Here in the US, solar panels are cheapear per sqft than many building materials, in particular fences. In bulk, a 2.4m x 1.3m (roughly 8ft x 4pt) panel is < $100, or $3/sqft. If you make it operational with wiring and an inverter, I've heard it's $5/sqft, and then you get electricity too. That's before any tax credits or subsidies. (Comparing right now to Home Depot pre-fab panels, metal is ~$20/sqft, composite materials are ~$10/sqft, and vinyl is $2-$4/sqft.)

Combine that with LFP lithium batteries getting to consumers at roughly $200/kWh in many places, and the idea of running big transmission wires for many developing areas just simply won't make financial sense when compared to microgrids backed with batteries.

I'm ~50/50 divided on whether humanity will reach some post-scarcity, Star Trek like utopia. In harmony with nature, and the interests of society-at-large as #1 motivation for most people.

Or that greed & selfishness will prevail and we lay this planet to waste, possibly removing our species in the process.

Stories like this strengthen my belief in the former. More, plz!

Great article. Can't imagine what it would be like for this village to get so much new tech (solar radios, solar boats, solar-enabled internet) is such a short amount of time. In my childhood, getting access to an early Wikipedia after having to rely on physical encyclopedias was hugely transformative to how I learned. Boggles my mind to think about what it would be like to go from no internet to an internet with LLMs like chatgpt.

I wish Iquitos had solar powered mototaxis.

My brother lives in a village nearby and everyone has solar panels there now. They pay 35 soles/month for it, which is cheaper than the generators they had before which they loaded with 5 soles worth of gasoline every night.