The New York Times profiles the impact that small scale solar technology can have on rural areas in the third world.
For decades, Big Energy advocates have cast themselves as compassionately wishing to end suffering of rural poor in the third world. But gigantic energy projects, thermal power plants, dams and the like, don’t solve the problem of rural poor in places where there is no electrical grid. Just as third world nations have “leapfrogged” the need for expensive and unwieldy telephone land line connections, by going directly to widespread satellite phone technology – small scale solar photoelectric has the promise to bring appropriate scale technology to those who need it most.
Every week, Ms. Ruto walked two miles to hire a motorcycle taxi for the three-hour ride to Mogotio, the nearest town with electricity. There, she dropped off her cellphone at a store that recharges phones for 30 cents. Yet the service was in such demand that she had to leave it behind for three full days before returning.
That wearying routine ended in February when the family sold some animals to buy a small Chinese-made solar power system for about $80. Now balanced precariously atop their tin roof, a lone solar panel provides enough electricity to charge the phone and run four bright overhead lights with switches.
Giant fossil fuel power projects that have been sold to third world countries have too often more served the needs of the large western corporations who sell them, in league with the third world oligarchies who skim profits off the deals.
The drawbacks of third world nuclear proposals are obvious, unless we are willing to draw up a list of those countries who can go nuclear without being threatened with invasion, bombing, and occupation.
But third world poor cannot take advantage of electrification without a modern grid, which is usually missing. But a tiny solar collector, a battery, and an LED the size of a grain of rice, can cut through the darkness, and open a new world for young people with limited opportunities, at a price they can afford.
These systems lack scale and glamor, but illustrate how technology does not have to wait for infrastructure to catch up.
No need for the third world to repeat the industrialization process as it was done in the First world – a new template is being created.