kerala, about 99.99% of houses have land adjacent. They have lots of coconut trees, banana plants, vegetable gardens, cows for milk, chicken for eggs. No money is ever used for these products. Hence, they dont calcuate in the GDP.
Not only that, most people in Kerala save their money. They put it ALL in banks. You can see people having satellite dish's on their roofs.. and guess what? its FREE. All you have to do is buy the dish, pay for installation, and then its free to get over 200+ channels! Would such a thing exist in the U.S? No..Electricy: is very cheap. Only about 100 Rs for 2 months (about $2). Why? Kerala uses hydro plants but I dont really know why its cheap. They lose power about 3 times a week (just for 30mins-1hr). I think this , and many other reasons, is why people think India is "poor". People dont really spend money and dont want to give money. I am sure if the gov't wasnt corrupt and enforced income tax violations, charged a monthly fee for satellite dish, had more private competition, India would be very succesfull in the World. Before in India ALL you would see were Ambassador cars.. since India opened up to private cars, you can see Ford, Toyota, Benz, GM, Chevrolet, Opel, Tata on the roads (even though the roads suck!!!!)
Money cannot be "made" if people save it and not use it.. in the U.S people make money.. but they also spend so much for taxes, buying, etc. Hence, money is "recylced". No such thing in India.
Heck, the recent Indian elections were ALL electronic.. and the U.S cant even count paper ballots (re: Florida!)
Enough ranting.. =)