Round. The world. Connected.

[photo Dr Paul Meyer]
Date posted
23-08-08
Posted by
Dr Paul Meyer

Paul writes about ICT from his home in Bath, England.

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The green(er) hills of Africa
 

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The green(er) hills of Africa

Renewable resources are helping to connect rural Ethiopians.

It’s easy for people in developed nations to believe they always have a choice between sustainable, and what they might consider to be more ‘traditional’, solutions to problems. But in some remote regions of the world, where access is limited, ‘going green’ can be the only way to improve the quality of life.

In rural Ethiopia, for instance, people can live so far away from the power grid that the only way to give them essential phone service is to use solar-powered cell sites that are 100% reliant on renewable resources – or battery backup, when the skies turn cloudy.

The sustainable way is the only way

Says Atu Amare Amsalu, CEO of the Ethiopian Telecommunications System, “The key challenge is, there are places where there are no access roads, and there are places where there is no commercial electric power, all of the Nokia Siemens Networks sites […] are totally fuelled by solar power.”

As we inch towards a global energy shortage more and more operators in developed nations will come to a conclusion similar to the one reached by the Ethiopian Telecommunication System – that the sustainable choice is the only choice moving forward.

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Gerald_v2 said [04-07-08 16:32:24]
Greener hills?

I see solar powered base stations here - is it also possible to use wind power?

Andrew said [19-09-08 11:30:05]
Greener hills?

Depending on location wind, solar or a combination could be used. Overall the lower the energy demand from a cell site the better the possibility to effectively use renewable energy sources.

maestro said [13-01-09 18:02:57]
Cultivate more Food NOT to Fabricate more Bricks

You are kindly requested to visit this website on google search engine http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GTKR_enEG296EG298&q=MRHP+TANZANIA, then press the youtube-MRHP, Tanzania brick-making as an example to watch the real tragedy that face our endangered world.

Sustainable brick-firing technology leads to thousands of new homes for the people of Mwanza

Subject : Soil

Description : Dear Sirs, Kindly circulate this project preliminary presentation to the appropriate person in charge, including yourselves, it is interesting I promise. This simple, economic innovative GREEN project will be of great benefit to: *Climate change,green house CO2 emission, which contribute to global warming phenomena*Combat desertification, land degradation, world food starvation crisis. The project will follow the steps of the already existing & used Gasification of biomass agriculture waste to produce clean biomass electrical or thermal energy.These project are mainly sponsored by the World Bank, such in India, Burma, Philippines....{each 5 kgs of gasified (burned) rice husk will generates an equivalent energy to 1 liter diesel fossil fuel}The Innovation project starts when all others end, is the utilization of the already waste burned(gasified) rice husk (char) as the major raw material to fabricate the light weight solid concrete bricks for the building & construction industry. This innovative new walling material will substitute the already widely used baked clay brick which is made on the account of the fertile land by exploiting its rich clay soil to fabricate their bricks which should be prohibited. Thank you

Maher