Power Shops

Jesse Walker | December 27, 2007

From Sierra Leone, an interesting VOA report about entrepreneurs with electric generators:

Shops like these dot every neighborhood. They offer a range of services, from haircuts with electric shavers to pay phone calls.

And for about 35 cents at almost any of the shops, you can charge your cell phone.

Although video games, haircuts, and cell phone charging do not seem related, there is one thing they have in common: they all require electricity. And that is something in short supply in Freetown.

Alvin Williams, who owns and operates the video-game, telephone, and cell phone-charging shop, says it has been more than a week since he has had electricity at home....But the 22-year-old electrical engineering student turned entrepreneur has been able to turn his city's lack of power into an opportunity for himself. He will use the profits from his shop to pay for school.

[Via Timbuktu Chronicles.]

Comments

|12.27.07 @ 4:14PM|#

And if you route the exhaust to the garage of your competitors, you will soon be the only game in town.

|12.27.07 @ 4:15PM|#

How long after the government restores 24/7 power do you figure it will take them to crack down on these "illegal" power shops?

Jennifer|12.27.07 @ 4:35PM|#

Kwix, I'm surprised the government's not cracking down already. Selling electricity without a license! What if somebody gets electrocuted? Have the customers been properly debriefed about why water and electricity don't mix? What if this guy starts renting time in electric chairs, huh?

And finally: THE CHILDREN!!!

|12.27.07 @ 4:48PM|#

Kwix

To echo Jennifer. I don't think the government would wait until they'd restored 24/7 power before cracking down (or, more likely, demanding a bribe to look the other way.)

|12.27.07 @ 5:20PM|#

We cannot tolerate this! Think of the global warming effects: what if everyone in the undeveloped world starts wanting electricity?

SIA|12.27.07 @ 5:27PM|#

Cool. Reminds me of the old days when business enterprises usually had their own power plants. E.g.:

Asbury Park

LarryA|12.27.07 @ 7:06PM|#

How long after the government restores 24/7 power do you figure it will take them to crack down on these "illegal" power shops?

AFAIK this isn't a natural-disaster-related outage. The government simply can't keep the power plants running. 24/7 power isn't coming back without political change.

Cracking down on the only source of power left would be a really quick way to precipitate that change.

|12.27.07 @ 7:37PM|#

You say people can subsist without 24/7 power? I hope Al Gore and his minions don't hear about this.

highnumber|12.27.07 @ 7:43PM|#

How long after the government restores 24/7 power do you figure it will take them to crack down on these "illegal" power shops?

If he has any business sense (which he must to have opened this shop), he won't plan on keeping the power shop open when the demand fizzles.

The Wine Commonsewer|12.27.07 @ 8:07PM|#

Reminds me of Rhyolite Nevada, a now defunct mining town at the edge of Death Valley. At it's peak it had 10,000 residents and three private water companies. Despite being in Death Valley (avg rainfall .000000001" per year) there was enough dependable water available that some people had flower and vegetable gardens.

Electiral Collage|12.28.07 @ 4:15AM|#

Shocking!

|12.28.07 @ 7:35AM|#

More evidence that ony the market and not gouverment can provide so called "public goods".

|12.28.07 @ 7:50AM|#

To echo Jennifer. I don't think the government would wait until they'd restored 24/7 power before cracking down (or, more likely, demanding a bribe to look the other way.)

Or passing a tax on it.

|12.28.07 @ 12:17PM|#

Think of what the development of cheap small-scale solar and wind technologies would do for those poor people.

|12.28.07 @ 12:45PM|#

Oh, wait, I forgot. Take away their electricity! Al Gore hates all energy technologies. You can tell because he installed solar panels on his house.

|12.28.07 @ 1:01PM|#

joe

I love to think of what a cheap, small-scale [>1 MW], renewable energy source would do to the power companies.

Even better, I'd love to know about this the day before it became general knowledge. Hello, Friendly Broker. I'd like to short a million shares of Con Ed.