Sunday, October 29, 2006

Uganda's solar-powered airport

Taking a quick study break from my team paper -- which is about blogging, so I'm technically not grazing too far afield here -- I noticed a post in the Practical Environmentalist about Africa's first "solar-powered airport," for which construction will begin in Uganda next year.

Sounds like the airport will include a lot of excellent features. For instance, rainfall will be harvested from the solar roof for irrigation purposes.

Curiously, though, I can't find any other online news sources for this story, other than the AND article. I'd like to learn more about this. Will the entire airport be solar-powered? That sounds amazing. But I can't help but suspect that we're really only talking about portions of the airport's infrastructure.

Do any other airports in the world make innovative use of alternative energy? Now I'm all curious. But I need to get back to this paper. Anyone with any information on this, do feel free to post a comment.

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3 comments:

CyberCelt said...

Happy Click and Comment Monday. I will have to look around about that airport. Sounds cool. Wish we were doing something like that in the USA.

K. Lodro Zampo said...

Whether there is any other project or structure that is planned to be powered by solar energy anywhere in the world or not, our understanding is that everything in the material world has a beginning. If Sseesamirembe International Solar Airport is going to be the first of its kind, well, we welcome it because it is an innovation that is long over due in view especially of Africa, where solar energy is available all year round and has gone to waste for centuries and millennium. The SGT (see Solar Green Tourism.com) consortium and Kagera Eco-Cities are now giving the world something new and ecologically sound; something many tropical countries should have considered long ago. African and other tropical country governments need to focus on the SISA model as and when it is fully constructed and operational.

With the plan of harvesting rainfall from the SISA airport structure one awakens to the question why Africa suffers from droughts and famines and hunger when rain can actually be harvested for irrigation purposes and the continent has a number of rivers and lakes from which irrigation waters could be manipulated to benefit people in Africa in this particular manner. The SISA project now becomes a worldwide awakening to the reality that some of Africa’s basic troubles can be addressed by tapping solar power and harvesting rainwater for agricultural purposes. We all know it is the nature of the human mind to either resist or embrace new things. It is surprising that to lesser minds, the former is more common but that to old or evolved minds, the latter is more common. If human minds evolve progressively and constructively, they see value in innovation and in new discoveries and inventions. Can you believe that solar energy was discovered many decades ago but has never been used to the present innovative level and capacity as is now being planned for the SISA project? If only our minds evolve constructively we shall see world innovation supercede old technologies – giving way to new ones for the benefit of all.

In our opinion, the SISA project deserves all the support it needs to become a reality as a modern model to be emulated throughout Africa if not worldwide.

Jonathan said...

K Lodro Zampo,

I appreciate your comments, and I look forward to learning more about SISA as it develops!