Monday 27 December 2010

Good News # 1; Countdown to 2011

Yes, it was a lovely Christmas holiday. Much good fellowship, food, drink and things to read and listen too. After our rough early December I think we should finish it off with a list of good news stories.

The first is from yesterday's New York Times, about inexpensive solar panels making their way into Africa.

One of the things I remember from my trip to Burundi and Tanzania nearly 10 years ago, was the way my night flight from Nairobi to Amsterdam crossed a wide expanse of darkness. At the same time, one of the people I met in Nairobi was a Senagalese-Canadian engineer who was working in several African countries, setting up mobile phone networks. Communication to the outside world was coming to places that would never have gotten it, had the only technology been landlines.

It appears that something similar is happening with electrical hookups. No need for massive power projects when you can get a solar panel for the cost of goat which will provide enough power for a couple of electric lights and charging cellphones. The energy is truly clean too.

Here's another project, as postedby Rocketboom.com, and apparently from Dutch television.

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