Solarpunk technology

I recall seeing elsewhere (I think the solarpunk subreddit?) a few years ago that someone made a non-electric washing machine using a bicycle. Are there any tutorials anywhere someone could recommend me? I’d love to try and make one someday.

Note: I'm new to Lemmy and mistakenly posted this under "meta." Still getting used to communities and figuring out the cross-posting thing!

Here is the link to the study.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, say their solar-powered reactor could be used to make fuel to power cars and planes, or the many chemicals and pharmaceuticals products we rely on. It could also be used to generate fuel in remote or off-grid locations.

Unlike most carbon capture technologies, the reactor developed by the Cambridge researchers does not require fossil-fuel-based power, or the transport and storage of carbon dioxide, but instead converts atmospheric CO2 into something useful using sunlight. The results are reported in the journal Nature Energy.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been touted as a possible solution to the climate crisis, and has recently received £22bn in funding from the UK government. However, CCS is energy-intensive and there are concerns about the long-term safety of storing pressurised CO2 deep underground, although safety studies are currently being carried out.

This article has some more details.

About three years ago I bought a new otoscope and ophthalmoscope set from Welch Allyn. (An otoscope is the thing doctors and other healthcare workers use to look in your ears, and an ophthalmoscope is the same but for eyes.) They're fairly simple devices conceptually, just a light source plus various lenses and filters. Welch Allyn is probably the best-known manufacturer of these and generally considered a reliable brand. You'll find their diagnostic sets on the walls of many hospitals. Like most reputable medical manufacturers they charge a premium price; I think my set cost about $600 Australian dollars, and it was one of the cheapest available.

Within two years the switches on both devices were flaky. They wouldn't turn on at all, or would only turn on when I pressed and moved the switch in just the right way with just the right pressure, or they would flicker. Supremely frustrating when trying to examine a patient under time pressure, and galling that I paid so much money for a product less reliable than a torch I could buy at the local supermarket.

I needed a replacement and I was determined not to give a cent more to Welch Allyn, but I was struggling to find an alternative that wasn't just 'give $1000 to a different supposedly reputable big corporation and hope they have better quality control'. Then I found some forum posts from doctors in the UK that mentioned the Arclight. I'd never heard of it but it looked interesting and was only $102, so I bought one to try it out.

The Arclight was invented by an ophthalmologist who trying to find a way to get health services in developing countries easier access to essential equipment like ophthalmoscopes, and an optometrist 'tinkerer' who was experimenting with simplifying the traditional ophthalmoscope design. It combines a radically simplified ophthalmoscope and an otoscope into a single device, which can also act as a light source and loupe (magnifier) for general examination. It uses LEDs for a reliable and low-energy light source, and can be charged by both USB-C and an integrated solar cell. Every spare surface of the Arclight has useful features crammed onto it, too many to list them all: a pocket clip and a lanyard loop, a ruler, visual references for examining different parts of the eye. Even the specula – the pointy plastic bits that go inside your ear while it is being examined, usually a single-use consumable – have been carefully designed: cheap enough to be single-use, but also easy to sterilise and re-use. If all of this wasn't enough, the Arclight actually has better optics than my old Welch Allyn set: better magnification, bigger field of view, light sources that have been carefully considered to deliver different colour temperatures depending on their function and with adjustable brightness.

It's hard to put into words how good it feels to use the Arclight. I'm so used to products designed to make a profit, to reduce manufacturing costs, to steal my attention, to impress my neighbours, to harvest my data, to create friction that makes me want to upgrade or accessorise, to make me buy cartridges or refills or other consumables, to make me buy a subscription, to look good on a billboard, to satisfy the marketing department, to satisfy the shareholders, to satisfy the purchasing department because it ticks boxes on a feature list or because 'nobody ever got fired for buying IBM'. The Arclight is designed purely to be a tool that helps me get my job done: pragmatic, simple, reliable, beholden to no interest other than the task at hand. It's incredibly cheap compared to the alternatives, and the Arclight project charges higher prices to customers in developed countries so they can subsidise them for developing countries. Even if the switch breaks after two years and I have to replace it, I'll still have the satisfaction of knowing I'm getting excellent value for money while helping out people who need it.

I don't believe that everything should be designed like the Arclight. There's room for ornamentation, for form over function, for luxury, for sturdier and more durable materials and build quality at accordingly higher prices. I do however wish very strongly that more of the things I use every day were like the Arclight, or at least had an alternative like it that I could choose if I wanted.

Archived

As the world races to decarbonise its energy systems, Europe faces mounting challenges in competing with global powerhouses like China and the US in PV manufacturing. To address these challenges, the European Technology and Innovation Platform for Photovoltaics (ETIP PV) has emerged as a key player in fostering collaboration, innovation and strategic policymaking among European countries.

“PV is a global technology,” Rutger Schlattmann, chair of ETIP PV and head of the Solar Energy division at Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin, tells PV Tech Premium. “The technology is developed worldwide, and some of the effort should be done across countries because these challenges are bigger than what individual countries – especially the smaller ones – can afford.”

....

Meanwhile, the EU sets a new record for renewable energy use in 2024.

In the European Union (EU), 47% of electricity now comes from renewable sources like wind and solar, a new record according to a report from the think tank Ember. This is a far higher percentage than in other countries, including the United States and China, where about two-thirds of energy comes from fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and gas.

...

The share of electricity produced by renewables jumped to 47% last year compared to 34% in 2019, in large part due to strong growth in solar and wind energy. In 2024, 11% of the EU’s electricity came from solar power, 17% from wind, and 24% from nuclear. The share produced by traditional fossil fuels dropped from 39% in 2019 to 29% in 2024.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/177389

Yeah, I think massive chemical batteries for storing excess electricity to facilitate a contrived green energy market is a bad idea.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18000579

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18000578

Archived link

Ed Miliband is facing demands to introduce new measures to stop Britain using solar panels made by the Uighurs, an oppressed Muslim minority in western China, as part of his race towards net zero.

A cross-party group of peers has called for the energy secretary to introduce safeguards that prevent UK renewable energy companies from importing Chinese components made by slave labour.

It comes as the House of Lords debates Labour’s flagship legislation to establish Great British Energy, a publicly-owned company that will help deliver the government’s green transition.

Senior parliamentarians are concerned about the supply chains of renewable energy companies, many of which rely on products from China. In particular, there are questions around solar panels, which often contain polysilicon. Nearly half of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon is produced in the Xinjiang region of China where more than 2.6 million people, mostly from the Uighur ethnic group, have been subjected to forced labour in detention camps.

Academics, politicians and human rights groups have long warned that forced labour is rife there, including in the sourcing of polysilicon, with 11 companies in the region identified as being engaged in forced labour transfers.

[...]

To prevent UK energy supply chains being tainted by forced labour, a group of peers has now tabled an amendment to the bill, which, if approved, would prevent any public funds being given to companies involved with GB Energy where there is “credible evidence of modern slavery in the supply chain”.

[...]

Luke de Pulford, the executive director of Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said: “Labour has gone from an admirably strong position on the persecution of Uighurs to energy policies which facilitate it. It’s an absolute 180 in policy terms. Now the chancellor is in Beijing meeting with China’s génocidaires.

“Whatever the economic imperative, the consciences of politicians across both Houses should not permit the rush to net zero to be achieved on the back of Uighur slavery.”

[...]

Here we have a fully 3D printed low-cost optical microscope using both a 3D printed chassis and ..yes.. 3D printed illumination and imaging optics too!

I just saw this presentation at the Chaos Computer Club conference, for an “Ethical Hardware Kit with a PCB microcontroller made of wild clay retrieved from the forest in Austria and fired on a bonfire. Our conductive tracks use urban-mined silver and all components are re-used from old electronic devices”. It was part of the feminist hardware strand!

I first thought about posting this in !hydroponics@slrpnk.net, but then I remembered that salt removal is not only beneficial in hydro gardening, but also done worldwide to get access to drinking water. To survive.

I'm mainly looking for ways to get pure water (without, or at least with less than before, dissolved salts), because the tap water is very hard where I live.
But, I think most methods that remove "my" salts (around 300 ppm of stuff like calcium, carbonates, etc.) could also remove salt from sea water to make it drinkable.

Right now, I can think of those few options:

• Reverse Osmosis: this is the method I currently use, and which is also industrially used everywhere, including sea water purification. It's pretty great.

Problem: a big part is very salty waste water, which is usually pumped right back into the sea, which creates oversalty dead zones, or, in my case, over 5 parts "waste" water per 1 part pure water.

I have a hard time using all this (still clean and perfectly usable) water. Currently, I just flush my toilet with it, but it's still kinda annoying.

• Rainwater collection: not technically salt removal, but more of a way to get already pure water. I do that in summer, but now, in winter, that's not feasible. Also, there's dirt in it.

• Distillation: extremely energy intensive on larger scales, and with smaller passive ways (e.g. foil tents that collect condensates) it's very ineffective.

• Boiling it: I do that too sometimes. Boiling removes carbonates, and makes some minerals precipitate out of solution. But that isn't proper salt removal, it's just better than nothing for me.

• Freezing it: in the lab, many chemicals are recrystallized after synthesis to purify them, because molecules like to link to each other, and then "push out" any impurities from the crystals. If I just take a bucket of tap water, put it out overnight at negative degrees, and then melt the ice crust above, is the surface ice theoretically pure water?

What other ideas do you have?

This manual explains how to assemble an electrically heated and insulated table that keeps you toasty warm in a cold space.

For centuries, many cultures have used heated tables for thermal comfort in cold weather. Examples are the “kotatsu” in Japan, the “korsi” in the Middle East, and the “brasero de picon” in Spain. A heat source goes under a table, a blanket goes over it, and people slide their legs underneath. The micro-climate under the blanket keeps you comfortable, even though the space in which you find yourself is cold.

The heated table is an excellent example of our ancestors’ energy-efficient way of warming: heating people, not spaces.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17632856

Study download: Progress in Diversifying the Global Solar PV Supply Chain (pdf)

TLDR:

Until the end of this decade, China and Chinese manufacturers will retain some domination over the global solar PV chain. However, the global solar PV supply chain is becoming more robust thanks to the diversification of crystalline silicon modules manufacturing capacity in the United States, Europe, Southeast Asia, and India, according to a report by Japan's Renewable Energy Institute.

In the 2030s, improvements in solar PV recycling and the widespread adoption of new technologies like perovskite cells, which development is led by China (glass substrate) and Japan (film substrate), will provide new opportunities to further diversify the global solar PV supply chain.

This progress will strengthen worldwide energy security and facilitate the much-needed acceleration of the energy transition.

Geographic concentration of the global solar supply chain exposes the supply chain to some drawbacks, the report finds. The potential disruption risks associated with this type of concentration include natural hazards such as earthquakes and fires, and extreme weather events such as drought and flooding. "For instance, in 2020 and 2022, the global production of polysilicon was reduced because of flooding and fire issues at a handful of Chinese plants," the study says.

The report also mentions both the situation in China's Xinjiang region and Uyghur forced labour as well as China's coal intensity as concerns with China's dominance of global solar supply chain as main drivers of diversification. While citing "human rights violations, unfair trade practices, and environmental pollution," the study criticizes that "the lack of transparency [across supply chains within China] has made it increasingly difficult to verify whether supply chains are free from risk of Uyghur forced labor and reduces trust in the solar industry."

Key Findings:

• As of September 2024, 99% of the world’s solar PV modules manufacturing capacity was based on crystalline silicon because this technology is inexpensive, performant, and durable. Approximately three-fourths of the economic value of crystalline silicon modules come from four minerals: silicon, silver, aluminum, and copper, which productions are generally not excessively geographically concentrated.

• Throughout the entire solar PV supply chain (i.e., polysilicon, ingots, wafers, cells, and modules), the shares of China and Chinese manufacturers often largely exceeded 80% and they were sometimes close to 100%. It is undesirable for any supply chain to be so dependent on a single country. This is the reason why diversification efforts are led across the world (e.g., United States, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and India).

• The Chinese industry dominates the solar PV supply chain because it has managed to maximize economies of scale and because it is well-organized around vertically integrated companies. Moreover, the Chinese solar PV industry is innovative and effectively supported by its government. Also, it benefits from affordable electricity prices, which is critical as solar PV manufacturing is electricity intensive.

• The Chinese solar PV industry is confronted with harsh criticisms due to human rights violations, unfair trade practices, and environmental pollution due to its reliance on coal power. Furthermore, China’s aggressive export strategy is blamed for solar PV products oversupply resulting in rock-bottom prices and economic losses.

• In the United States, a combination of subsidies (i.e., tax credits) and protectionist measures have been implemented. Many new projects have been announced, they now need to be realized.

• Europe tries to balance its own interests between increasing its manufacturing capacity and taking advantage of cheap Chinese imports. So far, priority has been given to demand over domestic supply as reducing electricity prices and greenhouse gas emissions are deemed more urgent issues.

• Japan puts the emphasis on perovskite cells, a promising technology that is not fully ready for commercial deployment yet. This strategy should, however, not be used as an excuse for not more proactively installing crystalline silicon. Affordable and rapid decarbonization does not need to wait for perovskite to become mainstream.

• Despite catching less attention, Southeast Asia and India significantly contribute to the diversification of the solar PV supply chain. In Southeast Asia, labor costs are low, and energy is subsidized. In India domestic-content requirements and customs duties have been implemented.

• In addition to these efforts, solar PV recycling and new technologies, like perovskite, hold the potential to be alternatives to Chinese crystalline silicon modules in the 2030s. To take off, these solutions need more governmental support.