I’VE just had my first shower for a week, and it reminds me that there’s much more to technology and the future of travel than advances in computers and communications.
We’ve spent a week on a self-contained camping trip in the Okavango Delta, southwest Africa, and anyone seeing the size of the crocodiles in the river would soon understand why we’ve stuck with washing from a bucket rather than chancing a quick dip in the myriad of channels.
Any shower is bound to feel good under those circumstances, but this had a particular appeal – a strong flow of pure Delta water, pumped and heated by solar power, and with an open view across the unique landscape.
Our week in the wilderness also entailed cooking for ourselves over a campfire. Once again, a salutary reminder of how reliant we have become on the variety of labour-saving appliances in the home.
Fortunately our guide, Tshabo, was an expert at managing the fire itself: starting with fetching just the right type of wood, then arranging it in just the right type of stack and adjusting the stack to maintain just the right heat and finally digging just the right size hole to bury all evidence that the fire had ever existed.
Our side of the deal was the cooking itself. Torch between the teeth, tea-towel for the hot lids in one hand, wooden spoon for stirring in the other and working with just a basic grate and two pots, we produced a creditable variety of filling meals.
The other challenge was in keeping the embers alive between meals, such that the fire could be brought quickly back to life for a cup of tea.
With the right wood, it was even possible to restart the fire at first light with a handful of dry grass and some energetic blowing.
I spent ten minutes one morning struggling to achieve this trick, only for Tshabo to intervene with a splash of paraffin and a match!
Water at the twist of a tap is another basic of modern life which we all take for granted.
In the Delta we had a single tin bucket for drinking, cooking and washing water. Refills required Tshabo to pole out into the centre of the channel.
And how about refrigeration? No fridge meant that we were constantly seeking shade for our fresh food. Even more importantly we were only able to chill our scarce beer supplies down to the tepid temperature of the Delta water.
All of this serves to emphasise our dependence on technology in everyday life. Much of it disappears into the background, so that we take light, heat and water for granted until placed in an environment such as our camping safari.
The telephone has achieved a similar status – ubiquitous availability and used largely without conscious thought for the technology. But for most users, the Internet is a very different experience, with the technology an unavoidable part of the interaction.
The sun bathes the earth in a nearly infinite supply of energy. Every day more solar energy falls to the earth than the total amount of energy the planets’ six billion inhabitants would consume in 27 years. While its neither possible nor necessary to use but a small portion of this energy, we’ve a long way to go in tapping the potential of solar energy.
Photovoltaic devices, commonly called solar cells, use semiconductor material to directly convert sunlight into electricity. Solar cells have no moving parts, so applications include mobile homes, satellites, highway signs, navigation buoys and pocket calculators.
Concentrating solar power systems are an alternative approach – unlike solar cells, which use light to produce electricity, they generate electricity with heat. Mirrors and lenses are used to concentrate and focus sunlight onto a receiver, where the heat is generated and used to drive a generator to produce electricity.
A final approach are flat-plate solar collectors, which directly heat air or water. Flat-plate collectors are large, flat boxes with glass covers. Insider the boxes, dark-coloured metal plates absorb heat, which warms water or air flowing through tubes.
These various forms of solar energy have made huge technological and cost improvements over recent years but except for certain niche applications they remain more expensive than traditional energy sources. Developing countries, where half the population is currently without electricity and sunlight is abundant, represent the biggest and fastest growing market.