No light issue

The AP reports on a plan to use mirrors to bring light to a town which normally faces three months of darkness each year:

The sun has stopped shining in Rattenberg. But with the aid of a few mirrors, the winter darkness that grips this small town could soon be brightened up with pockets of sunshine.

That's because sun is plentiful less than 10 minutes' walk from the town and from Rat Mountain, the 915-metre hill that blocks its sunlight between November and February each year.

The solution: 30 heliostats, essentially rotating mirrors, mounted on a hillside to grab sunshine off reflectors from the neighbouring village of Kramsach...

In the Tyrol region of the Alps alone, about 60 communities suffer the same fate in winter as Rattenberg. Peskoller says about six other towns in Austria and neighbouring Switzerland have expressed interest.

Obviously ideas like this can only be used in limited circumstances. But Rattenberg's example shows that there are still significant areas of developed countries where the simplest of technology can still be used to improve lives.