In operation since 1995, SELCO has installed solar lights for 105,000 clients, has 25 centers in the state of Karnatika, and makes a profit. As the poor spend 10-12% of their income on energy services, Hande says solar is expensive for the rich but affordable for the poor. SELCO arranges the financing. The solar is paid at 12-14% interest and the cost for solar is less, on a daily basis, than the fuel it replaces, usually kerosene. Need is customized while want is standardized.

However, it's not the technology, it's what it provides. Higher productivity does not lead to higher income unless the market expands. SELCO helps make the connections that can lead to that market expansion.

Video at http://www.youtube.com/v/wABbad8pLSg

Schultz spoke of 40 years on an energy roller coaster but now we have a chance to do what we should have done long ago.  He identified four oil (energy) shocks:  OPEC embargo, Iranian revolution, Gulf War I, and today.

Eisenhower imposed a 20% oil import quota based upon national security.
Nixon had wage and price controls.
Carter started an $88 billion synfuels program little of which was spent.
Reagan ended oil/gas price controls and prices first went up but later came down.

We might change the energy situation today because a wide variety of constituencies can now make the case based on economics, climate change, and national security.  "Lenin is laughing in his tomb" as he said

The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.

Those in NYC can also celebrate throughout National Design Week October 19-25 with free admission to the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum.

I like the
Bamboo basket solar cooker
Intelligent Mobility Wheelchair and
Project H Design's rolling water storage

Below are directions to the preview.

What he had to say was hopeful and exciting.  It wasn't sexy.  It wasn't new technology.  It was nuts and bolts and common sense. He talked about efficiency, specifically efficiency in electrical generation.  He believes, based upon thirty years of successful business practice, that the USA can significantly reduce costs and carbon emissions by applying already available technology to existing power plants today.  

This is not a fantasy by a theorist but a business proposal from someone with a long track record.  The only reasons we haven't done it already are regulatory barriers, a failure of imagination, and a cultural prejudice towards the new and sexy over the old and boring.

Thomas Casten was talking about Second Law energy economics.  I loved it because he used the word "exergy" but that was only because he was at MIT.

Here's the draft for one such spot I'd like to see:

Even John McCain admits that keeping your tires properly inflated will save you gas and save you money.  Immediately.  
You can save more gas and more money through proper maintenance of your vehicle:  
change your oil regularly,
replace your air and oil filters,
get regular tune-ups,
and keep your wheels aligned.  
We know these measures work.  
Today.  
Sometimes the change we can believe in is the change that is simply common sense.

This year over 50 students worked on nine different projects for four weeks.  They didn't produce papers.  They produced prototypes and presented them to an SRO capacity audience in the Bartos Theater at the Media Lab.

Their motto is "Help me and let me help you."  The idea of co-creation, collaboration between the designers and the users, is at the core of their method.  It shows.

2,000 Watts per person per year (or 17,520 kWh) is what we produce now.  It is a baseline for sustainability, at least, this is what the scientists of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology believe.  This 2,000 Watts includes all activities - working, eating, traveling, and investment in common infrastructure.  Currently, Switzerland is a 5,000 Watt society and most other Western European countries are 6,000 Watt societies.  The USA and Canada consume 12,000 Watts per person per year.

"At first glance, the objective of a 2,000-watt society appears unrealistic, but the necessary technology already exists,"  says Moritz Leuenberger, head of the Swiss Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy, and Communications.

This solar collector is an air heater that takes air from the kitchen,

moves it past the black absorber plate with a fan,

and then exhausts the solar heated air back into the living room.  

Sometimes on sunny winter days, the people who live there have to flip the damper and dump the collector's air outside to prevent overheating.  

It has worked unfailingly all these years without any major maintenance, even for the fan and the thermostat that turns it on and off.

crossposted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/5/153147/7413
and
http://www.globalswadeshi.net

Through the International Collaborative for Science, Education, and the Environment, Inc. (The  ICSEE) and its Village Projects, Professor Lange is helping the village install more efficient stoves then certifying and selling the resulting carbon credits to buy small solar electric systems, a process already proven in Eritrea and Ghana.

These solar electric systems cost about $100.

Diary rescue by Migeru

Badshah Khan started building schools for his people, girls as well as boys, in 1910 and by 1930 there were enough graduates to make up the Khudai Khitmatgars.  The organization lasted until 1947 when it was outlawed and disbanded by the Pakistani government.  

Nonviolent Soldier of Islam:  Badshah Khan, a Man to Match His Mountains by Eknath Easwaran
Tomales, CA:  Nilgiri Press, 1984/1999
ISBN 1-888314-01-x