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Solarpunk is happening in Africa

climatedrift.substack.com

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Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#161

Post by vkou »

bdangubic wrote: post #156
epistasis wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here in the US, the thirteenth amendment seems to think that a little slavery is cool.

As I understand it, much of the rest of the world has similar views, but I'm sure this varies a bit from country to country.

It's just that in the 21st century, we prefer to use some less-upsetting euphemism to refer to the practice domestically.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#162

Post by losvedir »

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…

Thanks! Maybe I'm a little too sensitive to AI signals. I actually really love the story and content, but if it was AI generated I didn't know how much to actually believe it. I still don't know who you are, but it's probably less likely to be totally fabricated if a human is responsible for it. So, thanks, I'll give it another read.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#163

Post by testing22321 »

htrp wrote: post #158

>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?

Tariffs (government tax) on Chinese panels, corruption (companies bribing(lobbying) to get monopolies on installs) and more corruption ( power companies bribing to get guaranteed profits)

Based on comments here my 7.8kw rooftop solar in Canada was 3-5x cheaper than people pay in the US. It was $8k CAD ($5,660 usd) My Dad in Australia got a 10kw system fully installed for $5k AUD ($3,250 usd)

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#164

Post by golden-face »

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…

Huh? Even if the farmer could save 100% of that daily $2 earning it's still 60 days worth of wages, which while not exactly $1,000,000, is still a lot for the the farmer.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#165

Post by babypuncher »

aydyn wrote: post #106
justapassenger wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Decentralized solar plus batteries is already cheaper than electricity + transmission for me at my home in the US. The only thing stopping me is the permitting hassle or the contractor hassle. Does decentralized solar plus batteries give you same amount of reliability? How many days without sunny weather can you survive without having to change your energy use habits? Each 9 of reliability for infrastructure is EXT…

> 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.

My concern is that it deflates any impetus to actually solve the problems of regulatory capture, profiteering, and other corruption.

Not everybody can afford the up front costs of installing solar + battery storage, plus replacement when the PV cells and batteries inevitably reach EoL. These people will be left behind on a decaying grid nobody with political capital wants to fix or at the mercy of landlords.

I really don't like this attitude we have in America where we realize "thing is broken" and advocate throwing it away instead of trying to fix it.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#166

Post by samtheDamned »

AuthAuth wrote: post #118
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.

I dont think China deserves that hat tip. Their "commitment" was done years after all the major nations had committed to emissions reduction and seems to have only been done so they could sell the solution. They've made little attempt to reduce emissions and instead scaled their industrial base to capitalize on the demand from nations working to reduce their carbon footprint. The only thing they've done to greenwash…

besides toomuchtodo's nicely made argument, I would like to point that that many "major" nations (I'm assuming that refers to mostly western countries, correct me if I'm wrong) were able to focus on committing to emissions because they gave their dirty work (ie: mass manufacturing, waste disposal, resource extraction) to other countries, especially China.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#167

Post by numitus »

noosphr wrote: post #63
justapassenger wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Decentralized solar plus batteries is already cheaper than electricity + transmission for me at my home in the US. The only thing stopping me is the permitting hassle or the contractor hassle. Does decentralized solar plus batteries give you same amount of reliability? How many days without sunny weather can you survive without having to change your energy use habits? Each 9 of reliability for infrastructure is EXT…

It absolutely does not. But having electricity 13 days every two weeks is much better than not having it at all. This isn't about China building out their grid with an over capacity factor of 200% so they can keep everything running even if rain, sun and wind all fail for months on end. This is a developing county getting to the point they can charge mobile phones consistently.

Unfortunately, all such calculations are egocentric. People assume that everyone can use solar panels for 13 days 2 weeks, and when needed, we’ll just get electricity from the grid. But what they don’t take into account is that when there’s load today but none tomorrow, the grid becomes unstable. 2) This also increases costs. You might save electricity consumption in 14 times, but your expenses for grid electricity can increase in 14 times, because the grid still needs to be maintained — staff must be kept at power plants to ensure you can be supplied with 100% of your energy at any moment.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#168

Post by epistasis »

bdangubic wrote: post #156
epistasis wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Talking about degrees of slavery is decidedly not cool. If you have documentation of iPhone supply chain using forced labor like I linked to, please do share rather than trying to be morally ambiguous.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#169

Post by jacob019 »

"The global North's carbon problem subsidizes the global South's energy access." This is problematic. The subsidized economy will grow inefficiently, the wealth transfer will inevitably result in a corrupt class of bureaucrats who seek to maintain the status quo even when it doesn't make sense. Time will pass and it will get worse until there is political will for change, and that change will result in the suffering of those whom the initial intent was to help.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#170

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

manmal wrote: post #149
epistasis wrote: post #9

The grid is HUGELY expensive, an absolutely massive cost for our electricity. And it would still be expensive in a well-regulated environment where you can quickly and easily get permission to build, without, say, voter ballot propositions illegally blocking a transmission line for years [1]. Here in the US we have a very very poorly regulated environment for adding to our grid, it moves slower than molasses and ther…

Here in Austria, grid costs are now on par with the actual electricity cost. Each are ca €0.1 per kWh now, plus again that in taxes. Once the EU finally gets rid of the ridiculous pricing model where spot prices are dictated by the most expensive energy source (usually, gas), we might have a situation where grid costs exceed the cost of energy itself. Oh and what do they do with that money? Hoard it for upcoming grid…

>Once EU finally gets rid of the ridiculous pricing model where spot prices are dictated by the most expensive energy source (usually, gas), we might have a situation where grid costs exceed the cost of energy itself.

Why is it ridiculous? From a pure mathematical economics point of view it's genius I think. It means energy producers can just set their price at production price, knowing they will get the best deal that way and thus don't need to speculate on the electricity prices. It makes electricity as cheap as possible when it's abundant and expensive when it's not, also incentifying users of electricity to shift their consumption.

What's a better way of doing it?

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