[Peripherals] Alternitive Power for Developing Countries

[info at olpc-peru.info]

Hello Josh and all,
   

>Personally, I think the power requirements for the XO is too high for 
children to charge them. Yes, I'm sure something can be created that 
children could operate - but is this scalable and long term? Do we think 
that children are going to want to do this everyday throughout their 
entire education?


Getting enough energy for a standard laptop from the pedaling in a 
bicycle is possible (check YouTube.com... there are many working 
examples).  Even the most optimistic calculation or test that has been 
done shows that is possible to do a fast pedaling for a short period of 
time, then you are done and need some rest.  That is due that you are 
moving the whole leg to produce the rotation.  And that kind of high 
"torque" is needed because you are moving and object AND you are moving 
a heavy weight (yourself).  Not just moving a rotor against a "perfect" 
rolling surface (pulley and internal parts of the alternator).


Then you have the other side of the coin: with spinning wheels (that 
have been used by centuries) you move JUST your foot (right or left) not 
the whole leg.  People has been able to do this  hours and hours without 
showing any sight of damage or getting tired in the effort  (I know this 
from first hand because I have develop groups of spinners and knitters 
in the high andes for projects developed in mining zones, all of them 
using spinning wheels moved by the foot).


Our kids, peruvians, andean kids, are used to very hard working 
conditions (most of them know very well how to wake up at 5:00 am and 
push the sheep herd to the field, that coould be walking around 3 to 5 
miles each day... then coming back to the house around 5 p.m.  They do 
this when there is no school or when the school just work 1 week in the 
month or when they have to walk more than 2 hours to go to the school 
(everyday) or when the teacher is out in the bigger nearest village).  
That happens in the towns and villages over the 3,500 meters altitude 
(80,000 tows and villages with a total of 5 million people there), not 
in the small villages located at 2,500 meters altitude (this are the 
ones that you can reach easily and have schools and teachers and kids 
that look at your eyes like very poor children but are the not the ones 
that are in the worst conditions).  Any peruvian kid that lives in the 
high andes, at 2,500 or at 3,500 meters altitude, will look at the 
"pedaling" device in a spinning wheel like a toy, like at totally 
integrated part of the "cost/benefit" system, and only the spoiled ones 
will refuse to do it (there are "spoiled" children in any culture, time 
and economic condition).


If that is too hard to accept (seeing as "children work" or any form of 
"slavery") then we have to think that the ones that will use the 
"spinning wheels" will be the teacher, fathers, bigger brothers that can 
understand that they will benefit from generating its own energy and 
that is depending on them and not in the force of the nature (wind, water).


>I think what is most important is to determine the sources of potential 
energy in areas that need it, then design technology to utilize that.

 >Javier I think you have mentioned that both water, wind and sun are 
too variable to design a cost effective system around. Can you think of 
energy sources that are readily available in these areas that could be 
utilized?


Some person have talk about energy from potatoes.  Yes, why not.  And 
from corn and soy and many other vegetables too.  It is named as 
"eco-oil" or "bio-oils"... but... there is huge controversy about how 
much "conventional energy sources" are spend to produce this 
"bio-oils".  Furthermore, there is huge movement against using what the 
people eats in poor countries to produce "sustainable oils" for use in 
the first world.  Example: in my country, Peru, the government has said 
that the rise on the price of some food products is due to the rise of 
the corn and soy in U.S. and Brazil.  I have talk about this too much 
with my own government but without success (politic stuff is not always 
related to the law of the economy and sometimes is due to personal 
conditions in managing some issues).


Some kind of a more integral aproach could be used: generating energy 
from the gas that comes from composting the rest of the agricultural 
production and the lefts of the animals.  But that involves much more 
money than getting, modifying, and installing some number of spinning 
wheels.

 

>You don't happen to have an abundance of zinc ore in Peru do you?


Zinc? Sure.  Lots.  I don't have information about producing energy from 
Zinc.  But... that is a work for a mining company, zinc is not in the 
form of small rocks that you can pick up in the surface.  You need to 
dig, melt, separate and refine.  Then you are a huge mining company.


Best regards and thanks for your interest in the issue.


Javier Rodriguez
Lima, Peru



 

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