MAKING IT BETTER OR.....LIKE BEER, POWER CAN BE LOCAL

 11/1/2017 : THIS IS MY FIRST OF A FEW POSTS FROM BIHARAMULO 2017. MORE TO COME I HOPE.

           BRINGING CLEAN POWER TO WHERE IT IS NEEDED

This is my 9^th trip here and sometimes I think I’ve seen “most” everything (even though I haven’t) And even though it is sometimes overwhelming  I still think I can change things. Change things for the better and in an African way. What exactly the “African way “is….well more on that later.

   I am travelling with my girlfriend Jennifer Cohen, it’s her first trip here and she’s diving right in. Shocked by the poverty but mindful of the excess we are coming from in America she is doing better then I did on my first trip here. I’m also travelling with 2 solar power electrical engineers. The plan for the first week is to appraise the current 1960 electrical wiring of the hospital and get a feasible, realistic estimate to put a solar power system up to run the hospital.  The Sandy Christman Foundation (SCF) will finance all this.

   Medicine in the developing world and especially western Tanzania is at the same level as the electrical wiring system in the hospital…..circa 1960. Here we have wards with 8 people to a room lite by one light bulb in the ceiling and maybe one workable electrical outlet for “appliances”…medical appliances.  We have daily power outages that are so routine that it doesn’t stop a conversation or even a dance. When the power goes out you just seamlessly pull out your phone, turn it on and continue. No worse then a hiccup. However the delivery of medicine today is intolerant to interruption, even a hiccup. Loss of power in the middle of an operation? That could mean disaster. Yes, we need more nurses and doctors. Yes, we need stronger and less expensive medications. Yes, we need better prevention and vaccination. But there will always be sick people who need at least early 21^st century health care. And that kind of health care runs on an infrastructure that supplies electricity.  That means not only electrical production but also distribution to the point of care or use.

clear skies, no power lines

Since we are 2 degrees south of the equator at 4,000 ft. elevation with 300+ sunny days a year…..solar power is a logical choice. Cheap to produce and locally made so there is no need for huge towers with transmission lines, maybe not even a telephone pole. Best of all solar is clean, no diesel powered generators, no coal powered powered plants. Sounds great? sounds logical?  Yes, of course….. Congratulations! We have now finished the easy part.

    The hard part is getting it done.  Despite this being a developing country that fills all the requirements of poverty, poor education and health care this place is made for solar power. Here, there may be a future with cell phone towers. But with locally produced and locally used cheap renewable power that is clean and reliable there MIGHT  no telephone poles, no giant power lines, less air pollution, less oil spills, gas leaks and mining. All unwanted things from the developed world......which by the way is planet Earth.

    Getting it done….this week the engineers, who travelled 14 hrs. on a bus from Arusha to get to Mwanza before they travelled 7 hrs. with us to get to Biharamulo, turn out to be good people. They will give us an estimate of the needs of the hospital and how many solar panels are needed. They will review the existing ancient wiring of the hospital, currently held together with paper clips and electrical tape. Then they will give us an estimate of costs. The engineers are Gijs  (pronounced Ghajsh), a Dutch expat who lives in Arusha and once bicycled from Norway to South Africa. With him is Abdullah Ahmed, a Tanzanian electrical engineer who speaks English but prefers Swahili.  At the end of the first day we met with the Bishop of Kagera and Gresmus  (the CMO of the hospital). This will be a real business deal and I for one am not experienced at business transactions and I have never read “The Art of the Deal”, and never will.  But I am feeling cautiously optimistic about this. Realizing that any deal in Africa is loaded with bear traps, sand traps with disappearing money. My job is to get the best deal, protect Sandy Christman Foundation, get renewable clean energy for the hospital and as always….”make things better”.