I still find it slightly bemusing, that 2.5 billion people lack access to any sanitation [1], but only 1 billion lack electricity and access to a mobile phone, especially given that it's estimated that 700,000 children die every year through lack of access to sanitation alone before you consider all the other negative effects [2].<p>Obviously we've the luxury of taking both for granted, but given the choice, how many people on here would pick the phone over the toilet?<p>And whilst a lot of us in the west, complain quite vocally about the 1% who own something like 46% of the world's wealth, to the 2.5 billion that don't have sanitation, we might as well be the 1%.<p>[1] <a href="http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/25/more-people-have-cell-phones-than-toilets-u-n-study-shows/" rel="nofollow">http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/25/more-people-have-cell-ph...</a>
[2] <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/girish-menon/lack-of-toilets-is-costing-us-the-earth_b_4767258.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/girish-menon/lack-of-toilets...</a>
Just like they skipped land lines in favor of mobile, it's quite likely they'll skip straight to distributed power as well. There's a not altogether implausible scenario where culture in these areas lights like a fire, they deal with their corrupt political system and then leap-frog the "developed world".
Note the key roles of financing, payment platforms, and software. It's not just about LEDs and cheap photovoltaics: in almost every project mentioned, the users prepay for energy through electronic cash transfers (directly from their phone), and the systems are profitable to run. The primary barriers to adoption are (i) upfront financing and (ii) software for managing these systems at scale. There are at least several SF-area companies working on hardware and software for the off-grid energy market, including ours (<a href="http://www.angazadesign.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.angazadesign.com/</a> - we're hiring). It's an exciting area.
This might be a good application for Toshiba's 4S micro nuclear reactor - 10MW for the win. Disposing of waste may be a big problem for these areas, though...