said 8 billion people in unison
RoboGroMo
joined 2 years ago
a lot of infrastructure developments are nearing completion too which makes it easier to integrate new renewable projects, hopefully we'll see an increase in tied usage for industries which can best make use of power at peek times as a way of stabilising the grid - when it's windy they make hydrogen or extract carbon from the air using the excess energy then turn off when power generation levels fall, the more this replaces traditional constant use systems the easier it and more productive it is to add renewables to the grid especially at scale.
A similar thing is likely to emerge with electric cars, e-bikes, and other battery devices, smart meter tariffs which allow people to set it to only charge when the grid has power to spare and prices are lower - if they're paired with home solar and localised generation then it could really help take the pressure off long distance transmission lines.
I would love to see train tracks with solar panels above, the infrastructure could be used for energy transport as well to load balance between localized generation networks. There's certainly a lot more that could be done with rail lines, the key is not to expect one size fits all solutions and to work on developing integrated networks with whatever suits the local situation best.
Depends where your skills and interests lay but maybe consider making the coolest window box you can grow small leaf and herbs in to add to your cooking.
Maybe even consider starting plants to the stage they're ready to plant out and find someone with shared interests local who has a garden.
Yeah, it's not yet got everything Reddit had but I've found a lot of great communities which are really enjoyable to participate in so I'm enjoying it more here
Yeah everything about this just makes it ever more clear that we need to escape the manipulation of the big tech companies because they'll all work together to establish their monopoly and milk us for every penny
Everything is limited in what crops it can grow, if we can maximize the productivity of space in semi urban areas then we can use the other space for crops that best suit it - grains are great for distant rural farms because they store so well, same with potato, etc where you can fill a huge truck and drive into the city once every season but stuff like greens and herbs lose so much after only a few days from being picked so you either need expensive chilling or other processing or a small lorry taking a load every few days which really isn't a great way of doing anything
It can also be really good in areas where the climate isn't great for year round growing, with enough PV you'll still get enough to power the LEDs which you can put close above the plants and have on for 17 hours where as the natural sun might not be as bright or steady, also if you have like a wall unit inside then you don't need to worry about frost, slow growth due to cold or hot weather scorching. Having herbs growing inside really improves the quality of a room too, that fresh smell is nice.
Freshness is such a key thing, the difference is taste is so significant especially with herbs and greens so enabling people to have an easy to manage and small footprint little tower of good food in their garden, balcony, or similar would be really good especially for renters if it could be packed up for transport then resembled in the new location.
Yeah so much amazing potential, I've working on some ideas for a semi automated wall system, the idea is you have rows that are basically rails and you slide a pod in with seeds one side and take out the top one to harvest and reseed - the unit has a glass front so it's like a thin greenhouse, provides a little extra insulation and protection for the house as well as using the escaping heat in winter to keep the plants a little warmer, probably not ideal for a hot climate but somewhere like the UK it would be perfect.
It would be for things like leaf greens, maybe radish, short carrots, or other quick growing veg that would be good to have on a continuous cycle. I want it to have a single place to put water in and possibly a tap connection or tank so people can pretty much fill and forget - the glass should keep it safe from burgling little birdies that like to sneak into greenhouses and eat all the shoots, as well as other pests.
For the test ones I'm going to build I got some big bits of perspex used as COVID screens that shops were going to bin, well worth looking out for as such a waste otherwise. I made some clay from a hole I dug in my garden so would love to make a lot of it from earthenware, if I can get some good designs I'd love to make 3d printable molds. It's energy intensive firing ceramics but I saw some amazing solar concentrater kilns which would be great for a small collective or something making something similar.
Looks interesting, I'll give it a listen thanks
also we need communities already experimenting with living like that or it'll be a mess, for example I've never eaten meat in my life and as a kid people couldn't even begin to grasp that it was possible - i'd constantly get asked 'what do you eat then?!' but I haven't heard that question in years, closest to it is likely to be 'what do you have at Christmas' then when i say nut roast they no long say 'whats that?' they say 'oh i had a great nut roast once...'
As a kid family holidays used to involve stopping at the only cafe that had something without meat on the menu, now even McDonalds has a wide vegan selection (in the uk). If someone had come out in the 80s and ended the meet subsidies then it would fail instantly, if it happened now there would certainly be a large backlash but the majority of people would be able to shift their consumption patterns without many problems - the policy might have a fighting chance. Even the meat-and-two guys that i know regularly have meet free dinners, it's really common to only eat meat once or twice a week.
Of course if i was made dictator for life i'd bring in sweeping changes that ban all the evil practices which make the meat industry possible, but that's not going to happen - what is going to happen is it's going to continue to get easier and cheaper to eat plant based diets, we're going to see endless headlines like 'largest dairy producer announces closure amid increasing popularity of oat milk', it'll shift from the beef industry having a hugely powerful lobby backed by billions of dollars to the beef lobby being Joe Rogan and Liverking yelling at clouds about how they need to consume flesh to feel manly. When someone suggests banning an awful and disgusting practice within the meat industry the general consensus will be 'yeah i can go without that if it's damaging to the environment and cruel to the animals' so policy change will actually be possible.
Just shrugging and saying 'it's not going to happen overnight so i'll just keep eating meat until it does' is absolutely mindless, the bath is never going to fill if the tap isn't turned on - eating without meat helps fund and sustain the systems which makes it possible, it helps make it easier for other people to also eat without meat -- even if it's only dropping meat where it's convenient it's helping take power from the meat industry, by making a conscious choice to avoid meat you're joining an increasing number of people who do the same which represents a sizeable portion of the market - the more that gets catered to the large it grows.
Yes it's true that no one person is going to change things but when we start to move in the right direction it makes it easier for others to move that way also. This is the same with reusable bottles, using public transport, refilling containers at the store instead of single use plastics...