One for you Mr. Gates I reckon. If one person can do that with old scrap, why can't a single Western Democracy style government do anything remotely competent with 10's of $Bn?
Outstanding! (Old bicycle parts always end up in this sort of thing: old bicycle parts rock the Appropriate Technology world)
Not sure why you link it to the west though - his designs are inefficient and don't scale (a blade mill like that is about 20% compared to a HAWT closing in on the theoretical max 60%); he doesn't have nimbies and planning to contend with (lucky git!) and the community demands are very slim. Which isn't to detract an ounce from his awesome coolness, just that one self-educated kid and his scrapbuild do not, necessarily, reflect on the huge demands and complications of the western power setup.
I read Mr DSP's comment not so much as applying to the specific, more to the general, something like:
"One motivated inidividual has significantly changed the lives of many people in his environment with limited resources; contrast that with the huge resources available to Western Democracy style governments that have failed to significantly change the lives of the people in their environment".
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Not sure why you link it to the west though - his designs are inefficient and don't scale (a blade mill like that is about 20% compared to a HAWT closing in on the theoretical max 60%); he doesn't have nimbies and planning to contend with (lucky git!) and the community demands are very slim. Which isn't to detract an ounce from his awesome coolness, just that one self-educated kid and his scrapbuild do not, necessarily, reflect on the huge demands and complications of the western power setup.
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"One motivated inidividual has significantly changed the lives of many people in his environment with limited resources; contrast that with the huge resources available to Western Democracy style governments that have failed to significantly change the lives of the people in their environment".
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