Slashdot Mirror
LEDs Lighting Up the African Darkness
Peace Corps Online writes "In a non-electrified society, life is defined by the sun and little is accomplished once it sets around 6 pm. Only 19 percent of rural areas in Ghana have electricity. The rest use foul-smelling kerosene lamps to light their huts, which pollute, provide little light and are major fire hazards. But now Philips has partnered with KITE, a not-for-profit Ghanaian organization, to bring artificial light to villages that have no electricity. The new Philips products include a portable lantern which provides bright white light where it is needed, the Dynamo Multi LED self-powered (wind-up) flashlight that provides 17 minutes of light from two minutes hand winding, and the 'My Reading Light,' which is a solar-powered reading light with built-in rechargeable battery. 'People can now do things in the evening,' says Harriette Amissah-Arthur, KITE's director. 'If you could only see the joy these products bring the villagers. You look at their faces; you have to see it to believe it.'"
This article is biased towards Phillips' contribution... Shouldn't there at least have been a mention of the "Light Up the World Foundation" and Dave Irvine-Halliday (U of Calgary)?
http://www.ucalgary.ca/oncampus/weekly/nov4-05/schulich-lutw.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=philips+lutw
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
The EU has done no such thing. Yes, it banned the sale of classic lightbulbs (effective September 2012). But what you replace them with is your own choice, you are not forced into buying fluorescent tubes.
I modded you funny, but I am at this moment in Africa and it is true that such light (or modern technology) in a tent for example, can indeed attract freelancing bandits.
According to wikipedia ... assuming a coal fired plant this statement is correct - the total amount of mercury is lesser when using a CFL:
I am the only one who thinks kerosene lamps actually do smell quite nice.
The smell depends on the fuel. Kerosene can contain varying amounts of sulfur and other odour-inducing substances. Better grades have less odour, and may even have some fragrances added, but cost more. I suppose that the nice-smelling varieties are less common in poorer countries. In fact, they probably mix other cheaper fuels (such as diesel) into the kerosene they do have, adversely affecting soot and smell.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
My own experiments, years ago, showed that in real world use CFLs are equivalent to about four times the wattage of standard 1000 hour incandescents, whereas full size fluorescents produce maybe 5 times the output of the same wattage incandescent. Linear 8W CFLs as used on boats and caravans give about the same actual illumination as a 20W tungsten-halogen bulb, because their light output is much less directional, but then they are much better at illuminating dark corners.
Case in point: when we moved to our present house, the kitchen used 3 100W bulbs. These have been satisfactorily replaced with 3 20W CFLs for the last 20 years. As different types of CFL have evolved, there has been no deterioration in light output, though it is important to buy good quality - GE or Philips - bulbs.
I note that the cost of LEDS is now becoming comparable in lifetime cost with CFLs. The main issue is that LED drivers are relatively inefficient because most of them waste a lot of power in series resistors. What is needed is a really efficient current driver IC for LEDs. This would drive up the efficiency of conversion and make them even more useful in the Third World.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I spent some time in northern Sudan as a child. We had kerosine lamps that used wicks, and Petromax pressure lamps that used a mantle (like the Coleman lamps in the USA). As an 8-year-old I loved having my own kerosine lamp to read by in bed. Yeah, it was dim -- but in a pitch black room with dark-adapted eyes, it was plenty.
They DO pollute, they ARE a fire hazard... but the world will be a little poorer when the last kerosine lamp is gone.
I piss off bigots.
Birds have a 4-color system, the last I heard; mammals lost theirs when they became nocturnal, and we have not fully recovered ours because, basically, primate evolution has not had long enough for it to reappear- perhaps the selection pressure is not that great.)
Actually some humans (and presumably, other primates) do have a 4-color system. It tends to occur more frequently (but still rarely overall) in females than males, perhaps for the same reasons that color-blindness tends to be more frequent in males. If I recall correctly the extra receptor is toward the violet end, and to these people indigo is actually a different color rather than just a shade of blue.
(Compare with mantis shrimp that have 12 color channels, extending into the ultra-violet and infra-red, plus receptors to distinguish circularly polarized light.)
-- Alastair