Solarpunk is happening in Africa

It’s not like I’m discovering the concept for the first time.

I just think when people say things like “solar is cheaper than gas” they should say for who.

Solar is cheaper than gas for the capitalist.

And there’s no guarantee the capitalists savings will ever be passed on to the consumer.

In my market, Australia, the energy retailers are regulated to increase prices once a year. Increase prices. Never a saving for the retail customer. They’ve worked out that can skip all that messy market bullshit and just regulate annual increases.

Good work if you can get it.

> In my market, Australia, the energy retailers are regulated to increase prices once a year. Increase prices. Never a saving for the retail customer. They’ve worked out that can skip all that messy market bullshit and just regulate annual increases.

Have you actually read the regulation?

  The AEMC said the new rules were in response to requests from Australia's energy minsters. They will:

    * prevent retailers from increasing prices more than once a year
    * ban excessive charges like late-payment fees for all retail contracts
    * ensure all consumers are entitled to a fee-free payment method
    * prohibit retail fees for vulnerable consumers
    * ensure vulnerable Australians are receiving their retailer’s best offer
    * prevent retailers from charging more than the standing offer price if the customer's initial offer changes or expires. This will protect customers from paying higher prices for their loyalty.

  The rules to improve consumer confidence in retail energy plans will come into effect on 1 July 2026. Those that assist hardship customers take effect from 30 December 2026.

There is a difference between

A) regulation that forces a price rise once a year.

and

B) regulation that stops more than one price rise (if any) in any year.

The context for the 13th amendment was that slavery was legal in the US then. It mostly wasn’t in other countries, so they never had to try to find the language to allow judicial punishments while disallowing private slavery. If you are given a community service orders without labelling in the UK for example, nobody thinks it’s slavery or servitude, they just think it’s a valid sentence under the law. The grey area is probably around profiting off such work?

The same thing that's, you know, stopping them from having real power grids.

This is such a bunch of nonsense!

The ROI of using a diesel-powered pump isn't so high so few farmers have one. It means, they work well and those who don't have one, still get some water for their fields, too.

A solar pump is many times cheaper to run. It means ROI of using it is huge and many more people will get them. But it doesn't mean there will now be magically more groundwater to pump!

Which mean, those who don't have a pump, will soon find themselves completely without water - it will be all sucked out by people with pumps. So they will also HAVE to install those pumps.

As a result, no one will be better off because same amount of water will be redistributed among same number of farmers. Even an "arms race" of more and more powerful pumps is likely when people will realise theirs are not working as good anymore now than everyone has one.

All until the point where ROI of having a solar pump will become negligible.

Farmers will not be better off - they will be worse off. Chinese will make money - money funded by Western funds for "reducing" carbon emissions which do not really reduce anything as they are "replacing" diesel pumps 90+% of which did not exist.

And yes, people will also have a little bit of electricity at home - about 100x less than in grid-connected Western homes - a 200-watt panel per household at about 15% average output or maybe 20 KWh per month. It's not enough to run a blowdryer, or kettle, not even a fridge. But enough to charge a tablet to watch online TV - and become far right.

Bingo, enshittification comes to Africa, in it's purest form.

Only good thing about it is that money will go to Chinese vs Arabs for diesel fuel. Chinese are a problem that will gradually solve itself due to demography, while Arabs will not.