#off grid solar pump

[newspatron]

Beat the Heat with Solar Air Conditioners: Your Cool & Green Guide

Ready to embrace a cooler, greener future? Share your thoughts and experiences with solar air conditioners below! 💬

🌞 Solar Air Conditioners: Your Chill Guide to a Greener (and Cheaper!) Tomorrow ❄️ Is the scorching heat making you sweat like a popsicle on a summer day? 🥵 Are your electricity bills giving you nightmares hotter than a desert afternoon? 😫 Fear not, my friend! We’re about to dive into the cool world of solar air conditioners, your ticket to a more comfortable, eco-friendly, and wallet-friendly…

[reasonsforhope]

"The man who has called climate change a “hoax” also can be expected to wreak havoc on federal agencies central to understanding, and combating, climate change. But plenty of climate action would be very difficult for a second Trump administration to unravel, and the 47th president won’t be able to stop the inevitable economy-wide shift from fossil fuels to renewables. 

“This is bad for the climate, full stop,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at the Columbia Business School. “That said, this will be yet another wall that never gets built. Fundamental market forces are at play.”

A core irony of climate change is that markets incentivized the wide-scale burning of fossil fuels beginning in the Industrial Revolution, creating the mess humanity is mired in, and now those markets are driving a renewables revolution that will help fix it. Coal, oil, and gas are commodities whose prices fluctuate. As natural resources that humans pull from the ground, there’s really no improving on them — engineers can’t engineer new versions of coal. 

By contrast, solar panels, wind turbines, and appliances like induction stoves only get better — more efficient and cheaper — with time. Energy experts believe solar power, the price of which fell 90 percent between 2010 and 2020, will continue to proliferate across the landscape. (Last year, the United States added three times as much solar capacity as natural gas.) Heat pumps now outsell gas furnaces in the U.S., due in part to government incentives. Last year, Maine announced it had reached its goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps two years ahead of schedule, in part thanks to state rebates. So if the Trump administration cut off the funding for heat pumps that the IRA provides, states could pick up the slack. 

Local utilities are also finding novel ways to use heat pumps. Over in Massachusetts, for example, the utility Eversource Energy is experimenting with “networked geothermal,” in which the homes within a given neighborhood tap into water pumped from underground. Heat pumps use that water to heat or cool a space, which is vastly more efficient than burning natural gas. Eversource and two dozen other utilities, representing about half of the country’s natural gas customers, have formed a coalition to deploy more networked geothermal systems.

Beyond being more efficient, green tech is simply cheaper to adopt. Consider Texas, which long ago divorced its electrical grid from the national grid so it could skirt federal regulation. The Lone Star State is the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer, but it gets 40 percent of its total energy from carbon-free sources. “Texas has the most solar and wind of any state, not because Republicans in Texas love renewables, but because it’s the cheapest form of electricity there,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, a climate research nonprofit. The next top three states for producing wind power — Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas — are red, too.

State regulators are also pressuring utilities to slash emissions, further driving the adoption of wind and solar power. As part of California’s goal of decarbonizing its power by 2045, the state increased battery storage by 757 percent between 2019 and 2023. Even electric cars and electric school buses can provide backup power for the grid. That allows utilities to load up on bountiful solar energy during the day, then drain those batteries at night — essential for weaning off fossil fuel power plants. Trump could slap tariffs on imported solar panels and thereby increase their price, but that would likely boost domestic manufacturing of those panels, helping the fledgling photovoltaic manufacturing industry in red states like Georgia and Texas.

The irony of Biden’s signature climate bill is states that overwhelmingly support Trump are some of the largest recipients of its funding. That means tampering with the IRA could land a Trump administration in political peril even with Republican control of the Senate, if not Congress. In addition to providing incentives to households (last year alone, 3.4 million American families claimed more than $8 billion in tax credits for home energy improvements), the legislation has so far resulted in $150 billion of new investment in the green economy since it was passed in 2022, boosting the manufacturing of technologies like batteries and solar panels. According to Atlas Public Policy, a research group, that could eventually create 160,000 jobs. “Something like 66 percent of all of the spending in the IRA has gone to red states,” Hausfather said. “There certainly is a contingency in the Republican party now that’s going to support keeping some of those subsidies around.”

Before Biden’s climate legislation passed, much more progress was happening at a state and local level. New York, for instance, set a goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 40 percent by 2030, and 85 percent by 2050. Colorado, too, is aiming to slash emissions by at least 90 percent by 2050. The automaker Stellantis has signed an agreement with the state of California promising to meet the state’s zero-emissions vehicle mandate even if a judicial or federal action overturns it. It then sells those same cars in other states. 

“State governments are going to be the clearest counterbalance to the direction that Donald Trump will take the country on environmental policy,” said Thad Kousser, co-director of the Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research at the University of California, San Diego. “California and the states that ally with it are going to try to adhere to tighter standards if the Trump administration lowers national standards.”

[Note: One of the obscure but great things about how emissions regulations/markets work in the US is that automakers generally all follow California's emissions standards, and those standards are substantially higher than federal standards. Source]

Last week, 62 percent of Washington state voters soundly rejected a ballot initiative seeking to repeal a landmark law that raised funds to fight climate change. “Donald Trump’s going to learn something that our opponents in our initiative battle learned: Once people have a benefit, you can’t take it away,” Washington Governor Jay Inslee said in a press call Friday. “He is going to lose in his efforts to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, because governors, mayors of both parties, are going to say, ‘This belongs to me, and you’re not going to get your grubby hands on it.’”

Even without federal funding, states regularly embark on their own large-scale projects to adapt to climate change. California voters, for instance, just overwhelmingly approved a $10 billion bond to fund water, climate, and wildfire prevention projects. “That will be an example,” said Saharnaz Mirzazad, executive director of the U.S. branch of ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability. “You can use that on a state level or local level to have [more of] these types of bonds. You can help build some infrastructure that is more resilient.”

Urban areas, too, have been major drivers of climate action: In 2021, 130 U.S. cities signed a U.N.-backed pledge to accelerate their decarbonization. “Having an unsupportive federal government, to say the least, will be not helpful,” said David Miller, managing director at the Centre for Urban Climate Policy and Economy at C40, a global network of mayors fighting climate change. “It doesn’t mean at all that climate action will stop. It won’t, and we’ve already seen that twice in recent U.S. history, when Republican administrations pulled out of international agreements. Cities step to the fore.”

And not in isolation, because mayors talk: Cities share information about how to write legislation, such as laws that reduce carbon emissions in buildings and ensure that new developments are connected to public transportation. They transform their food systems to grow more crops locally, providing jobs and reducing emissions associated with shipping produce from afar. “If anything,” Miller said, “having to push against an administration, like that we imagine is coming, will redouble the efforts to push at the local level.” 

Federal funding — like how the U.S. Forest Service has been handing out $1.5 billion for planting trees in urban areas, made possible by the IRA — might dry up for many local projects, but city governments, community groups, and philanthropies will still be there. “You picture a web, and we’re taking scissors or a machete or something, and chopping one part of that web out,” said Elizabeth Sawin, the director of the Multisolving Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes climate solutions. “There’s this resilience of having all these layers of partners.”

All told, climate progress has been unfolding on so many fronts for so many years — often without enough support from the federal government — that it will persist regardless of who occupies the White House. “This too shall pass, and hopefully we will be in a more favorable policy environment in four years,” Hausfather said. “In the meantime, we’ll have to keep trying to make clean energy cheap and hope that it wins on its merits.”"

-via Grist, November 11, 2024. A timely reminder.

[jbkerkhoff]

How to Add an Awesome Wood Stove for Winter Heat

[solarpunkbusiness]

Innovative business models for small scale solar powered irrigation

If rolled out at scale, solar-powered irrigation systems hold huge potential. They work for smallholder farmers, who account for 80% of sub-Saharan Africa’s farms, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. But they also displace expensive and polluting diesel pumps and can, if managed correctly, contribute to efforts to manage scarce water resources well for the long term.

Chiefly, there is the issue of affordability. Farmers need to be able to pay the upfront cost of a solar-powered irrigation system and to pay for the duration of its use. When compared with the diesel-fueled irrigation pumps many farmers use today, the total lifetime cost of solar powered irrigation systems can be substantially lower. We estimate farmers can save 40% to 60% on irrigation costs.

As we see across the off-grid solar sector, adopting a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) approach – or, in our case, pay-as-you-grow – has the benefit of allowing farmers to pay for their systems over time, as their income increases due to better harvests.

Moving on from affordability, maintenance is the next key challenge, particularly in remote and rural areas where farms can be hard to reach and the availability of trained technicians is limited. By managing the lifecycle of pumps from design through manufacture, finance, installation, and maintenance, companies can work with farmers to ensure that pumps are able to continue to function in often challenging local conditions, season after season.

Internet-of-things (IoT)-enabled technology enables trained teams to monitor pump performance and conduct maintenance remotely. This is complemented by strategically located sales and service centers and a distributed team of field engineers able to rapidly respond to maintenance issues, expand local capacity and minimize downtime for farmers reliant on irrigation for successful harvests.

Again, solar-powered irrigation has an advantage over diesel pumps in that their fuel source is abundant and locally available. Fewer moving parts also make solar-powered irrigation systems less liable to break down than their diesel counterparts.

Source

[alpaca-clouds]

Let's talk Energy Mix

Let me talk about the energy mix for a moment - because I feel a lot of people are very unsure, how a renewable energy grid would work in practice.

So, let me get out my electrician gear and go very quickly through the different energy types that we would probably have within a Solarpunk world or something along the line. Or rather: What we might have in the future, if our governments actually fucking cared to go carbonfree.

Photovoltaic (aka Solar). Now, let me make one thing clear: Technically Photovoltaic and Solar are two different things. Photovoltaic uses certain materials that can build electricity when they interact with Photons, while Solar uses the sun's heat radiation. What most people think of as "Solarpower" is photovoltaic. This technology has made a lot of advances recently, making the panels so much more efficient than they were only a few years ago. By now photovoltaic roof tiles can actually provide enough energy for the house even during cloudy days and even further up north. Of course they cannot create enough energy during the night. While production is not 0, it is by far not enough.

Wind turbines. Currently wind turbines are making up a lot of the renewable energy mix in many countries, like my own (Germany). And for good reason. They are so darn efficient. Especially off-shore energy. While they are right now not useful for personal energy production (because turbines are fucking loud up close - only up close), they are really good at keeping the grid fed. Maybe just a bit too good.

Other forms of Wind Power. I really do not want to go too deeply into this topic. But there are currently also other forms of wind powered generators being researched. Including some that could be put onto houses. (If you want me to gover those more, just send me an ask.)

Hydro Power. Now Hydro Power, so water based power generation, has two big kinds of being used. One is by channeling the power of rivers through a generator - the other is as the currently simplest form of energy storage: If you have too much energy in your grid at any given time, pump water into a reservoir and if you need that power again, let it go through a generator. Please note though: Environmentally Hydro Power is definitely the kind of renewable power with the worst environmental impact.

Other forms of water based power generation: Currently we are experimenting a lot with getting power from the ocean. For example through tidal generators or wave generators. So far, though, these methods are only experiments, not fit for large scale production.

Geothermal Power. In a lot of areas with Geothermal activity we can also use the heat of the earth to create steam, which we then can use to power generators as well. This is especially handy in places like Iceland, that are geothermically very active, but also do not get a lot of sun half of the year and are not ideally suited for wind power.

One thing that should be noted is, that very probably we are still gonna need nuclear power as an emergency tool.

One thing that definitely needs to change, though, is how we build our energy grids. Currently we are relying a lot on macro grids, that is grids, where a few central power plants generate all the power for a large area. This does not work out well currently, based on the fact that a lot of renewables work best, if you have smaller, further distributed power plants.

This creates the need for micro grids, that are also better suited to just... Not create large scale blackouts, as the US experiences them semi-frequently.

Again, if you want me to talk more about that, I can totally do, just... send me a message.

But what you really do not need to be concerned about is the entire idea of "what do we do at night"? We have ways to deal with that. Even now. Let alone in 10 years. This area of science is currently really moving forward in long strides!

[underatedwords]

notes from testing day 1

a very straightforward day by testing standards, no red flags and only one yellow

kevin had a failing aerorake that was removed within the first 30mins. haas had an issue with their fuel system which delayed their running somewhat

redbull initially looking unstable at the rear on the C1 hard tyres but cleared up by the time he ran them in the afternoon. verstappen had the fastest lap in both sessions and ended up more than a second faster than p2. redbull's new design concept is ominous bc it's such an aggressive change but they are still comfortable & confident. it seems that they are able to run their car higher than the rest of the grid as they suffered less when driving down the bumpy main straight

mercedes had a pretty unremarkable day. interestingly, the driver's radio button on the steering wheel now looks like the whatsapp icon. wrt mercedes new f. wing concept, pat symonds (the cto of f1) has said that he is yet to decide whether it's within the spirit of the rules even if, technically, it complies

mclaren slow going in the morning - oscar didn't put a time on the board until we were 1hr 45mins in. lando perhaps had unexpected issues at the start of his session, the floor was off and he was just sat waiting in the garage. resolved and he set the second fastest lap of the day

ferrari's pitwall is now powered by solar panels. ferrari (and so, haas) have stuck w pull rod rear suspension unlike most other teams on the grid. carlos looking quite unstable in the car initially as he was going over the kerbs even with the aerorakes on

there's already talk in the paddock about vcarb bringing liam lawson in if either danny or yuki fail to perform in the first few races

sauber's rear wing looked quite unstable when the drs was open. valtteri was testing a different front wing and nosecone through the session as lots of teams experiment with the driver cooling inlets

alonso looked confident in the aston during his session and the car looked very stable. lance had a tougher time in the car, he had a big lock up through T10 and ended up facing the wrong direction. lance also lost his left hand side mirror - it fell off and was promptly run over by hulkenberg

alpine have changed their sidepod inlets from how they were on their launch spec car, adjusting how it joins the body of the car. esteban had a big snap through T4, going through the gravel but just about avoiding the polystyrene signs

williams had the most issues out of the teams today, suffering with a smoking brake and failing drs in the morning. with 20mins left on the clock, alex had to pull over and stop after issues with the fuel pump sensor put his car into safety mode. logan had a really difficult session because he didnt get out on track until we were an hour in. logan lost the rear through T9, spinning off through the gravel but catching it before he hit the wall. later on, when shifting from 3rd to 4th gear, the car went briefly into neutral so he had to pit and his running was hugely restricted. williams are the only other team using pull rod rear suspension so they elected to keep merc's 2023 spec gearbox rather than their new one for 2024 (which requires push rod suspension due to the shape)

Turn 10 posed the biggest issue for drivers today, with almost everyone locking up there at some point (I think because the entry is so fast and they want to accelerate out quickly bc of the straight that follows)

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

Solar panels and wind turbines give the world bountiful energy — but come with a conundrum. When it’s sunny and windy out, in many places these renewables produce more electricity than is actually needed at the time. Then when the sun isn’t shining and wind isn’t blowing, those renewables provide little to no electricity when it’s sorely needed.

So for the grid of tomorrow to go 100 percent renewable, it needs to store a lot more energy. You’ve probably heard about giant lithium-ion batteries stockpiling that energy for later use. But when providing backup power, even a big battery bank will usually drain in four hours. The need for an alternative has the United States government, researchers, and startups scrambling to develop more “long-duration energy storage” that can provide a minimum of 10 hours of backup power — often by using reservoirs, caverns, and other parts of the landscape as batteries.

A new study from several universities and national labs in the United States and Canada shows that large-scale deployment of long-duration energy storage isn’t just feasible but essential for renewables to reach their full potential, and would even cut utility bills. It looked specifically at the Western Interconnection, a chunk of the grid that includes the western U.S. and Canada, plus a bit of northern Mexico. The study found that building more long-duration energy storage there would reduce electricity prices by more than 70 percent in times of high demand. 

The technologies already exist to hold renewable energy for at least half a day, with more on the way. One technique is known as pumped storage hydropower: When the grid is humming with renewable power, a facility pumps water uphill into a reservoir. Then, when solar or wind power drops off, the facility lets the water loose to flow back down into another reservoir, turning turbines that produce electricity. It’s exploiting energy from the wind and the sun, along with the power of gravity. 

“Battery storage on its own — or what people call short-duration energy storage — is very important,” said Martin Staadecker, an energy systems researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and lead author of the new study. “But you can’t just rely on lithium-ion batteries, because it would be very expensive to have enough to actually provide power for an entire week.”

As of 2022, the U.S. had 43 pumped storage hydropower facilities with a combined generation capacity of 22 gigawatts. (For perspective, the U.S. has around 150 gigawatts of wind power and 140 gigawatts of solar.) According to the Department of Energy, the U.S. has the potential to double its capacity for that kind of energy storage.

Companies are figuring out how to store energy underground, too. A company called Hydrostor, based in Toronto, Canada, uses excess renewable energy on the grid to pump compressed air into subterranean caverns filled with water. That forces the water aboveground into a reservoir. When the grid needs electricity, Hydrostor lets that water flow back into the chamber, pushing the air back to the surface to drive turbines. “We’re kind of creating a piston underground of water,” said Jon Norman, president of Hydrostor. “We’re actually building a cavity out using techniques that they use in the hydrocarbon storage industry to store propane and butane.”

[tonguetyd]

literally annoyed that all coastal states (including my dumb glove shaped state) aren't 90% hydro/wind

i might not be an engineer but i am with you there

*drags soapbox out and jumps on top*

DO YOU KNOW HOW INFURIATING IT IS TO HAVE EVERYONE SAY “ELECTRIFY EVERYTHING” KNOWING FULL GODDAMN WELL THAT THE GRID 1) CANNOT SUPPORT IT AND 2) IS DRASTICALLY NOT BASED ON RENEWABLE ENERGY?!?!?!

Don’t get me wrong I love electric cars, I love heat pump systems, I love buildings and homes that can say they are fossil fuel free! Really! I do!

But it means FUCK ALL when you have!!!! Said electricity!!!! Sourced by fossil fuels!!!! I said this in my tags on the other post but New York City! Was operating on *COAL*!!!!! Up until like 5 years ago.

WE ARE SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF A RIVER.

Not to mention the ocean which like. You ever been to the beach?! You know what there’s a whole hell of a lot of at the beach? Wind!!!!!!!! And yet we have literal campaigns saying “save our oceans! Say no to wind power!”

Idk bruh I feel like the fish are gonna be less happy in a boiling ocean than needing to swim around a giant turbine but. I’m not a fuckin fish so.

NOT TO MENTION (I am fully waving my hands around like a crazy person because this is the main thing that gets me going)

THE ELECTRICAL GRID OF THE UNITED STATES HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED ON LARGE SCALE LEVELS SINCE IT WAS BUILT IN THE 1950s AND 60s.

It is not DESIGNED to handle every building in the city of [random map location] Chicago being off of gas and completely electrified. It’s not!!! The plants cannot handle it as now!

So not only do we not have renewable sources because somebody in Iowa doesn’t want to replace their corn field with a solar field/a rich Long Islander doesn’t want to replace their ocean view with a wind turbine! We also are actively encouraging people to put MORE of a strain on the grid with NO FUCKING SOLUTION TO MEET THAT DEMAND!

I used to deal with this *all* the time in my old job when I was working with smaller building - they ALWAYS needed an electrical upgrade from the street and like. The utility only has so many wires going to that building. And it’s not planning on bringing in more for the most part!

(I am now vibrating with rage) and THEN you have the fuckin AI bros! Who have their data centers in the middle of nowhere because that’s a great place to have a lot of servers that you need right? Yeah sure, you know what those places don’t have? ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE TO SUPPORT THE STUPID AMOUNT OF POWER AI NEEDS!!!!!!!

Now the obvious solution is that the AI bros of Google and Microsoft and whoever the fuck just use their BILLIONS OF FUCKING DOLLARS IN PROFIT to be good neighbors and upgrade the fucking systems because truly what is the downside to that everybody fucking wins!

But what do I know. I’m just friendly neighborhood engineer.

*hops down from soapbox*

[somer-writes]

more pestilence au ramblings XD this has taken over my interests bc im a freak:

sky had prophetic dreams about the curse. he did make attempts to warn others by speaking to sun who's a priestess in training. he mostly got ignored. sky feels responsible for not doing more

four's been a little weirdo and has taken over the akkala lab to experiment with gloom. he forged the first gloom weapons. they're somewhat fragile but he's gotten better. he can now make an okay sword, arrows, and a spear if he has the right materials. typically he makes simple knives but theyre somewhat brittle

wars and wind are cousins (distantly) but wars went to outset for wind, aryll, and his great aunt. he and wind are now searching for aryll together

the depths are beneath the sewers. the first entry into the depths was discovered in the gerudo desert but was quickly closed off bc theyre so dangerous. things in the depths cant survive in the light

ganons tomb was unearthed during an excavation project on the old castle ruins. its a direct entry into the depths

the great fairies can heal gloom and temporarily apply an anti gloom buff to clothing

wild and twi do a lot of depths exploring. hyrule also does a lot of depths exploring just to forage brightblooms

legend, hyrule, and fable are classmates and lived down the street from each other. they ended up surviving together within the first few weeks under legend's uncle's care. legend's uncle got infected

the yiga arent immune to the gloom but are aiding the curse. they're trying to eliminate the zeldas and links in order to prevent the curse being undone

sun and dusk are surviving together but are stuck in the depths

lullaby and dot have been missing since the outbreak at the castle. they are half sisters. lullaby is being groomed for coronation, but both are crown princesses.

tetra is unaware of her light magic

dawn is hiding in the lost woods

lon lon is pretty much off the grid. with power cut off they rely on a solar generator to give them about 3 hours worth of electricity per day. they have their own well/pumps, a fireplace, and are self sufficient with farming and animals

[moreuglyhousephotos]

CAN YOU SAY ADOBE? (part 1 of 2) - Very unique home site in McNeal, Arizona on 17 acres. Three adobe domes plus a straw bale pump house. Off-grid living. Private well. Two solar systems. Two Humanure outhouses! 8-14-24

[energy-5]

Incorporating Renewable Energy into Your EV Charging Routine

The shift towards electric vehicles (EVs) has been a significant stride in the collective effort to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. As the electric vehicle market continues to grow, with global sales hitting over 6.6 million in 2021, a 108% increase from the previous year, the focus now turns to how we power these vehicles. Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources for EV charging is the next critical step in ensuring that the benefits of EVs are fully realized. This article explores the ways in which individuals and communities can incorporate renewable energy into their EV charging routines.

Firstly, the concept of 'green charging'—the process of using renewable energy to charge electric vehicles—is not only environmentally sound but also increasingly economically viable. The cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems has dropped by about 90% since 2010, making it an accessible option for many. Homeowners with EVs can install solar panels to capture energy during the day, which can then be used to charge their vehicles in the evening. For those without the option to install solar panels, choosing a green energy provider for their home charging setup that sources electricity from renewables is an effective alternative.

In addition to solar power, wind energy is another potent source for EV charging. Wind energy has experienced a dramatic increase in its adoption, with the global wind power capacity reaching 837 GW in 2021, an increase of 93% from the capacity in 2016. EV owners can tap into this resource by purchasing wind energy credits or by selecting energy plans that prioritize wind-sourced electricity. This ensures that the energy used for charging their EVs comes from clean sources, even if they are not directly connected to a wind farm.

The integration of smart chargers has made it easier for EV owners to charge their vehicles when renewable energy production is at its peak. Smart chargers can be programmed to operate when renewable energy generation is high, which usually coincides with low demand periods such as mid-day for solar or night-time for wind. By doing so, EV owners ensure their vehicles are charged using the cleanest energy possible while also taking advantage of lower energy prices during these off-peak times.

Another key element in aligning EV charging with renewable energy is the development of a robust public charging infrastructure that is powered by renewables. Governments and private companies are investing in the installation of public EV charging stations that are directly connected to renewable energy sources. For instance, in California, which leads the US with over 39% of the country's EV sales, there is a plan to install 250,000 charging stations by 2025, many of which will be powered by renewables.

On a larger scale, energy storage systems play a vital role in matching renewable energy supply with EV charging demand. Energy storage solutions, like lithium-ion batteries or pumped hydro storage, can store excess renewable energy generated during peak production times. This stored energy can then be used to provide a consistent and reliable source of green electricity for EV charging, regardless of the time of day or weather conditions.

There is also a growing trend towards vehicle-to-grid (V2G) systems, where EVs do not just consume power but also have the capability to return energy to the grid. This technology allows for a dynamic energy exchange where EVs can be charged during renewable energy peak production and then supply energy back to the grid when it's needed the most. This not only ensures optimal use of renewable energy but also provides stability to the energy grid and potentially offers financial benefits to EV owners.

Finally, to truly capitalize on renewable energy for EV charging, there needs to be increased collaboration between policymakers, renewable energy providers, and the automotive industry. Incentives for residential and commercial solar installations, tax benefits for purchasing green energy, and subsidies for smart chargers are just a few of the ways that can accelerate the adoption of renewable-powered EV charging.

[reasonsforhope]

African poverty is partly a consequence of energy poverty. In every other continent the vast majority of people have access to electricity. In Africa 600m people, 43% of the total, cannot readily light their homes or charge their phones. And those who nominally have grid electricity find it as reliable as a Scottish summer. More than three-quarters of African firms experience outages; two-fifths say electricity is the main constraint on their business.

If other sub-Saharan African countries had enjoyed power as reliable as South Africa’s from 1995 to 2007, then the continent’s rate of real GDP growth per person would have been two percentage points higher, more than doubling the actual rate, according to one academic paper. Since then South Africa has also had erratic electricity. So-called “load-shedding” is probably the main reason why the economy has shrunk in four of the past eight quarters.

Solar power is increasingly seen as the solution. Last year Africa installed a record amount of photovoltaic (PV) capacity (though this still made up just 1% of the total added worldwide), notes the African Solar Industry Association (AFSIA), a trade group. Globally most solar PV is built by utilities, but in Africa 65% of new capacity over the past two years has come from large firms contracting directly with developers. These deals are part of a decentralised revolution that could be of huge benefit to African economies.

Ground zero for the revolution is South Africa. Last year saw a record number of blackouts imposed by Eskom, the state-run utility, whose dysfunctional coal-fired power stations regularly break down or operate at far below capacity. Fortunately, as load-shedding was peaking, the costs of solar systems were plummeting.

Between 2019 and 2023 the cost of panels fell by 15%, having already declined by almost 90% in the 2010s. Meanwhile battery storage systems now cost about half as much as five years ago. Industrial users pay 20-40% less per unit when buying electricity from private project developers than on the cheapest Eskom tariff.

In the past two calendar years the amount of solar capacity in South Africa rose from 2.8GW to 7.8GW, notes AFSIA, excluding that installed on the roofs of suburban homes. All together South Africa’s solar capacity could now be almost a fifth of that of Eskom’s coal-fired power stations (albeit those still have a higher “capacity factor”, or ability to produce electricity around the clock). The growth of solar is a key reason why there has been less load-shedding in 2024...

Over the past decade the number of startups providing “distributed renewable energy” (DRE) has grown at a clip. Industry estimates suggest that more than 400m Africans get electricity from solar home systems and that more than ten times as many “mini-grids”, most of which use solar, were built in 2016-20 than in the preceding five years. In Kenya DRE firms employ more than six times as many people as the largest utility. In Nigeria they have created almost as many jobs as the oil and gas industry.

“The future is an extremely distributed system to an extent that people haven’t fully grasped,” argues Matthew Tilleard of CrossBoundary Group, a firm whose customers range from large businesses to hitherto unconnected consumers. “It’s going to happen here in Africa first and most consequentially.”

Ignite, which operates in nine African countries, has products that include a basic panel that powers three light bulbs and a phone charger, as well as solar-powered irrigation pumps, stoves and internet routers, and industrial systems. Customers use mobile money to “unlock” a pay-as-you-go meter.

Yariv Cohen, Ignite’s CEO, reckons that the typical $3 per month spent by consumers is less than what they previously paid for kerosene and at phone-charging kiosks. He describes how farmers are more productive because they do not have to get home before dark and children are getting better test scores because they study under bulbs. One family in Rwanda used to keep their two cows in their house because they feared rustlers might come in the dark; now the cattle snooze al fresco under an outside lamp and the family gets more sleep.

...That is one eye-catching aspect of Africa’s solar revolution. But most of the continent is undergoing a more subtle—and significant—experiment in decentralised, commercially driven solar power. It is a trend that could both transform African economies and offer lessons to the rest of the world."

-via The Economist, June 18, 2024. Paragraph breaks added.

[neoatlantiscodex]

Neo-Atlantis Codex: Part III: Grid Storage

So, you want to use some unstable form of power. Wind and Solar are the biggest ones, but we could also add tidal and microhydro to the list.

Currently, 95% of grid power storage, world wide, is pumped hydro. This is in theorygood, as it does work. The problem is that regions that can use pumped hydro will typically have geography to use regular hydro, which is very, very, very efficient. But you can add pumped hydro to an existing system.

For home power storage, we use chemical cells. Typically Lithium. By current estimates, we do not have enough lithium and cobalt in the world to replace our cars, nevermind the entire grid. A lot of the mining is also done by child slaves in Africa. They also use water leeching, which works. but also uses a LOT of fresh water. It's often done in deserts, in which fresh water is the most precious thing you can have.

Lithium is also EXTREMELY flammable.

What about other chemicals? Well, we can make chemical cells out of salt water and iron. This used to require a pump, and which made it hard to miniaturize. Anything mechanical is also prone to mechanical breakdown. They have recently developed technology to elimitate the use of pumps. It's still not good for grid storage, but would be good for home power storage. It might make sense to move to a paradigm that the state provides power when it can, and homes had to store their own power. This would work, although it would require a complete change of our paradigm, and would be expensive for the poor. Which is the problem for anything to do with power, as any increase in energy cost punishes the poor, and will drop people into poverty. It will also kill off the vulnerable.

Earth Batteries. You take something with a high durability and heat capacity, like earth, stone, brick, etc. You put it inside an insulated shell. You have a heater inside. Power added from the outside becomes heat inside. The heat can be kept for a week without too much loss. You can either use this directly for heat, or use it to heat water into steam. Doing so would allow it to produce electricity. This is suitable for neighbourhoods or industrial applications. The problem with a steam engine is that you would likely need a steam engineer, which are expensive. It would also require individual neighbourhoods to be self-governing villages/shires, which would help with so many other problems. We'll talk about this later in Neo-Atlantis government/electoral system. This would reduce the work required from other parts of the power system, and in theory, in some areas, these neighbourhoods/villages/shires/wards could be entirely self-generating. If California could shed it's horrifying Fascist control, it has more than enough sunlight that individual neighbourhoods could be self-generating if it could store the power. This would also prevent blackouts. Everytime I look back, it gets further way, but in 2003, the entire Eastern side of Canada, and the New England had a power outage. Because of how connected the grids are. Independent neighbourhood production would completely eliminated this. If you had a tree down over the power lines, it would hurt at most, one neighbourhood.

Compressed air storage. The best usage of this is, funny enough, CO2. You have a giant balloon, kind of an expanding membrane. You hook it up to a pump and a turbine and heat exchanger. Power causes the pump to pump the CO2 from the balloon into the tank. You release CO2 from the tank through the turbine, and it produces power. The big drawback for this is that it requires a lot of space. Which makes it perfect for isolated solar / wind power plants. This also requires nothing in the way of novel technology, and is perfect for large grid storage.

Hydrogen. Contrary to expectations, hydrogen fuel cells never went away. Both Toyota and Hyundai have production Hydrogen fuel cell cars. Hydrogen combustion cars are also perfectly viable, if not currently commencial. Hydrogen can be produced from water through electrolysis, though not efficiently so. It can be produced mechanically from natural gas / methane; the mechanical converters use a portion of the power they produce to power themselves. Before the government were... what?.. afraid the fuel cells might actualy work? I'm old enough to remember the promise of a Hydrogen Highway from California to British Columbia to allow you to drive hydrogen fuel cell cars up and down the coast. Well, they forgot about that. Before this happened, there was a research group that made it with algae in glass tubes. All you needed to do was pump water through them. People in California could probably add it to a closed system in their car.

Synthetic Fuel. Synthetic fuel has been used, in a small scale, in racing for years. Formula 1 is also planning to replace it's entire usage with synthetic fuel in the future, apparently from atmospheric carbon dioxide and wind power. This would have the advantage of requiring no time or money to implement. It would use our existing fuel infrastructure, while also allowing the small producers to be created everywhere.

[andyhe]

DA lithium battery for Eco Friendly RV

You’re in the right place if needed a much more Eco-friendly RV.

You wouldn’t throw the ice cream in the living room, Nor Key scratching the brand new car. We knows how to take good care of what we concerns. There is no different with our own planet, right? For those adventurers out there who want to preserve nature while enjoying RV life, here are our favorite eco-friendly RV tips.

Your Eco-Friendly RV – Tips & Tricks

Yes, you can indulge your RV wanderlust and go green at the same time. Here’s how:

Reduce on Fossil Fuels

You probably know that RVs are heavy on fuel. This is neither environmentally friendly nor good for the wallet. Since the average diesel RV only gets 8-14 miles per gallon, it’s imperative to maximize fuel efficiency. Try these RV tips to reduce gas:

Go for a smaller vehicle. If you’re in the market for an RV and want to minimize gas consumption, opt for a smaller Class C motorhome, or even a Class B van. The bigger the rig, the more gasoline it consumes.

Stay up-to-date with maintenance. Small tweaks can make a huge difference. For example, keeping your tires properly inflated can improve fuel consumption by up to 3%. 

Change to bio–diesel fuel.  Bio-diesel is a renewable, biodegradable fuel made from animal fats, vegetable oils, or recycled restaurant grease. Not currently available at all gas stations. But it’s growing in popularity, and you can use this handy online tool to find alternative gas stations near you.

Press the accelerator lightly. Slow down and enjoy the scenic route. By accelerating less and maintaining a moderate speed, you save fuel. The best speed for an RV is 55 to 60 mph.

Travel light. Only bring travel essentials. Dead weight will slow your RV down and cost you more fuel.

Pro Tip: Switch to lithium RV batteries and reduce hitch weight by up to 70%. The weight of ion lithium RV battery is 1/2 of lead-acid battery with the same capacity.

Charge Your Gadgets With The Power Of The Sun

Most of us use a ton of gadgets every day. Think cell phones, laptops, cameras, and more. Since they all need to be charged, why not reduce energy consumption and use solar energy? After all, solar energy is a completely renewable energy source.

By calculating and armed with solar panels, inverter&controller, most important with our stable and security DA lithium battery pack, You are allowed to charge your gadgets from anywhere. Whether you’re staying in your RV or backpacking in the mountains for the weekend, it never hurts to have solar power at your disposal. Even better, charging your devices with solar power is better for the environment.

Try Your Hand At Dry Camping Or Boondocking 

Dry camping and boondocking are some of the best ways to make your RV eco friendly. They are also fun! If you can ditch the connection for a few nights, you’ll be rewarded with open spaces and starry skies, especially for the rednecks out there.

Just because you’re off the grid doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to be uncomfortable. With high-efficiency household batteries, you can still power essentials like water systems, lighting, and ceiling fans. But not just any battery will do. You need a reliable and energy-efficient power supply to power your weekends.

With our trusty 12V LiFePO4 battery, you can forget about electrical connections and enjoy nature.

Pro Tip: Use the 12V lithium battery (series or parallel connection) to charge and power your lights, fans and pumps, even when you’re in the middle of nowhere. Lithium is the best RV battery ever for boondocking as it is efficient, reliable and environmentally safe. 

Switch to Smart, Energy Efficient Lithium Batteries

You can make a huge leap toward Eco friendly RVing with this one small step: switch to lithium RV batteries. Here’s why:

Lithium is toxin-free. While lead-acid batteries may be the cheapest option for an RV, they’re not the greenest. They contain harmful substances, including sulfuric acid and lead. This is why they require maintenance and must be stored properly to prevent spills from contaminating the environment. Lithium batteries are a safer, smarter, environmentally friendly RV alternative. They are non-toxic, non-spillable and recyclable. You can even store them indoors.

Lithium is smart. Lithium batteries are smart batteries because they have a battery management system(BMS) that prevents overcharging (and subsequent damage). They could also access to your phone via Bluetooth. With a few taps, you can see exactly how much energy is left and the statements of every single cell’s healthy.

Lithium is more efficient. Lithium batteries support charge @100% efficiently, while lead-acid batteries charge @85 % efficiently. You can use a smaller and less expensive solar setup to charge lithium than you can charge a similar sized lead-acid battery. Because of their efficiency, lithium battery packs run out of power much less frequently. This is important when you need to use limited power wisely, such as when you’re boondocking!

Quick Tips for Eco Friendly RV Living

Cutting down on fossil fuel use, staying off the grid, harnessing solar power, and switching to smart batteries are all major ways to turn your home-on-the-go into an Eco friendly RV. But here are a few more RV tips to help you go even greener:

Use enzyme-based tank cleaners instead of chemical-based cleaners for your RV toilet.

Switch out basic bulbs and replace them with energy-saving LED lights. 

Use reusable, lightweight plates and utensils instead of disposable plastic and polyfoam.

Conserve water by bringing your own water filtration system and using the water around you. Install a water-saving shower head to reduce waste. 

Leave no trace! Take everything you brought to the campsite with you when you leave.