[ti:Bringing Light to Homes in Poor Countries] [ar:Christopher Cruise] [al:Development Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English [00:03.55]Development Report. [00:05.03]More than one and [00:07.44]a half billion people [00:08.79]around the world [00:09.66]live without electricity. [00:12.93]Finding better ways [00:14.51]to bring light to the poor [00:16.44]is the goal of researchers [00:18.64]like David Irvine-Halliday. [00:20.86]In the late nineteen nineties, [00:25.49]the Canadian professor [00:26.75]was working in Nepal [00:28.54]when his return flight was canceled. [00:31.92]A delay gave him time [00:35.56]to take a fourteen-day [00:37.58]hiking trip in the Himalayas. [00:41.00]As he tells it, [00:43.32]one day he looked [00:45.47]in the window of a school [00:47.02]and noticed how dark it was. [00:50.26]This is a common problem [00:53.09]for millions of children [00:54.86]around the world [00:56.20]-- and not just at school, [00:58.12]but also at home. [01:00.87]Many families use kerosene oil lamps. [01:05.52]There are many problems [01:07.91]with these lamps. [01:09.19]They produce only a small [01:12.31]amount of light. [01:13.90]They are dangerous to breathe. [01:16.40]And they are a big fire danger, [01:20.05]causing many injuries [01:21.66]and deaths each year. [01:24.73]Kerosene costs less than [01:27.56]other forms of lighting, [01:29.10]but it is still costly [01:31.59]in poor countries. [01:33.09]Professor Irvine-Halliday says [01:36.33]many people spend well [01:38.66]over one hundred dollars [01:41.13]a year on the fuel. [01:43.12]When he returned to Canada, [01:46.05]he began researching ways [01:48.38]to provide safe, clean [01:50.80]and affordable lighting. [01:52.78]He began experimenting [01:55.12]with light-emitting diodes, LEDs, [01:58.90]at his laboratory [02:00.94]at the University [02:02.19]of Calgary in Alberta. [02:04.53]As a professor of renewable energy, [02:08.22]he already knew about the technology. [02:11.89]Light-emitting diodes [02:15.36]are small glass lamps [02:17.40]that use much less electricity [02:20.09]than traditional bulbs [02:21.98]and last much longer. [02:24.81]Professor Irvine-Halliday [02:28.10]used a one-watt bright [02:30.39]white L.E.D. made in Japan. [02:33.77]He found it on the Internet [02:36.75]and connected it to a [02:39.04]bicycle-powered generator. [02:40.99]He remembers thinking [02:43.26]it was so bright, [02:44.99]a child could read [02:46.96]by the light of a single diode. [02:49.42]In two thousand, [02:51.67]after much research [02:53.38]and many experiments, [02:55.25]he returned to Nepal [02:57.59]to put the systems into homes. [03:00.44]His Light Up the World Foundation [03:03.53]has now equipped the homes [03:05.99]of twenty-five thousand people [03:07.90]in fifty-one countries. [03:10.15]"The one-time cost of our system [03:12.16]-- which consists of [03:13.90]a small solar panel, [03:15.04]a little motorcycle-sized battery [03:16.92]and a couple of LED lamps, [03:19.60]which basically live forever, [03:21.09]as well as the solar panel [03:22.69]-- is less than one hundred dollars. [03:24.36]So, one year of kerosene would [03:27.21]pay for a solid-state lighting system." [03:29.73]Now his aim is to develop [03:31.83]a lower-cost lighting system. [03:33.98]In January, David Irvine-Halliday [03:37.31]is leaving the University of Calgary. [03:40.35]He has also decided to give up [03:43.68]leadership in the Light [03:45.27]Up the World Foundation [03:46.96]to start a company in India. [03:49.40]And that's the VOA Special English [03:52.49]Development Report, [03:53.80]written by June Simms [03:55.93]with Rosanne Skirble. [03:57.65]I'm Christopher Cruise.