Solar IS Civil Defense, Illustrated

Solar IS Civil Defense
Like this solar LED light and AA battery charger


or this solar/dynamo am/fm/sw radio, similar to the ones US and NATO forces have distributed in Afghanistan.

Solar IS Civil Defense
and, after all,
we are at war.


Solar IS Civil Defense
a flashlight, radio or cell phone, an extra set of batteries
solar powered
with hand or foot operated dynamo back-up,
emergency lighting and communication
day or night
from sunlight or
muscle power.

One solar component
is an LED flashlight
which also charges AA batteries.
This design allows for
battery switching,
charging a second set of batteries
to use in other devices.

The Bogolight is a charger and light
with an international development
addition:
each light bought
buys another solar LED light and battery charger
for someone who has no access to electricity
in this world.

Solar IS Civil Defense in another way.


US and NATO forces have distributed
solar/dynamo am/fm/sw radios
in Afghanistan.

Those solar/dynamos could easily charge
AA batteries
and establish a low power DC grid
through battery switching.
This level of survival electricity
would raise the standard of living
for most Afghanis,
helping to rebuild their lives
as well as their country and economy.

This circuit diagram is one way
to add this capability to the present
solar/dynamo radios now in Afghanistan.



The image I have is of a
solar swadeshi, hand-made electricity.
Instead of turning the handle
of the charkha spinning wheel
making thread
for khadi cloth
an hour a day as Gandhi did,
turning the crank of a dynamo a half hour a day,
the direct production of survival power
for yourself, your family, and your community,
swadeshi, local production.

How did Gandhi's Pashtun colleague,
Badshah Khan practice it?
And could his example
help bring peace back
today?

Cell Phone Solar: The Video

I wrote about Cell Phone Solar before at solarray and in one of my diaries at dailykos.


What I wrote a few months ago and what I learned in Jamaica is still true:

Cell phones change everything
Cell phone solar with AA/D battery charging is a useful minimum scale
The price point should be $10 American or less

Cell Phone Solar: What I Learned in Jamaica

Driving up to Junction on twenty miles of bad road, we stopped for directions at a gas station and picked up an older woman waiting for a ride who guided us the rest of the way. A mile or two later, we turned a corner and saw a line of wind turbines on the slopes of Don Figeroa Mountain, the Wigton wind project (http://www.mct.gov.jm/energy_5.htm). I turned in my seat and asked the woman on her way to Junction whether the wind machines had made any difference.

She said, "No, mon, we still have to pay for the electric and the gas."

A little farther down the road we passed a sign for DigiCel, the local cell phone company. I turned to her again and said, "But the cell phone changed everything, didn't it?"

She smiled widely and nodded deeply.


On the sun porch and veranda, we videotaped the solar electric light system we'd brought. We showed the three different sizes of interconnecting solar panels and LED lamps with batteries in their cases and displayed the different sets of connectors. We had one connector to go from the battery to a USB device, another was a 12 volt socket like a car lighter. We had a set of attachments to charge cell phones from the solar batteries and another that let us connect directly to the solar panels as well.

In fact, we also had a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio which we were using to charge the rechargeable AAs the digital cameras required and a hand cranked dynamo specifically designed for charging cell phones. From what we saw, people in Jamaica were using mostly AAs and D cell batteries but we didn't have a D cell battery bay, only the one for AAs, a set of alligator clips,, and the multimeter.

We had cell phone solar.

Cell phone solar and AA/D cell charging: that's emergency, camping, and most of the world and it's a scale that is understandable, accessible, and probably affordable.


One night, I was talking to some Jamaican kids at Doreen's bar, the local watering hole a few steps away from the guest house. We showed them the lights and explained how the batteries in the lamps could also charge cell phones. They liked that idea a lot. I told them that the large solar lights cost $75 American and the smallest, the one on my backpack, was $30 American. They didn't like that. I said I thought solar lights and cell phone chargers could probably be available for $5 to $10 American and their eyes lit up.


Here's what I learned in Jamaica:
Cell phones change everything.
Cell phone solar with AA/D battery charging is a useful minimum scale.
The price point should be around $10 American or less.