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Solarpunk is happening in Africa

climatedrift.substack.com

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Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#151

Post by initramfs »

I think those authors have been trying to figure out what I've long suspected- infrastructure can't be build locally as easily as one that can be exported with extreme modularity. Building a nuclear power plant, even a small modern one, still requires a ton of permitting and environmental review. Setting up a portable solar power plant, with imported panels and inverters, in theory allows for much more adaptability and affordability.

I've heard/read common criticisms about NGO's having more power and private funding than weak and poor governments, but then again, if there isn't a centralized effort to develop infrastructure, citizens are more likely to prefer outside funding/investment https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/internation...

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#152

Post by FloorEgg »

skandergarroum wrote: post #146
losvedir wrote: post #125

This has got to be ChatGPT, right? There's just a lot of... nonsensical phrasing and sentences? I love the story of it, but I can't take the writing. > This worked great if you were electrifying America in the 1930s, when labor was cheap, materials were subsidized, and the government could strong-arm right-of-way access. It works less great when you’re trying to reach a farmer four hours from the nearest paved road w…

Hey there, author (Skander from Climate Drift) here. So for the record: This isn't a chatgpt article, it's something I wrote over the weekend while I was down with a flu (although the idea has been running through my head for a while). @America's 1930s: Most of US rural electrification happened at this point (90% of urban homes hat electricity, only around 10% of farms). Rural Electrification Act from 1936 changed th…

Hey in the part 3 that introduces PAYG it jumps from $100 down $40-65 a month to $0.21 a day / $1.50 a week.

It seems your mixing up examples since they're off by an order of magnitude. Once I read that my trust in everything else started breaking down and I couldn't be bothered to read the rest with the same level of engagement.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#153

Post by afiori »

Iulioh wrote: post #116
aydyn wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Each 9 of reliability for infrastructure is EXTREMELY expensive. And grid has a lot of 9s. Correction: should have a lot of 9s. But in a lot of places in the U.S., even rich states, it doesn't because a combination of regulatory capture, profiteering and straight corruption. I can see why solar and batteries are so attractive because at least its your prerogative when the power goes out.

Have you heard how companies makes money on the US grid? Oh boy. They are incentivized to BULID but not to maintain or upgrade because that grants them guarantee rate of return. It was enlightening to see what caused the big blackout during a big snowfall in texas a few years ago

It is funny to me how fractally perverse systems gets when a centralised authority refuses to directly solve a problem but rather decide have it solved by third party uncooperative players by creating an endless stream of byzantine rules to force the solution to be a twisted copy of what the centralised authority could have done by itself.

Of course there are failure modes in any approach but "oh no! Herding cats is hard. Who could have imagined!" is funny to me

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#154

Post by xboxnolifes »

kazinator wrote: post #140
mothballed wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rural AZ >"my power company wouldn't let me use grid-tied solar without it being permitted." ? Nah they didn't give a shit what I connected it to. I literally stubbed a 200 amp service entrance on vacant land then just went wild connecting it to whatever I like. I shot the shit with their engineer when they ran secondary off the power pole and that was it, I've never seen them again. > no government inspectors are co…

Don't people have guns in AZ, especially rural? I wouldn't want to go to someone's home to hassle them about their DIY solar installation.

People have guns in all of the US. Sure, AZ ownership might be around double that of CA, but that's just going from 1 in 4 to 1 in 2. The odds are high either way.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#155

Post by [deleted] »

badpun wrote: post #85
w10-1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thanks to all the entrepreneurs and engineers over the past decades Hat tip also to China's ideological commitment to independence from external oil supplies, as nicely coupled to reducing pollution and greenwashing their image. It's their citizens who sacrifice to make solar power cheap enough.

Some of the sacrifice is not voluntary - most panels contain parts and/or materials made by slaves in work camps.

[deleted]

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#156

Post by bdangubic »

epistasis wrote: post #102
omnimus wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like iPhones.

I think it's a bit different, I never heard a story of iPhones being manufactured like this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636 However most of the "slave" talk these days comes from highly politicized sources, so it's hard to cut through to the truth. For example, it's not likely that there's enough Uyghur slave labor to be involved with "most" of the polysilicon even from Xinjiang, much less the ent…

> I think it's a bit different

nice to discuss the degrees of slavery, little slavery is cool, little more perhaps not as much…

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#157

Post by jaggederest »

matthewfcarlson wrote: post #91
abakker wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, for a refrigerator and a lot of loads, being down for 2 days straight is way worse than a few hours a year. losing 48 hours of supply a year if broken into 2 hour chunks is not nearly as bad as losing 48 consecutive hours.

I get your point, but I personally would be grumpy if I lost power for two hours twice a month. I realize that is rich considering this article is about people who are lucky to get any amount of power reliably

When I lived in a city proper, the grid was doing well to maintain 98% uptime. Multiple day long outages were the rule, not uncommon to lose power 3-5 days in a row.

Now I live in a rural area and it's uncommon to avoid outages more than a month. We have an automatic transfer switch and fuel generator from previous owners and it saves hundreds of dollars in frozen food.

This is in the US by the way. If you're investing in a transfer switch and generator now, the cost is going to quickly approach a modest solar + battery set up with a whole house inverter, and of course, you save money all year that way, not just in outages.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#158

Post by htrp »

>Solar Home System Evolution:

>2008: $5,000 (affordable only for wealthy urban Kenyans)

>2015: $800 (middle-class farmers)

>2025: $120-$1,200 (true smallholders)

How does US solar cost so much?

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#159

Post by skandergarroum »

czbond wrote: post #113
qayxc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I guess that is the negative view - but I didn't view it as that way

haha author here, and this was my favorite interaction so far. Thanks czbond.

So no, not fake, not AI, just written under the flu over the weekend.

@qarzxc: Not fictional, spoke to users & investors of both companies, see my breakdowns on them for a deeper dive.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#160

Post by _ink_ »

zem wrote: post #147
losvedir wrote: post #125

This has got to be ChatGPT, right? There's just a lot of... nonsensical phrasing and sentences? I love the story of it, but I can't take the writing. > This worked great if you were electrifying America in the 1930s, when labor was cheap, materials were subsidized, and the government could strong-arm right-of-way access. It works less great when you’re trying to reach a farmer four hours from the nearest paved road w…

don't know if the article is chatgpt or not, but "might as well be a million dollars" is a super common way of saying "completely out of reach"

And from that $2 you probably still have to spend something on food / shelter / clothing, so it's not like you could just save it all.
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