In 2002, teenaged William Kamkwamba had a vision in the very
poor African nation of Malawi: A little bicycle generator that
powers a light, if connected to a windmill, could allow him to
read his schoolbooks at night. As he went further with his
plans, he began to see how such a windmill might actually bring
the 20th century to his own village. Out this week is "The Boy
Who Harnessed the Wind," a book that tells Kamkwamba's story. We
talked with William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, the book's co-
authors. “He didn’t have washers, so he would go collect bottle
caps, beer bottle caps, in front of the bar and flatten them out
and put a hole through the middle. He didn’t have a drill, so he
would use a nail and heat it over his mom’s cooking fire, that
he would bore holes through this plastic ... His cousin found a
car battery so he was able to hook the windmill up to a car
battery, charge it and then power four more bulbs which he ran
through a circuit breaker system that he made out of nails and
wire and a magnet