Some of the greatest advances come from taking old ideas or technologies and making them accessible to millions of people who are poor and underprivileged. One area where this is desperately needed is access to electricity. In the age of the iPad and Facebook, it is easy to forget that roughly a quarter of the world’s population — about 1.5 billion — still lack electricity. This is not just an incon­venience — it takes a severe toll on economic life, education, and health. It is esti­mated that 2 million people die prematurely each year as a result of pulmonary diseases caused by the indoor burning of fuels for cooking and light. Close to half are children who die of pneumonia.

In vast stretches of the developing world, after the sun sets, everything goes dark. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 70% of the population lack electricity. However, no country has more citizens living without power than India, where more than 400 million

people, the vast majority of them villagers, have no electricity. The place that remains most in darkness is Bihar, India’s poorest state, which has more than 80 million people, 85% of whom live in households with no grid connection. As Bihar has nowhere near the capacity to meet its current power demands, even those few with connections receive electricity sporadically and often at odd hours, like between 3:00 a. m. and 6:00 a. m., when it is of little use.

An “off-grid” solution can be Jatropha. The fruits of Jatropha contain oil that can be burned in lamps. Jatropha as a provider of light is the very first simple appli­cation, and comes way before biodiesel and biokerosene. When in the near future we will profit from huge Jatropha plantations, the leaves of the plant will be a valuable biomass. Fed into a power plant, electricity can be generated indepen­dently from central grids and light up the lamps.

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