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Wind, Solar & Biofuels to Power Remote Cell Towers
tcd004 writes "How do you set up a cell network when there's no power grid? Namibia, India and Nigeria are building towers using localized power sources to provide critical cell phone access to the most remote parts of their countries. Wind/solar hybrids, and biofuel power plants will power the radio towers, peripheral communications, and even the protective fencing around the installations."
I-17 has horrible cell coverage in places, and could really use something better. The only cell phones that even work at the Grand Canyon are Verizon phones (although perhaps Verizon likes it that way).
I thought they were building the alternate power sources for remote basestations because people were stealing the diesel generators.
are staggering, this is an excellent idea. Let's hope the implementation is on par.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
To "localized power sources" But of course, slashdot standards require that you spend more than 20 seconds on a single thought, so I added this sentence.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
This is a wonderful situation for the multi-fuel capable Stirling (external combustion).
Long ago one of my power generation professors gave a lecture about a solar powered communications tower he set up, in Nevada I think it was. He said the one thing they did not account for and which made the project unprofitable was crazy hicks with rifles shooting the solar panels for sport, from the next mountain over. Don't forget to include a robot sentry with a sniper rifle in the implementation.
Why does the fencing need electricity? Are these cell towers for Jurassic Park or something?
Indeed. I've often wondered how many resources are used just to push usable energy around, and if there is in fact a benefit to having massively distributed power generation rather than massive power plants.
Sure, this would have to be a different paradigm then shipping fuels to a single location, but you'd think that everyone could have a solar array and windmill on their property - except for goofy things like zoning and 'beautification' rules :(
Heck, using that method you don't even lose all the power industry jobs, because they can then be on-site maintenance and installation engineers for the millions of new "miniature" plants.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
So they're installing electric fences around these sites to prevent theft and looting of equipment/metals? Cute.
Now all someone has to do to compromise that is to booger up the solar panel (Water balloon slingshot with mudpies), or throw a rope into the windmill (or drop it in with a kite) and wait several days.
How are "HP Sponsored Solutions" and "compare prices" related to this story in any way? Is HP building these towers? Are there multiple suppliers of these towers, so that we might need to compare prices? WTF is this place turning into?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"Can you hearr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr mee-ee-ee-ee now?"
(Shhhhzzzziphhhtttshhhhhhz)....(click)
"Hello?"
Kashawak - NO FO!!!!
No, you idiot. Nigers are from Niger. These are Nigerians because they're from Nigeria.
Regardless, at least it isn't America. This kind of unamerican undertaking wouldn't be allowed here. If it ain't oil - it ain't American.
don't forget "biofuel"..
usually that is a more "gentle" term for cowflops or other dung.
think about it... a power plant in the corner of everyone's back yard that takes what goes down your toilet : )
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My friend, the prince of nigeria, is going to be calling me about the 100 million dollars he's going to give me for helping him out!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
A pity you didn't just Look it up. Then you'd have known it was around 7% in the US and UK. Which yes, is fucking huge. In 2003 the total consumption of electricity in the US was 3,656 billion kilowatt-hours. you do the math...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Wait until it works or not before making fun of oil. The only reason these things are going to work for now is because oil exists to power our machinery. It won't work if that's all the energy we have.
lol
wait, what?
Here in the US, if somebody wants something, they'd better damned well be ready to pay for it. Here, "you gets what you pays for!". Now, if Cellulite-1 (or whoever) decides to put a tower up, you can bet it'll be the classic sort which requires power and periodic maintainance to remain operational; expenses which will not only be passed along to the consumer, but which will be passed along at a profit! If the cell towers generate their own electricity, there's that much less expense to make a profit on.
Yes, it seems counterintuitive, but why develop a technology which costs less to implement if that technology is going to cut into your bottom line? Current, technologies with a lower TCO provide less profit than conventional technologies.
Those bits of Utah where you drive a hundred miles just north of the AZ/UT border and there's no power, lights, phone, electricity, anything for seemingly forever. The only way to call for help out there is with a satphone.
Talk about no bars in no places!
They have enough sunlight out there in the deserts it should be relatively easy to implement a solar-only with generator-backup power system to keep the sites up, then use microwave point-to-point links between sites and dual uplinks on either side of the network for redundancy in the event sites in the middle fail.
Providers won't bother doing that though, they have no population out there to cover, and why would they care about public safety? They're too busy wasting resources deploying mobile TV and camera phones and video phones and all their other useless nonsense.
Losses are about 7% on the grid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transm ission#Losses. While this is significant
it is not huge. The real problem is stringing out lines to remote locations which is expensive.s -selling-solar.html
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Destress the grid: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
In the age of gas lamps, before natural gas, wood or coal would be gasified and piped to you from the local gas plant. There'd be one in any city of any size. They were absolutely filthy and many times more polluting than anything going on now.
I see the same sort of thing springing up in Nigeria. I'm just pointing out that this is about setting up an infrastructure, and it's doubtful there's anything "green" about it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"Honey, I need to call Mom. Could you flush the toilet, please?"
Or, you could run power in alongside the lines that you laid when connecting the cell towers to the wired network. Somewhere down the way is a plug you could use.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
how often third world countries embrace alternative sources where as we're told they are too expensive in the first world. There's a good reason many use alternative sources in these countries, the lack of an infastructure for delivering power.
I, for one, welcome our automated anti-crazy hick gun platform equipped, solar-powered, communication tower overlords.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
But (as you say) the I-17 corridor isn't a hotly contested business opportunity. At the end of the day, companies would rather turn a 5% profit on a $10,000 investment than a 15% profit on a $1,000 investment. Since they can't get that 5% of $10,000 thing going, it isn't worth their attention to try for 15% of $1,000; they have plenty of other 5% on $10,000 opportunities to investigate around populated areas.
What are you talking about? All we need to do before we run out of oil is make enough solar, wind, nuclear etc to make more solar, wind, nuclear etc. Obviously the problem is more complex but we are not, repeat not stuck with oil for the rest of eternity. In fact we could have already gone entirely to alternative power if we liked, plus perhaps nuclear to handle our other uses (it's the closest thing to nonpolluting we have that is capable of producing power 24/7) but there are oil and coal in the ground and we are making a lot of money digging them up and burning them. Pity about the fact that releasing so much CO2 may kill us all, but hey, at least a few very rich people will be able to get even more rich!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is more important than it sounds--the remote and underdeveloped areas of the world that need cell phone penetration more than the developed world does, because the increase in efficiency they create for the local economy is more important when so many people are living at or below sustenance level. (Cell phone usage raises a community's GDP, at least to a point.)
More likely city folk who think of guns as fun instead of being a tool. Note: for purposes of this post, "city folk" are any people who can see their neighbor's house from theirs. Real hicks can find plenty of target practice shooting varmints and such.
On the other hand, if a company builds a road into my favorite spot and puts up an ugly cell tower, they can expect a few holes in it. But I don't consider that crazy.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
How do the locals power their new cell phones exactly?
If there is no power infrastructure in the area, how are they going to charge their cell phones?
I often take the drive from Tucson to Prescott or Flagstaff (I-10, I-17), and my Sprint phone gets undivided service the entire distance (save for one tiny stretch of road just south of Phoenix).
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It would be cool if all services just used all the same towers, then it wouldn't matter which provider you have.
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...yes, here in the USSK, people steal the copper cables from the railway signalling circuits and sell those for scrap, too. (I know, I know: In Soviet Britain, coppers steal YOU!)
Or maybe that's just the latest British Rail v3.0 excuse for having a Third World railway.
Yes, they make them:
Here's an exampleHow many "city folk" do you suppose are armed on mountains so remote you need a helicopter to bring in construction materials?
Real hicks can find plenty of target practice shooting varmints and such.I've lived in a number of places that could easily be considered hicksville. I used to carry a pistol on my belt to get from the place I was staying to the nearest road because of all the bears. There are plenty of "hicks" who just like shooting things. I knew some guys when I was a kid who used to go shoot out the tires of logging trucks, not because they disliked logging, but just because they thought shooting the tires out of trucks and other equipment was fun. They sure weren't "city folk."
You will not have anywhere near the energy density of oil, and you need to build the infrastructure to deal with all your new energy "sources". Do you think people use oil because of your conspiracy theories, or because there are good fucking reasons to use it?
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I built an observatory on a remote mountaintop, and it's completely off-grid.
The primary power source is photovoltaic, but that's supplemented with a small 400 Watt wind turbine.
Also there is a small (3.5KvA) petrol-powered generator on-site for emergency use, as well as a straight DC battery charging source (a small Honda motor running a 200 Amp truck alternator).
With more than 2,600 AHrs of flooded lead-acid cells, I've yet to discharge more than 30% of the battery, and consumption is usually much less than that.
Sure, the initial cost isn't low (although I got the used cells, and cabling, etc free through my job), and there were major transportation issues, but we have plenty of electricity for all our foreseeable needs, and pay nothing to any power companies.
It may not be worth the effort right now for those with easy access to relatively cheap mains electricity supplies, but for those of us who don't, off-grid living is doable. The people who say it isn't have either never even tried it, or work for the marketing depts of utility corporations.
It's Friday, so I'm slow...
In Soviet Britain, coppers nick YOU!
There. That's better.
Why cant they require those types of power sources for all towers and public buildings and all public utilities that require power. Maybe the initial setup would be high but look at the long haul. Plus the street lights could then run all night long instead of turning off at certain times to conserve money. Not power.
thank you, Brian M. http://www.masonfamilytree.com http://www.thefederation.us http://www.patriciaannmason.com http
I've heard cheap nuclear is just around the corner, wake me up when somebody actually invests enough to build a prototype of such a thing. Until then we have to use something else - and solar is real and cheap in small remote installations where you don't want the hassle of shipping in fuel. Plus most of the energy consuption is going to be in daylight in this situation.
Bringing nuclear into the argument in this situation is either utterly stupid (nuclear fuel sources for sattellites may be the right size for this installion - but they are expensive) or blatantly partisan. Just becuase electricity was mentioned does not suddenly make nuclear electricity generation relevant to the discussion.
But it is. However if you live in a place where a local grid connection is possible then it's generally easier to go with that. Some choose to be off-grid, others have no choice in the matter, but those claiming it isn't feasible are talking out their asses.
HI I am a representative for the Prince of Arkansas, and I am wanting to present you with a gourgous opportunity. If you will be kind enough to give me your bank account information I would be very happy to set you up with some solar cell access.
PLEASE NO MORE CONNECTIVITY FOR NIGERIA... PLEASE!!!!
Were they 15-25? If so, that would make a lot more sense. Adults can usually find better things to do.
It is weird that gun-control lobbyists never think about people who live in places where there are still wild animals.
yeah....except the thiefs would be long gone.
Not only that, they probably just ripped the wall off of a nearby shed (wood) and laid it across the wired fence, which shorted out the system when they ran across it. After cutting the metal bars for the fence at the base with a hacksaw.
Hacksaw - $5
Crowbar to remove fence - $10
Looting the station - Priceless!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If your neighbour's house is half a mile away, and you can still see it, then is it still a city? That doesn't even sound like a town to me.
You don't consider it crazy when you shoot somebody's property just because it's in your favourite spot? That kind of justifies the previous nations killing you for being in their favourite spot. Do you limit it to roads and towers only? What about roads and houses? What about just roads? Does the spot have to be a favourite spot of somebody, or can we just shoot?
testing out my trending skills
It could be cheaper to use solar panels, and have a gross and net energy savings sometimes. It costs money run wires along to every household. Just as many homes have wells, and their own sewage, it makes sense that they wouldn't be connected to the power grid. In those situations solar, wind and others could be a solution.
testing out my trending skills
Good luck getting better than 93% efficiency with inverters and (cheap) batteries... or any other storage and conversion methods for that matter.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Do a Wikipedia search for RTG which stands for Radioisotope thermoelectric generator.
It takes the heat produced from the natural decay of a radioactive material and converts it into electricity. For about ever 500 watts of wasted heat you get 100 watts of electricity.
1 kg of 238pu (plutonium 238) would produce 100 watts of power for nearly a century. How much electricity do they need?
The reason I would choose 238pu is because it is pretty safe. If some how there was an accident, which would mean at least 1000 things go wrong in a specific order, and a fission reaction started the chain reaction would not be stable and fissile out in milliseconds.
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
"The solar/wind tower also runs the protective fencing around the site" This really sounds like good old Africa to me - sigh.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The bigger places have electricity. Shanty towns sometimes have electricity, but all of them have a 'battery charging' infrastructure. Someone with electricity or a generator, will charge heaps of car batteries. These gets delivered by donkey cart to power all kinds of things: Television sets, phones, radios, ghetto blasters, cash registers and so on. It is really amazing to see.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
You're being serious? saying RTG implementations couldn't be deployed out of fears of terrorists collecting the plutonium and using it in a bomb doesn't make much since because If they wanted to what would keep terrorists from collecting the plutonium simply for the purpose of building a bomb rather than it just being a byproduct of the searching for it for a RTG?
The bomb that could be produced from a 238pu material would be the most simplest least dangerous type of radioactive bomb known to exist. Not I said radioactive bomb because it wouldn't be a nuclear bomb as that implies a fission reaction whereas with this grade of nuclear material the best (or should i say worst) a terrorist could hope for would be to build a dirty bomb. That is a conventional explosive device that is packaged with radioactive material. They would be better of getting their hands on depleted uranium which is much easier to find sources and purchase directly and would be just as effective in a dirty bomb implementation.
There is more risk that a terrorist group would collect smoke detectors, to extract the americium-241 they contain. Drill a small hole in a hollow block of lead and fill it with the collected americium-241 and point it at several sheets of aluminum and they would have a working neutron gun. Thorium which could easily be extracted from lantern mantles would be all a terrorist would need to create a small scale breeder reactor capable of producing uranium-238. The exact type of radioactive material that was used in the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6, 1945.
And before anyone freaks out about this post and goes calling the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or homeland security all of what is described above is common knowledge and is vague enough that it would take someone with considerable knowledge to create a breeder reactor. Someone with that level of knowledge would already know far more than I have stated in this article.
I am pointing this out to demonstrate that building RTG deployments using plutonium-238 is a fairly risk free proposition. If it didn't require a license from the NRC to legally posses the nuclear fuel required I would have long since built a RTG to power my home and neither me, the other residents of my home, or the town I live in would need fear being irradiated or consumed in a nuclear fireball. Also, if any would be terrorist learned of my RTG and it's nuclear fuel source they would not be interested in it since much more destructive isotopes could be obtained, with less effort than dismantling my RTG (which I would notice due to the lack of lights and air conditioning), for both the construction of dirty bombs and / or traditional thermonuclear weapons.
Society has been conditioned to fear anything associated with the word radioactive that research and development into safe alternative power sources using any type of radioactive material has been completely stalled.
There is plenty to be afraid of in the world that we don't have to go around fearing a whole class of materials just because a few of them can be misused. Almost anything can be misused. Look at Oklahoma city; all that destruction from items that could have been purchased at your local ag-coop and Wal-Mart.
From what I have read and seen in the media your run of the mill terrorist is not the sharpest tool in the shed. I contribute this to the fact that if these people would have had the opportunity to become more educated then they would see their cause as what it is: self destructive violence that only goes to label their group and it's message as radical and intolerable. Some of these people might have legitimate complaints about how America has become the world's police but until the realize that they need to take a non violent approach and learn to present their issues in a calm and rational manner nobody is going to listen to anything they have to say and every time they resort to violence society becomes more intolerant. Each attack made towards the US or it's allies only goes to increase the oppressive posture of the worlds largest military body. Which from my understanding is exactly what they are protesting against. I guess they just don't get it.
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
If everyone had a solar array and a windmill on their property, that would take care of a huge problem with nuclear power plants: the disposal of nuclear waste. But what happens when someone develops a more efficient method of energy, like using by-products from consumables used by those living on the property? Then people will definitely be out of work, because there is really nothing left for them to maintain.
"If you want your dreams to come true, don't sleep." - Yiddish Proverb
First of all, it's sense, not "since."
Second, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. My point was that putting plutonium on a cellphone tower would make it (relatively) easy to get to, and that would cause a (perceived) danger. The terrorists would be "collecting the plutonium simply for the purpose of building a bomb;" it would be the phone company who put the RTG there, to power the cell tower.
Third, whether the danger is real or not is irrelevant. The whole idea would never fly simply because people would be too scared of it even if their fears were not justified.
Doesn't matter. The naysayers would just scream "OMG Plutonium!!!11!" and that would be the end of it.
Oh, yes, "considerable" knowledge... surely more than a 17-year-old boy scout with an "atomic energy" merit badge could possibly have, right?
Yep. It sucks, but it's true.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz