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A crash course in changing the world.
My response to Simon's Challenge
(This is a Challenge taken from Marc Skaf's blog)
So just to summarize, at least for my own benefit, the challenge is:
For a wireless power system, similar to the one WiTricity is developing:
Technical issues
From what I've seen on the WiTricity site, it seems like the power transmission only works over relatively short distances, like around a home. If the hope was a centralized power plant which then broadcast power to the entire nation, I'm not sure that's feasible. There is also usually a limit as to how much power you can fit into a certain amount of air (think, an entire nation's power demand through the air surrounding the antenna) before it breaks down and the system starts suffering massive losses. So from that perspective there may also be issues.
Maintenance issues
Another issue that comes up frequently in bring new technology to any market is where to fix or replace an item if it breaks. You'd have to find out how durable this technology is, how roughly it may be handled, and what infrastructure could be set up to fix or replace equipment if it breaks.
Financial issues
Cost ultimately is king, especially in impoverished areas. Some of the questions that would have to be asked are: Can people afford the receivers? Can they afford them through a mechanism through micro-loans? Does the added earnings potential of electricity offset or even overcome the cost of the system? Does the nation/state/village have the resources to build the generator/transmitter? Can the people/organizations who own these systems afford the upkeep? I'm sure there are more, but this is usually a good starting point.
Another financial issue is billing. If this is being run as a social enterprise, there has to be a source of income. Who then is billed, and how, in this system, would you keep track of how much people are consuming, assuming their receivers aren't metered? This is also a highly practical problem, as you have to know how much people are demanding on the system to know how much electricity to produce.
Political issues
This is an odd one, as electricity seems like a pretty apolitical issue. However, on top of whatever rules and regulations exist in a country for electrical production and distribution, you may also have to contend with corrupt officials demanding a slice of the project for themselves. This would be an especially big problem if large central power plants were constructed, as larger scale projects tend to draw more attention. In addition to corruption, you'd also have to look out for state-run monopolies who have no interest in letting competitors into the market, even if they provide next to no service to the country at the moment.
Local issues
Here the problem is what issues might come up on a local level, such how an individual village or town might choose to share the power distribution or make the most of it. Would it be better to sell the system to individuals, or to those who want to use it for a business like charging cell phone or running lights at night for marketplace sellers booths. I could go on, but how a specific area sees a use for this system is probably the biggest, most varied challenge, so I would spend a lot of effort making sure you understand the market.
I'll stop here for now for the issues. There are even more than this, but I hope it gives you an idea as to what to look out for and what to consider.
Implementation
In my own point of view, I think the best initial plan would be to set up a village-level system. That is, have some power system in the village, preferably renewable, that would then run through the power transmitter. This way you can better expand incrementally without having to find the capital to build major infrastructure. It also gives you the opportunity to better customize the system for a specific market, as well as how to figure out who is paying for the system and how the payback will work. Also, it would recognize that the power transmission range is most likely limited and play into the technology's strengths. I would, however, weigh the cost/benefit of a wireless system against a wired or even household power system.
Hope this is all useful... let me know if I can be of any more help!
So just to summarize, at least for my own benefit, the challenge is:
For a wireless power system, similar to the one WiTricity is developing:
- What are the problems in applying this to African development?
- How might you implement this technology in poor communities
Technical issues
From what I've seen on the WiTricity site, it seems like the power transmission only works over relatively short distances, like around a home. If the hope was a centralized power plant which then broadcast power to the entire nation, I'm not sure that's feasible. There is also usually a limit as to how much power you can fit into a certain amount of air (think, an entire nation's power demand through the air surrounding the antenna) before it breaks down and the system starts suffering massive losses. So from that perspective there may also be issues.
Maintenance issues
Another issue that comes up frequently in bring new technology to any market is where to fix or replace an item if it breaks. You'd have to find out how durable this technology is, how roughly it may be handled, and what infrastructure could be set up to fix or replace equipment if it breaks.
Financial issues
Cost ultimately is king, especially in impoverished areas. Some of the questions that would have to be asked are: Can people afford the receivers? Can they afford them through a mechanism through micro-loans? Does the added earnings potential of electricity offset or even overcome the cost of the system? Does the nation/state/village have the resources to build the generator/transmitter? Can the people/organizations who own these systems afford the upkeep? I'm sure there are more, but this is usually a good starting point.
Another financial issue is billing. If this is being run as a social enterprise, there has to be a source of income. Who then is billed, and how, in this system, would you keep track of how much people are consuming, assuming their receivers aren't metered? This is also a highly practical problem, as you have to know how much people are demanding on the system to know how much electricity to produce.
Political issues
This is an odd one, as electricity seems like a pretty apolitical issue. However, on top of whatever rules and regulations exist in a country for electrical production and distribution, you may also have to contend with corrupt officials demanding a slice of the project for themselves. This would be an especially big problem if large central power plants were constructed, as larger scale projects tend to draw more attention. In addition to corruption, you'd also have to look out for state-run monopolies who have no interest in letting competitors into the market, even if they provide next to no service to the country at the moment.
Local issues
Here the problem is what issues might come up on a local level, such how an individual village or town might choose to share the power distribution or make the most of it. Would it be better to sell the system to individuals, or to those who want to use it for a business like charging cell phone or running lights at night for marketplace sellers booths. I could go on, but how a specific area sees a use for this system is probably the biggest, most varied challenge, so I would spend a lot of effort making sure you understand the market.
I'll stop here for now for the issues. There are even more than this, but I hope it gives you an idea as to what to look out for and what to consider.
Implementation
In my own point of view, I think the best initial plan would be to set up a village-level system. That is, have some power system in the village, preferably renewable, that would then run through the power transmitter. This way you can better expand incrementally without having to find the capital to build major infrastructure. It also gives you the opportunity to better customize the system for a specific market, as well as how to figure out who is paying for the system and how the payback will work. Also, it would recognize that the power transmission range is most likely limited and play into the technology's strengths. I would, however, weigh the cost/benefit of a wireless system against a wired or even household power system.
Hope this is all useful... let me know if I can be of any more help!
Views: 27
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Comment by Marc Skaf on March 5, 2010 at 7:36pm
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This is interesting, I will take everything into consideration when I write up something about this. As you know, we offer free services already, such as "free wi-fi" at certain ports and hot spots. What if people could bring their devices to "hot spots" where electricity can be be dispersed. It could be controlled that way and rationed out, still free, but not "limitless" ?
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Comment by Nick Heyming on March 5, 2010 at 7:42pm
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Nikolai Tesla had a dream about bouncing electricity off the ionosphere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower
Its fascinating stuff. Seems impractical, but worth developing if it works. I'm a bit more partial to using reparable and modular mechanical solutions to daily issues than electrical machines requiring a centralized grid.
Kind of like a hand-crank blender, or bicycle powered washing machines. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/itw-bicilavadora-0219.html
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Comment by David Perner on March 5, 2010 at 8:00pm
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@Marc- I see your point, but the only exception I would bring up is that things like wifi here are cheap add-ons to businesses to help increase their customer bases. Sometimes they do charge, but the idea is to increase traffic to another, existing business, so maybe it could be implemented like that, but I'm not sure if it could be done that way as a stand alone business. I think actually barber shops in Africa will often allow customers to charge their cell phones (for a fee I think) since they are often one of the few with electricity, so maybe it could be an extension of that model?
@Nick- Thanks for the vote! I'm also not a fan of big, centralized grids, at least for African development, but what about smaller, decentralized systems?
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Comment by Simon Brookes on March 8, 2010 at 9:08am
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Fascinating discussion agents. Your analysis of the issues is extremely thorough and raising many questions Agent Perner but I think your approach is an excellent starting point. We really do need to think of solutions to these problems from a business perspective as you have begun doing. As you point out, the solutions really need to be sustainable i.e. to be financially self-sustaining. This is the difficult challenge in communities that have little or no financial resource. I'm giving you +100 Entrepreneurship Power Points for your work so far. I encourage you to try and find others in the network who might be keen to work on this with you. Thanks also to Agents Scaf and Heyming for your contribution. More Power Points will be coming your way if you can collaborate on this project.
Great work
Simon
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Well David, I think the important thing is to do an a****sment of what their energy needs are and establish how many of those could be addressed through strictly kinetic or mechanical means vs. how many necessitate electricity.
I'd say the majority of their current energy is probably kinetic, and so introducing electrical appliances and having to undergo the loss of efficiency every time energy phase changes will be inherently inefficient. As some agents have pointed out, many young Africans are incredibly crafty with fashioning wire cars and the like, so connecting them to projects using repurposed abundant materials like metal, plastic, and the like to accomplish daily tasks would be ideal.
How to make that connection though? So far there aren't any hand-crank computers that I know of, though that was a proposed feature on the one laptop per child. And computers and other electronics have the potential to improve their quality of life and economic potential in numerous ways.
So at that point you need electricity. Unfortunately, the wireless electricity technologies discussed in the article seem much more suited for toothbrushes that come into contact with a charger base, or a battery charger that you put your cell phone on top of, than community wide distribution like a wireless router. You'll notice on Witricity's website they never show the charged items in another room, and they never quote a distance. The energy loss at distance is too great.
Its tempting to envision it taking the form of a wireless router, and in the early days of radio they had high frequency transmission towers that radiated significant energy, but there is quite a bit of danger in implementing that type of technology. That was actually how they discovered microwaves, when a chocolate bar melted in a scientists pocket.
Plus high frequency towers require enormous amounts of energy to start with. More later...
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That's a lot of information, let's see where to start...
I definitely agree that if you can avoid converting between energy types you should do so. The advantage of electricity however is that it's very versatile in its uses, so in building an electricity supply you're not dictating how it has to be used. And definitely, making the most of local talent and resources is the way you have to go to make sure the infrastructure is still around in 10, 20, 50 years.
I think we're also hitting a limit as to the suggestions we can make since we don't have a specific area in mind. There are tons of nitty-gritty specifics that can make one system more attractive than another that we would have no idea about until talking with the people where such a system would be built. That's why it would be good to find people in the EVOKE network who are from these countries who can tell us what such systems, if needed, would be needed for.
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Interesting stuff Agent Heyming. I also agree with Agent Perner's proposal to find people within the network who have on the ground experience of problems and requirements. Maybe you can create a discussion post about it and try to garner further support for this exciting mission. Best of luck.
Simon
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