Does any one know more about this village/town called Rema in Ethiopia that is now running houses and schools on solar power? see article and interview below:

interview :


http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl.....n.ethiopia

Power to the people

Bill Clinton says he's no longer involved in politics. But even in the highlands of Ethiopia, there's no getting away from Hillary's unsuccessful bid for the White House or the US's failure to lead the world on climate change. He talks to Sarah BoseleySarah Boseley The Guardian, Tuesday August 12 2008 Article history
Bill Clinton greets villagers during his visit to the Ethiopian highlands. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty images

He dropped out of the sky and left, an hour or so later, the same way, helicopter rotor blades driving a gritty dust storm from the dirt playing field into the faces of hundreds of Ethiopian hill villagers. They waved and clapped and shook the hand of a white-haired man who used to hold the most powerful office on the planet and who has just failed to help his wife secure it in her turn. Yet the people of Rema had no idea who William Jefferson Clinton was or what he was doing in their village.

One man knew the name, though his wife looked blank. "Clinton," said Awke Tiruneh, whose hut the president had been due to visit but didn't, because of the tight schedule powerful men run to. "He is from Germany." It is the only foreign country Tiruneh has heard of, because a German NGO is based on Rema's doorstep, but he has not a clue where either Germany or America are. The outside world is the village on top of the next hill, a long, rocky walk down one mountain and up another.


Link to this audio
Former US president Bill Clinton discusses climate change, Kyoto, Aids and the US election Yet Clinton came to put Rema on the map, hailing it as a model for the developing world and a place that could teach the US a thing or two. Rema, in the northern highlands, is now the first solar-powered village in Ethiopia - a cluster of 1,100 homes that shine in the dark evenings like white beads on a string. Every home has electric light from an energy-efficient LED bulb hanging from the straw ceiling. Children can do schoolwork after 6pm while women weave the gabi - a white cotton head-to-toe wrap that is worn in church and in the evenings to keep out the cold (now Clinton has one too). Night classes have started in the school for adults who want to learn to read, there is a solar-powered fridge at the health centre that cannot run out of fuel, and women no longer have to walk a mile to the well, thanks to a solar-powered pump. High-quality equipment has been installed that will last for 25 or 30 years. Villagers pay around 80p a month to cover the cost of maintenance and new batteries.

Rema has become a model for the future energy needs of developing countries, Clinton believes. Solar power could be a revolution for Africa. "It's the energy equivalent of the cellphone movement," he says.

Bill is not the only Clinton whose imagination has been caught by this project. His 28-year-old daughter Chelsea is there too, as are Clinton's brother Roger and 14-year-old nephew Tyler. Chelsea took indefinite unpaid leave from her management consultancy job to help her mother's unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination. "She wasn't back at a new task yet so she wanted to come with me, and I love it," her father tells me later in the presidential suite at the Addis Ababa Sheraton, whose marbled elegance and air conditioning would make a Rema villager's eyes pop. "We like to travel together."

The shade of Hillary's momentous campaign travels with them. Clinton speaks of it with a sort of warm afterglow, in spite of the panning he personally received. "I'm immensely proud of Hillary," he says. "Her performance in March, April and May, to June 3, was literally miraculous. If you'd told me, given the facts that existed on March 1, that she'd come back, win more popular votes, do as well as she did, I would never have believed it ... I thought she learned, she grew and I think by the end she was running like a house on fire.

"I'm very grateful actually, personally, that I had a chance to get out and see so much of America, because her only option after she lost all those caucuses in February and knew she was going to be outspent was to raise this incredible grassroots campaign. And Chelsea made 450 appearances for her mother. In the last three months alone I went to 350 different communities. I got to see parts of America I never saw when I was running or serving, and it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life."

Now, however, he is on a whistle-stop tour of his charitable foundation's projects in Africa: today Ethiopia, tomorrow Rwanda, the next day in and out of Liberia and on to Senegal. Much of it is to do with health - Clinton's influence, his ability to flatter, charm and persuade, has had great success in negotiating down drug prices for Aids and malaria for the developing world. He is pushing to increase dramatically the numbers of women with HIV given drugs in pregnancy to stop their babies becoming infected. But here in the northern highlands of Ethiopia, we are looking at ways to mitigate the effects of climate change.

"My whole theory about climate change is that the biggest problem in aggregate is the fact that India and China are about to pass the US in emissions and no country is going to agree to remain poor in order to avert climate change. We have to be able to show that there are economically viable options.

"I think it is really important that the vast mass of countries that are developing find ways to skip the carbon stage of economic development - ways that accelerate rather than undermine their wellbeing."

Shouldn't the US take steps to reduce its own emissions before it starts visiting its ideas on Africa? "I think that the United States does need to pass climate change legislation, we need to put a price on carbon, we need to set up a capping trade system and one that can't be cheated on: I agree with all that. But when people say that most loudly, they are usually looking for an excuse to do nothing, and if we burn up the planet then no one will give you laurels for having come up with the best available excuse to do nothing. Your grandchildren won't be proud of you. And we may have an irreversible situation," he says.

"Secondly, because all these developing countries have to be worried about the problems at hand, feeding the people that are there, educating them, providing basic healthcare, having some near-term economic strategy, I think that people like me who care about this stuff have to find economically attractive options for them."

Environmentally friendly energy policies can go hand in hand with economic growth, he says. It's happened in the UK and Denmark, he says, two of only six countries - excluding "some former communist countries that, prior to 1990, were running very, very dirty carbon-based inefficient industrial economies" - that have been on course to meet their Kyoto target.

"The biggest problem with Kyoto was the United States bugged out on it, so it gave everybody an excuse to take a bath," he says.

"I'm not a government and I don't have access to vast amounts of money, and I'm frustrated that even when the Democrats are in, we still haven't given a tax credit, for example, for wind energy that goes more than three years. Nonetheless, somebody needs to go out there and help people figure out how to do this stuff. That's what I do.

"I just try to figure it out and I try to get other smart people around who figure out how to do this, because I was so struck by all these countries that won't meet their Kyoto targets. Most of them were not led by people who were dishonest when they signed Kyoto. They aren't lazy, they aren't stupid and they aren't corrupt. They're well-meaning, hard-working people who are, like all political leaders, facing all kinds of competing pressures in an economy that is not organised for tomorrow's energy - it's organised for yesterday's.

"One reason I went to that little village today is that that little village is now organised for tomorrow. I'll go home now and I'll be able to tell people that I went to the highlands of Ethiopia and saw a classroom with two LED lights - nobody will believe that - and that it works economically for them."

The man who brought light to Rema was neither a former president nor a technology geek. Harald Schützeichel studied music and theology, he tells me. He started the Solar Energy Foundation because he wanted to help development. If there are environmental benefits, so much the better. He was completely astonished when he got an email saying Clinton wanted to visit. He is still not quite sure why, but he knows that the boss of Good Energies, the company that has donated 80% of his funding, is a friend of the former president.

What Schützeichel does not realise is that Marcel Brenninkmeijer, founder and CEO of Good Energies, who also jumps out of the Clinton helicopter, is shelling out cash - it took £240,000 to equip Rema - because he is part of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). It is a kind of networking with good deeds attached. Clinton brings together wealthy businessmen and government leaders for an annual jamboree and they promise action on global problems, not just talk. If they fail to carry out their promises, they don't get invited again.

Schützeichel, though, is innocent of the politics of global philanthropy. Clinton invites him to give a presentation to the next meeting in September. Afterwards, Schützeichel confesses he has no idea what the CGI is. He wants help to expand his solar-powered villages across Ethiopia by setting up a microfinance bank that will allow villagers to borrow money for solar power installation and pay it off at a rate they can afford. "I need €10m [£7.8m]," he says, barely appreciating that he has just been handed his best-ever opportunity of getting it.

Rema had its installation for free, to show what could be done. Down the hill from the village, Schützeichel has built an International Solar Energy School, which has trained 24 technicians from all over Ethiopia. The plan is for them to return to their regions and set up their own businesses, equipping more villages, which will borrow the necessary funds from Schützeichel's microfinance bank.

We're thousands of miles away from the US, but not from its politics. Some of the foundation staff worked for Hillary's nomination and they talk of it as something momentous, with a sort of awe-struck sadness that they were part of it and she lost. "I just want very much the country to change course," says Clinton. "I want us to be on a different economic course, a different social policy course, a different course in the world. And we're going to do what we can to be helpful."

What about criticisms of his role in Hillary's campaign? "It's all part of the deal," he says, laughing. "Look, what we were doing was working, so you had to assume there was going to be some blow-back. It's a contact sport, politics ... I would never have gotten back into politics if it hadn't been for Hillary, but I felt so strongly that she should be elected and she needed all of us - she needed Chelsea and she needed me. Our bodies made up for the financial disparity a little bit. And so we threw ourselves into the fray and did our best and you just get up and go on.

"And I'm immensely proud of her, but I think she's the political leader of our family now - I'm not in politics. And I'm going to do exactly what she says we should do and agree with her decision. I think she's been big and positive and that's what we should all be."

And so he and Chelsea are in Africa to change the world in other ways. Rema's name will be spoken of in high circles, as a byword for environmentally friendly development. More visitors may descend from the skies. A solar-powered cinema is mooted, where films on development will be shown, so that Rema's people will understand what they can aspire to.

Awke Tiruneh and his wife Emaye Beyene are not the only couple who are faintly bemused. They are pleased with their two lightbulbs, one in the main room and a second in the kitchen annexe of their pristine mud hut, and with the radio that everybody in Rema tunes to get music, not news. But they say they don't want anything else.

"When they have more money, they don't know what to do with it in Rema," says Samson Tsegaye, country director of the Solar Power Foundation. "They are happy. They don't need a Mercedes or a television. When they have money, the men are always going to the bar.

The solar cinema is to show them what money can do - how opportunity can come to their lives. They have three meals a day but they don't know what is going on in the world."

Are Bill and Hillary Clinton, who have been at the centre of what is going on in the world, happier than the villagers of Rema? It's an interesting question.

here is another interesting joint project between university of DC and HOPE2020 in Ethiopia in ambo just forwarded to me by Professor Lakeou Samuel from EE department at UDC...

pumping water out of the ground using wind and solar power

- interesting mention about pump working without an inverter, using direct current from wind turbine and solar panel
- well upto 100 meteres of depth
- turn key system that can be moved around
- whole thing cost about 60000, can it be made even cheaper?
- can last 25-30 years supporting 2000 households/people's water needs


videos:

Link



Link


http://cere.udc.edu/Ambo%20Far.....%20086.pdf

http://cere.udc.edu/ambo.pdf

here is a link. It has some good info about Rema

http://www.sonne-stiften.de/index.php?pageID=392

thanks shger for the link.

they have set up a rural solar energy school for engineers it seems. thats interesting too

interesting ideas on this particular page

http://www.sonne-stiften.de/index.php?pageID=427

First Graduates:












Markos should have something to say about this..
more thoughts, ideas of improvement,.. ?

i know this may be a little far fetched for Ethiopia's context but it is worth learning about and watching the development of..

researchers at MIT have found a way to store solar energy by immitating plants under normal room temperature using fairly simple implementations

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/.....-0731.html

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution
Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system
Anne Trafton, News Office
July 31, 2008


In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Daniel Nocera describes new process for storing solar energy
View video post on MIT TechTV

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

'Giant leap' for clean energy
Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.

James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

'Just the beginning'
Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates.

More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.

"This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this."

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

The project is part of the MIT Energy Initiative, a program designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today's energy systems. MITEI Director Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, noted that "this discovery in the Nocera lab demonstrates that moving up the transformation of our energy supply system to one based on renewables will depend heavily on frontier basic science."

The success of the Nocera lab shows the impact of a mixture of funding sources - governments, philanthropy, and industry. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment of solar energy within 10 years.
IMAGES

Photo / Donna Coveney
Daniel G. Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT, has developed a simple method to split water molecules and produce oxygen gas, a discovery that paves the way for large-scale use of solar power. Enlarge image


Photo / Tom White, MIT
MIT researchers have developed a new catalyst, consisting of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode. When the catalyst is placed in water and electricity runs through the electrode, oxygen gas is produced. When another catalyst is used to produce hydrogen gas, the oxygen and hydrogen can be combined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power a house or an electric car, day or night. Enlarge image


Graphic / Patrick Gillooly, MIT
With Daniel Nocera's and Matthew Kanan's new catalyst, homeowners could use their solar panels during the day to power their home, while also using the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for storage. At night, the stored hydrogen and oxygen could be recombined using a fuel cell to generate power while the solar panels are inactive. Enlarge image


CONTACT
Teresa Herbert
MIT News Office
Phone: 617-258-5403
E-mail: therbert@mit.edu


RELATED
MIT Energy Initiative

Nocera Lab at MIT

Daniel G. Nocera - MIT Department of Chemistry

Harnessing solar energy like plants do - MIT News Office, 6/20/2008

MIT, Chesonis Foundation announce solar revolution - MIT News Office, 4/22/2008

Whales to Wood, Wood to Coal/Oil -- What’s Next? - Daniel Nocera lecture, MIT World video

A recipe for solar energy: learning from nature - MIT Energy Initiative

Tiny bubbles - Video on Nocera's solar energy research, from Chemical Explorers on blip.tv

More: Chemistry and chemical engineering

More: Energy

More: Solar energy


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some competitions related to the environment and energy generation..

Link to X Prize site is: http://www.xprize.org/x-prizes/propose-an-x-prize


http://www.economist.com/daily.....p;fsrc=nwl

Win-win
Sep 8th 2008
From Economist.com

Save the world and become a millionaire


NECESSITY, the saying goes, is the mother of invention. But in a world where necessities are taken care of, competition may be the next best thing. Prizes lead people to compete ferociously and cunningly. They tap a primitive urge to win, and to be seen winning, even when the prize itself is trivial compared with the effort required to attain it. So when the prize is a substantial amount of money, great things can happen.

In 1919, Raymond Orteig, a Frenchman who made his fortune as an American hotelier, offered the $25,000 Orteig prize for the first non-stop transatlantic flight between the capitals of his two countries. Eight years later, Charles Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris and claimed it.

Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X Prize FoundationTaking its cue from the Orteig prize, the X Prize Foundation offers large cash prizes for breakthroughs in spaceflight and genomics, and plans to offer more in the fields of education, biology and entrepreneurship. Earlier this year it announced the Progressive Automotive X Prize, which will offer $10m to anyone who can design a marketable car (meaning safe, affordable, road-friendly) that gets 100 miles per gallon. More than 60 teams have entered so far.

This sort of environmental prize is just the beginning. The foundation is developing a whole series of prizes designed to catalyse clean, renewable and cost-effective energy. Combined the value of these prizes could reach as much as $100m. There is already talk of a $10m prize for an alternative jet-fuel.

But the nature of many of these new environmental prizes remains to be decided. On September 10th, a group of “thought leaders” will descend on MIT to help the foundation decide what areas seem most important and promising.

But the foundation isn’t just looking for input from the pointy-heads. It also wants public input as well. At present, anyone with a bright idea for an energy or environmental prize can submit it with an online form. But just to make sure that everyone with a great idea gets involved, the foundation will also announce on the September 10th a prize for proposing prizes. So, even if you can't save the world, you might be able to design a prize that can—and win something in the process.

The X Prize Foundation is not alone in seeking to reward radical new solutions for the environment with large sums of cash. In February 2007, Richard Branson, a British aviation tycoon, announced the Virgin Earth Challenge, which awards a staggering $25m to anyone who comes up with a commercially viable way to remove man-made greenhouse gases from the atmosphere in way that will help stabilise the Earth’s climate.

Energy is a popular theme among these new environmental prizes. Earlier this year, Scotland announced the Saltire prize, which awards £10m ($17.8m) for breakthroughs in marine renewable energy. Such a prize probably owes as much to Scotland’s concerns about North Sea oil running out as it does to the environment, but it is a substantial green prize nonetheless. And only two months ago, the American Department of Energy announced the Freedom Prize, which will channel more than $4m to encourage efforts to reduce American dependence on foreign oil and enhance national security.

A well designed prize that captures the imagination can inspire the kinds of efforts that lead to radical and sudden breakthroughs, largely because those pursuing the prize will collectively devote far more time, attention and money than is actually on offer. The glamour and prestige of winning also inspires dedication. And prizes that are open to all can inspire solutions that are hard to find in industry.

NASA, America’s space agency, is running a series of innovation contests, one of which asked competitors to design a new space glove. One of the winners, an engineer from a small town in Maine, took home $200,000 for a new design based on a kitchen glove. The keys to providing clean renewable energy and stabilising the earth’s climate won’t always be found in a kitchen drawer. But everyone is invited to take a look, just in case.

it is great to hear about sustainable development in Ethio. i am studying urban planning with the hopes that one day i will be in Ethio working on sustainable development.

Power Play ground ideas from VC and PE in Africa forum

solving power and water shortages for people who do not live near roads, water or power..

http://vcafrica.ning.com/group.....dependence

thanx Yilikal! This great... esti will read it in detail and holla back at u


_________________
"Reality is which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick