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OLPC Experiments With Cow-Powered Laptops

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the moove-over-solar-power dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) is toying with a novel source of power for its low-cost XO laptops: cows. "We plan to drive a dynamo (taken from an old Fiat) through a system of belts and pulleys using cows/cattle," wrote OLPC's Arjun Sarwal, in an October 21 e-mail posted to one of the group's discussion lists. Sarwal and others are now finalizing the design of the cow-powered generator."

3 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Bull(ock) power is common in India by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Informative
    Almost all the carts in India are drawn by bullocks (castrated bulls). Bullocks are used for irrigation, pressing oil out of seeds etc. They are trained to walk back and forth to draw water out of wells and to walk in circles to press oil. It is an eerie sight to drive on the rural roads in India late at night. The villagers cart their stuff to the nearest market towns, sell, watch a movie, get drunk and sleep in their carts. These bullocks are trained to walk home unaided. So you would come across this caravan of six or eight bullock carts, all obediently following the traffic rules (left side of the road) and plodding along. If you catch them going in opposite direction their eyes gleam eerily reflecting the headlamp. Always thought it would be a very simple thing to silently climb on to the leading cart, override the autopilot and drive the caravan to a secluded spot and rob the villagers. But somehow such crimes don't happen in rural India. (Other kinds of crimes do happen, don't want to paint too rosy a picture.)

    It would be a trivial thing to gear up an oil press and drive a tiny generator to power a few laptops.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  2. Low-power laptop by lobiusmoop · · Score: 4, Informative

    The fact that the XO-1 was specifically designed to run on only 2-3 watts (using Geode at 0.8 watts and LCD-backlit / reflective display at 0.1 to 1 watts), compared to the 15-20 watts on a normal laptop or 100-200 watts on a desktop makes this sort of thing quite feasible.

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
  3. Re:Something doesn't smell right by Thaelon · · Score: 5, Informative

    The voluminous methane cows produce is from burping. Your tube would just get clogged at the end of the cow you chose.

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    Question everything