Date: Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:53 pm. By: Guest
Hi
Many folks wrote:
So what your saying it be more ecomonical to put give out the PC's to poor urban area's first and for the remote areas have a more scaled up eletricity generation at the central high school where the PC would be used rather than at each and every home.
I think that would make more sense, though its not precisely what I'd propose. Why buy a $100 laptop when you could get used western PCs for less, and plug it in where there's mains already. It does more and costs less.
BTW doesnt solor panels limited lifespan and would be difficult to maintain for the untrained local populas, blacksmiths/carpenters in the field. A thermophile may well be easier to maintain.
Solar panels dont normally need maintenance, but do have lifetime limits. Theyre quite long but not indefinite, and repair isnt really an option. So if solar pv were installed today (at vast expense) there would likely be little of that infrastructure remaining in 50 years time. High cost means a long time to equip a country, so a nationwide electricity infrastructure can not realistically be built up this way.
I read in 2005 a survey (I forget the exact details) of small solar implementations in South Africa found that after 5 years something like 25% of the systems were abandoned due to failure and inability to afford repair, and IIRC about 50% were not working as well they should. So IRL the mean time to failure is not so great.
Solar thermopiles OTOH will carry on indefinitely, given occasional very simple and very cheap repair. Theyre also extremely low cost to install. I'm talking here about piles made from copper and nichrome wire, not high price commercial peltier type units. Install cost is critical in the 3rd world. Also when installtion is underfunded and thus slow, an infrastructure should be chosen that will accumulate over time, rather than one where the whole lot will be gone and need replacing every so often. Put in 100,000 thermopile generators per year, and after 50 years you've got nearly 2 million power units running. Do this with solar pv and you'll have little left by then, and there'll be no accumulation of infrastructure.
Abandonment of systems primarily comes down to cost. High cost PV is prone to theft and vandalism, and replacement is simply not affordable. Thermopiles are not such an attractive target for theft, can be easily repaired after vandalism, and can be replaced entirely at an affordable price.
However, the expense of solar cells would break the budget of a $100 laptop...
Solar pv is a very expensive way to generate electricity, yet the west seems to think its the solution for people in poverty. Odd.
The computer they were proposing is more like a PDA than a laptop so it's power requirements are more likely to be one Watt or less rather than 30 to 80 watts. It's not a high powered device so hand cranking becomes possible though a foot powered generator would likely be more practical.
Right, that makes more sense. I would think a solar thermopile would be well suited to such an app, and more appropriate tech than pedal power. Cheaper, easier, and doesnt drain human energy, which is a valuable commodity often overlooked by rich people with no such life pressures.
The materials cost of a 10w solar thermopile would be under 10p (20 cents US). It would need a voltage convertor, but again total cost would come in at well under that of a pv panel. Also some convertors can be made from scrap parts, so would be by some. (This infrastructure addition could not happen with pv.) And since all the component parts can be salvaged or made locally, and people can make money with computers, there would soon be an industry in thermopile manufacture and repair.
XP powers up between 6 seconds and 20 seconds depending on where you left off.
I dont think it would ever be based on windows. MS wont even give hospitals free use of software, they surely wont grant it to a whole nation. Linux seems the logical contender, possibly one of the small low RAM packages, or more likely a custom distro for a non-standard machine. Non standard means added extra software development costs of course.
It's more practical to get electricity and communications to these schools, homes and towns first and then get them computers rather than the other way around.
Thank you!. Computers are probably the LAST thing on the list. Electricity, communications, health care, food, law enforcement, textiles, transportation etc., first.
All these things come from computers. Computers enable people by giving them knowledge and power, and its lack of those things that are why the basics still arent there. Realise that many poor have no access to media of any kind, none whatever. So how are they going to learn? Today they dont. How are they going to access global trade, as one can on the net? Today they dont. Although a computer isnt food, computers do generate economic growth and considerable improvement in standards of living. A few examples:
With access to a computer, one can make money doing google 'researching', entering taxes, and many other ways. This is serious income for people with little. With a computer one can learn how to make mud buildings that last centuries instead of decades, or how to make sunbaked bricks. With a computer one can learn how to make contraceptives, learn the various medical techniques that cost close to nothing, use educational software, learn how to turn inedible ogranic scraps into worm meat., learn how to improve food growing techniques to maximise yield. With computer access one can learn how to make a solar cooker, and no longer need to go out into the woods and get raped. Not depleting all that plant matter means more fertility in the long run, which means more food production. With a computer one can learn how to fabricate items out of available resources, and how to make their design as efficient as possible. With a computer one can gain some political power With a computer one can learn and learn and learn, and thus gain opportunities to transform life in many ways. Information is one of the ways to get out of poverty, to enable people to improve their lives and those of their fellows.
NT