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Solarpunk is happening in Africa

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Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#331

Post by _kidlike »

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…

I also got ChatGPT vibes... all this repetition of "why it matters" and all the lists, and going back and forth between contradictions...

It's even sadder to me that the author says this is not GPT. I believe them. Which means we have reached a point where the style of how ChatGPT writes has made its way into our sub-conscious...

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#332

Post by [deleted] »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #170
manmal wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

[deleted]

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#334

Post by rmunn »

mattclarkdotnet wrote: post #329
rmunn wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here in the US, the thirteenth amendment seems to think that a little slavery is cool. For anyone not familiar with the US Constitution, the 13th Amendment forbids slavery and involuntary servitude "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Without that "except as a punishment for [a] crime" clause, being sentenced to N hours of community service would be forbidden by the C…

Most other countries seem to be able to have community service orders without labelling it “servitude”. Do you have a reference for why community service is defined as servitude in the US?

Are you saying that being ordered by a judge to perform work, without pay, and which you would not have done absent those orders, does not fit the definition of involuntary servitude?

Because while the precise definitions of servitude do vary from dictionary to dictionary, and some define it more harshly than others, in general it fits. One definition I found online (with no reference to which dictionary it came from) defines servitude as "A condition in which an individual is bound to work for another person or organization, typically without pay." Another one (Cambridge dictionary) says it's "the state of being under the control of someone else and of having no freedom". I couldn't check the Oxford English Dictionary as it requires a subscription to look up even one word. Merriam-Webster lists two meanings, one of which applies to land. the one that applies to people is "a condition in which one lacks liberty especially to determine one's course of action or way of life".

Now, being sentenced to community service is only a temporary condition of servitude, which ends as soon as a given number of hours have been served. And it might not fit the strict definition if the person being sentenced is allowed to choose the form their community service will take; I lack knowledge of what kinds of community-servitude sentences are commonly handed out. But if the person being sentenced does not get to choose the form his community service will take, but instead is told "Your community service will be served in the city clerk's office. Show up at 9:00 AM on Monday ready to make photocopies and run errands," then that counts as being under the control of another and lacking freedom during the period of community service. It's not a permanent state of servitude, but even a temporary state of servitude is forbidden by the 13th amendment (other than as a sentence for a crime), because otherwise people at the time would have argued "Oh, fifty years of involuntary servitude still counts as 'temporary', so I'm allowed to carry on with imposing debt peonage on my debtors."

(I should also mention that I am not a lawyer, so perhaps US lawyers have already reached broad consensus on whether community service counts as involuntary servitude under US law; if someone knows whether that's true, I welcome being corrected on my point).

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#335

Post by 3RTB297 »

conductr wrote: post #41

Isn't this the same thing they did with the internet? They skipped the wired revolution and just implemented it when mobile phone networks made if more feasible. If you look at it only in the present, it seems revolutionary, their mobile usage is through the roof - how modern of them. But if you dig in, they also had decades with essentially no data services when the rest of the world was surfing the web full tilt an…

Kinda, but not really. IRL, feature phones and cheap smartphones subsidized to carry Whatsapp and Facebook apps starting 20 years ago pushed "people using the internet" and at this point Whatsapp is 90% of what people use internet for in Africa because data is cheaper than talk and text.

There's also the perception of usability. I have personally had relatively well-paid Africans tell me that $4 a month for 10 GB of (4G mobile) data was "the most expensive on Earth." Which is not true, I checked, but people say it to try and rumor mill the price down. However, it's sort of almost true in the sense of trying to pay for streaming services and being online like anyone from London or LA on one's hone and not home fiber connections, which only the wealthy have. But that's not how people use their phones anyway. So there's no market for high bandwidth use, and only the wealthy are willing to use bandwidth and pay for it because prices drop per GB once you're doing unlimited fiber connections at home on post-paid accounts. The middle ground is the barrier.

But people like the author who barely know where Africa is on a map love to throw around stats like "85% of Africa is online!" Not like how most Westerners think. Kids in wealthy areas will push being on IG and Tik Tok. In malls in larger cities there's a shop that sells gaming consoles.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#336

Post by exidy »

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #195

Wondering if any Aussies here know this. I’ve heard that if you have a solar system and a battery system connected to the grid, if the grid goes out for whatever reason, your battery gets cut off as well. Meaning that it’s essentially useless as power backup. Is this true? Can you really go fully off-grid in Australia? I’ve heard this from rural people in Victoria, where they do experience blackouts and where an actu…

It depends on the inverter. Older "grid-following" inverters would isolate themselves from the grid to avoid putting any current on the line when presumably in an outage it should be de-energised, as well as relying on the grid for reference frequency.

Modern hybrid & multi-mode inverters are capable of isolating themselves from the grid, generating their own reference frequency and managing connection and disconnection from the grid. However you might not get one of these types of inverters unless you specifically ask for "backup power" or similar.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#337

Post by manmal »

pantalaimon wrote: post #232
nandomrumber wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any way that is more fair for the end user. Why should a solar generator, who has virtually zero inputs, demand the same rate as a gas or coal generator who’s costs are dominated by inputs? Where’s the promised savings to the end user? That’s right, there aren’t any. And people bang on about solar being cheaper. No it isn’t. Solar electricity is the same price as gas peaker-plant electricity. Everywhere I’ve looked,…

If you can make a great profit from solar, you are incentivised to build more of it for an even greater profit. Soon there is so much solar that you don't need the expensive gas most of the time.

> Soon there is so much solar that you don't need the expensive gas most of the time.

In the EU (winters with weak solar radiation) this only works if you can store power over multiple months. Getting rid of gas means purchasing and maintaining a giant amount of batteries. Slow storage won’t save you from outages during peaks. We do have very cheap power from solar, during the hot months. In winter, its wind and offshore turbines that are prevalent, but they are as unpredictable.

So, solar and wind power is trivial. Storage is the issue. And consumers will pay that storage, in both grid cost, and spot prices.

I don’t understand why peak producers should dictate prices for all levels of service. Make an exception for them that’s adequate, like a second peak market, and done? Why should a solar producer (who doesn’t buffer!) get 3x the price only because Russia turns up gas prices and the big producers start panic buying expensive gas futures, poisoning their whole lineup in the process? Solar producers just pump whatever’s coming out of their panels into the market, with no regard for grid stability.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#338

Post by bave8672 »

testing22321 wrote: post #305
bave8672 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, prices in Aus have been heavily subsidised until recently.

Of course, which is a great thing! When you buy corn or gas or tires for your car do you really care if it’s subsidized and say something like “oh yeah it was $x, but heavily subsidized”? Of course not, you only care about how much it costs you.

On the contrary, I care because I don't buy these things at all, yet my taxes are being used to subsidise the people that do.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#339

Post by coffeebeqn »

usefulcat wrote: post #316
worik wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This I recal, the 1980s when Japanese manufacturing was dogy as. By 2000 it was the best The same thing is happening in China They are very good at everything they do, and getting better. Good.

I don't now about Japanese manufacturing per se, but I definitely wouldn't say that finished Japanese products were considered dodgy in the 80s. Sony, Panasonic, Honda, Toyota, various camera brands, Yamaha.. I recall all of those being at least "pretty good". I definitely remember the sense that Japanese cars posed a real threat to the American auto industry, and in hindsight that seems to have been well founded.

Nintendo! That was definitely not their reputation in the 80s it was top notch
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