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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."
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.
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.
Thievery and yes, probably because of elephants (think scratching posts).
With the amount of metal that would be in these things and considering the poverty of the countries mentioned, you can be absolutely sure that if the fencing was not electrified, the equipment would be stolen the same night it was installed and sold for scrap metal.
Let's put it this way, even in the stable country of Iraq, entire towers which hold up electrical wires are toppled and sold for scrap. Think what would happen to this equipment if it were placed next to a roadway in one of the three countries and didn't have any form of protection.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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.
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.
How do the locals power their new cell phones exactly?