Wind, Solar & Biofuels to Power Remote Cell Towers

tcd004 writes "How do you set up a cell network when there's no power grid? Namibia, India and Nigeria are building towers using localized power sources to provide critical cell phone access to the most remote parts of their countries. Wind/solar hybrids, and biofuel power plants will power the radio towers, peripheral communications, and even the protective fencing around the installations."

developing nations?!

Heck! They need to put a couple of these suckers in Arizona (not Phoenix),... ;-)

I-17 has horrible cell coverage in places, and could really use something better. The only cell phones that even work at the Grand Canyon are Verizon phones (although perhaps Verizon likes it that way).

Considering that electricity transmission losses..

are staggering, this is an excellent idea. Let's hope the implementation is on par.

I think I prefer the term Ambient Energy

To "localized power sources" But of course, slashdot standards require that you spend more than 20 seconds on a single thought, so I added this sentence.

powered fencing?

Why does the fencing need electricity? Are these cell towers for Jurassic Park or something?

Re:powered fencing?

Why does the fencing need electricity?

Thievery and yes, probably because of elephants (think scratching posts).

With the amount of metal that would be in these things and considering the poverty of the countries mentioned, you can be absolutely sure that if the fencing was not electrified, the equipment would be stolen the same night it was installed and sold for scrap metal.

Let's put it this way, even in the stable country of Iraq, entire towers which hold up electrical wires are toppled and sold for scrap. Think what would happen to this equipment if it were placed next to a roadway in one of the three countries and didn't have any form of protection.

Protective Fencing?

So they're installing electric fences around these sites to prevent theft and looting of equipment/metals? Cute.

Now all someone has to do to compromise that is to booger up the solar panel (Water balloon slingshot with mudpies), or throw a rope into the windmill (or drop it in with a kite) and wait several days.

Related Links

How are "HP Sponsored Solutions" and "compare prices" related to this story in any way? Is HP building these towers? Are there multiple suppliers of these towers, so that we might need to compare prices? WTF is this place turning into?

CELL!!!

Kashawak - NO FO!!!!

Just in time!

My friend, the prince of nigeria, is going to be calling me about the 100 million dollars he's going to give me for helping him out!

Also

Those bits of Utah where you drive a hundred miles just north of the AZ/UT border and there's no power, lights, phone, electricity, anything for seemingly forever. The only way to call for help out there is with a satphone.

Talk about no bars in no places!

They have enough sunlight out there in the deserts it should be relatively easy to implement a solar-only with generator-backup power system to keep the sites up, then use microwave point-to-point links between sites and dual uplinks on either side of the network for redundancy in the event sites in the middle fail.

Providers won't bother doing that though, they have no population out there to cover, and why would they care about public safety? They're too busy wasting resources deploying mobile TV and camera phones and video phones and all their other useless nonsense.

We once all ran off localized power sources

In the age of gas lamps, before natural gas, wood or coal would be gasified and piped to you from the local gas plant. There'd be one in any city of any size. They were absolutely filthy and many times more polluting than anything going on now.

I see the same sort of thing springing up in Nigeria. I'm just pointing out that this is about setting up an infrastructure, and it's doubtful there's anything "green" about it.

Or...

Or, you could run power in alongside the lines that you laid when connecting the cell towers to the wired network. Somewhere down the way is a plug you could use.

Interesting

how often third world countries embrace alternative sources where as we're told they are too expensive in the first world. There's a good reason many use alternative sources in these countries, the lack of an infastructure for delivering power.

More important than it sounds...

This is more important than it sounds--the remote and underdeveloped areas of the world that need cell phone penetration more than the developed world does, because the increase in efficiency they create for the local economy is more important when so many people are living at or below sustenance level. (Cell phone usage raises a community's GDP, at least to a point.)

I think I see a flaw

How do the locals power their new cell phones exactly?

Stupid question

If there is no power infrastructure in the area, how are they going to charge their cell phones?

ANYWHERE by Nigeria...

HI I am a representative for the Prince of Arkansas, and I am wanting to present you with a gourgous opportunity. If you will be kind enough to give me your bank account information I would be very happy to set you up with some solar cell access.

PLEASE NO MORE CONNECTIVITY FOR NIGERIA... PLEASE!!!!

I would use RTG, what you scared of 238pu????

Do a Wikipedia search for RTG which stands for Radioisotope thermoelectric generator.

It takes the heat produced from the natural decay of a radioactive material and converts it into electricity. For about ever 500 watts of wasted heat you get 100 watts of electricity.

1 kg of 238pu (plutonium 238) would produce 100 watts of power for nearly a century. How much electricity do they need?

The reason I would choose 238pu is because it is pretty safe. If some how there was an accident, which would mean at least 1000 things go wrong in a specific order, and a fission reaction started the chain reaction would not be stable and fissile out in milliseconds.

Nick Powers

Protective fencing...

"The solar/wind tower also runs the protective fencing around the site" This really sounds like good old Africa to me - sigh.

Re:what do you call cell towers powered by water?

What are you talking about? All we need to do before we run out of oil is make enough solar, wind, nuclear etc to make more solar, wind, nuclear etc. Obviously the problem is more complex but we are not, repeat not stuck with oil for the rest of eternity. In fact we could have already gone entirely to alternative power if we liked, plus perhaps nuclear to handle our other uses (it's the closest thing to nonpolluting we have that is capable of producing power 24/7) but there are oil and coal in the ground and we are making a lot of money digging them up and burning them. Pity about the fact that releasing so much CO2 may kill us all, but hey, at least a few very rich people will be able to get even more rich!