In hopping around the net I found this interesting nugget from 2004.

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/09-08a-04.asp

India has created solar powered telecommunication hubs so that rural towns can have access to phones. Many of these towns are miles and miles away from any electrical power. Interesting, wot?

Here is another interesting tidbit seeing as how solar cell phones are just being introduced.

From 2005:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/c...ign_id=rss_tech

I am pasting old articles because I find it intersting that so many people scoffed at these ideas for years. How much cheaper and easier life would be if we had starting really pushing this in the 70s when Carter placed a solar water heater in the White House.

Well that's fine for a third-world country that's eating our lunch. But we're Americans and proud to burnly burn middle-east oil ... that finances terrorism ... so that we can pay for a Homeland Security Department in which we can employ those incapable of finding jobs at Burger King.

Or something like that.