Solar-powered Street Lamp

The government’s inability to meet the growing demand for electricity in the country has resulted into frequent power cuts. To offset the widening power deficit, many people are steadily turning towards solar technology for household purposes like lighting, cooking and heating.

Use of solar technology, however, is not limited within households alone. In view of ever increasing power crisis, stakeholders focused on promoting alternative energy are lending assistance in infrastructure development projects based on solar technology. Installation of solar-powered street lamps is one such project. 

Pokhara Sub-metropolis is poised to become one of the first towns to embrace solar technology to power its streets. A pilot project has been launched at Lakeside and New Road in Pokhara, wherein 101 solar-powered street lamps will be installed. CCTV cameras will also be installed as a part of the project that is slated to complete by June.    

Wood Pieces for Home Decoration

It isn't every day that someone can take a couple of old dead trees destined for the dump and turn them into strikingly different home and patio furnishings, decorative items and jewelry. But that's what Kathy Beahn and her husband, Bob, have done with their two front-yard cedars that had to come down.

"I don't like to waste things, so after taking down the trees, Bob and I got them cut into two" planks," Beahn said. "Our first cedar wood project was to make a bed. It turned out gorgeous--a true one-of-a-kind bed."

With that success, she said, "I was hooked."

Her husband is the "chainsaw and structural engineer," and she is designer and finisher. Together, they've turned those trees into garden benches and tables, jewelry and jewelry holders, coasters, towel racks, lamps, welcome signs, book shelves, walking canes and "so much more."

Each piece of cedar from boards to stumps to limbs "is so beautiful and unique," she said. And she enjoys every aspect of the process of producing wood pieces, from stripping the bark to sanding to applying the final coat of Polyurethane.