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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Why Solar Energy Is the Key to Solving Global Poverty Yahoo News Every morning, students in Kunthur, a village outside Bangalore, India, leave home carrying a battery among their books. At Swamy Vivekananda High School, solar panels charge the batteries during the day so the stored energy can be used to power lanterns when the students return home. With access to light—and the elimination of dirty and costly kerosene-powered lamps—families save $100 a year and children have more time for work and study, offering them a chance to rise out of poverty. Solar energy is emerging as a way to give power to the 1.3 billion people in the world with no reliable access to electricity without spending billions of dollars to build transmission lines. Despite that potential, international organizations like the World Bank aren’t investing enough money in the right places to achieve universal electrification, according to a new Sierra Club report. “The poorest people in the world pay 40 times more for the same energy services but get poor lighting and poor health outcomes,” said Justin Guay, associate director of Sierra Club’s International Climate Program and coauthor of the report. “Instead of building centralized power plants, we need a different approach to solve this problem.” Guay said the World Bank and other international lenders should start funding projects that provide solar electricity, such as those offered by d.light, a company that develops and distributes products ranging from lanterns to home solar systems in off-grid communities around the world. The report notes that the World Bank rarely invests in small energy projects, despite its goal of universal electrification by 2030. The bank also does not measure access to energy the right way, Guay said. “Rather than measuring services provided and new access to energy for poor populations, they look at the supply of energy created and kilometers of energy transmission lines built,” he says. “Just because you build a coal plant doesn’t mean that access lines are extended to poor people and that they can service their needs and repair the grid lines—or that communities can afford the power.” World Bank spokesperson Christopher Neal says the bank is supporting hydropower, natural gas, and renewable power sources that expand access to electricity. One such project is a rural home solar initiative in Bangladesh that has installed more than a million solar systems in less than a decade. In recent months, investors have put $45 million into off-grid solar start-ups, including a $7 million round for Tanzania-based Off.Grid:Electric and $11 million for San Francisco’s d.light. Is public money really even needed, given private investments in off-grid solar? “Absolutely,” said Guay, who noted that the largest barrier to universal electrification is access to finance. “Most of the private finance has been in equity, which gives stakes in private companies and helps to build these companies. What the space needs now is cheap capital from public institutions that enables them to scale their operations.” The report estimates that $500 million in public financing would spur a $12 billion off-grid solar market by 2030. Neal points to the World Bank Group’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency as an example of how it is working to leverage additional investments from the private sector. MIGA has offered $5.2 billion in guarantees to lower investor risks for non-commercial projects in Kenya, Nicaragua, China, and Rwanda. There has been some change. The U.S. Agency for International Development, for instance, last year granted 11 entrepreneurs up to $1.5 million each to develop clean tech solutions in agriculture for the developing world. Many involve off-grid solar technology. That’s just a start. For now, initiatives like the Solar Electric Light Company’s school program in Kunthur will show how to increase access to both clean electricity and education. “Just providing a few hours of solar lighting alone improves the human condition,” Guay said. Poster Comment: [michael]... So dear writer who paid for the solar panels and batteries? I am pretty sure the Indian government did not nor did the state government. I bet it was some NGO from either the US or Europe who dumped a lot of money on this school to feel good and than left. Of course the panels cost money to maintain and the batters have a limited life as does the lantern lights which I asume are either CDL or leds, most likely all made in China. In five years the system will be broke and the natives will be back to Kerosene lamps which actually work as the natives pay for them themselves and want them to keep working so pay for repairs. The lamps are not dirty , give off a lot of light and heat which can be useful in the winter as parts of India get rather cold. MegaMeaty ... When you add the maintenance costs for transmission lines, transportation for fuel for the plants, the infrastructure they don't have to transport the fuel, and then the greed, coal power is way more expensive than solar. Just to have power ran to my hunting shack, the power company wanted 1/10 the cost, which on my side was 10 thousand dollars, Just for the lines now. I went solar with several 250 watt panels and a bunch of used car batteries that I revived with new acid and VX. Total cost 2500 dollars, and I never pay a bill or connection fee or taxes. So, you guys putting down solar, eat those statistics.+2-1 [albertm] See MegaMeaty.....you are proof to the deniers that it doesn't work. You deprived the electric co. of massive profits. Al Otto Pine Bush NY7 want to end poverty get rid of the tyrants and dictators, permit man to be free and he'll find new ways and methods to make life easier.... as long as countries are being governed under tyrannical leadership you are going to have the poor.... but hey good luck fixing that one! [EarthSourceMediadotcom] you must be talking about the USA! Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
Fiddling with solar while Rome burns. Kill the bankers ! "Resolve to serve no more,” he says, “and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.” Étienne de La Boétie
Maybe solar is the key - if we use the juice to fry the bankers, media shills, and politicians !
"Resolve to serve no more,” he says, “and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.” Étienne de La Boétie
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