I've seen a couple cutesy posts about leaf-shaped solar panels, talking about how rectangular solar panels are inefficient and we only build them that way because it's cheaper, while the real secret most efficient way to do solar is by mimicking leaves, all in a "silly scientists, why didn't you just look at nature" sort of tone. And on top of the tone, the (unsourced) numbers they quoted were...pretty silly, to be honest.
So for the record, if you see someone talking about a solar design having efficiencies >90%...that would magically be the most efficient solar technology on the planet. Compare this record-setting solar cell tech from NREL at 47%. Most commercial solar panels are about 15-20% efficiency (that is, the percentage of solar energy converted into usable electricity).
The only things I've seen about leaf-shaped solar panels increasing efficiency is something like this, where they found that adding a layer of adhesive on top that mimics a leaf's wrinkles and folds increases the efficiency of light harvesting, because the wrinkles concentrate the light.
On the positive side, that's very similar to other work on producing hyper-efficient solar panels, like this one that uses a honeycomb of lens to bend light and concentrate it on the solar cells - so maybe we should romanticize honeycomb panels instead.
@kropotkindersurprise @hater-of-terfs @guerrillatech Indigenous people need comrades who can come to Minnesota to stand up for our basic human rights and oppose Line 3 on August 25. Please spread the word
[ID description: a tiktok by user giiwedinindizhinikaaz]
Hey there water protector! Yes, anyone can be a water protector, you do not have to be Indigenous, you just need to heed that call when the water calls you to protect her because we all know: water is life and we all need it. And it is a human right to have access to clean drinking water for everyone, anywhere.
[A poster appears on screen. It reads: "Treaties Not Tar Sands AUG 25, 2021". It depicts a crowd of protestors with drums, flags and banners saying "Stop Line 3" in above a Capitol building]
And this is why myself and other Anishinaabe people here in Minnesota are inviting people to come with us to the State Capitol here in Minnesota - which is Saint Paul - to occupy space, and to show President Biden that we do not want this goshdarn pipeline, here or anywhere on stolen land. And so please, I invite you to come out, catch a plane - there is MSP, the Minnesota Saint Paul airport - drive out here, but I do understand that there are people who cannot be here and that is ok. But we are hoping for people to be here en masse and in the thousands.
You can find more information on stopline3.org, it is also linked in my bio.
much of the shortsighted âgarden in every backyardâ solarpunk vision of the future is also really rooted in the american obsession with âself-sufficientâ capitalist independence imho.Â
not a criticism on anyone with a backyard garden, ovbs!! i think backyard gardens are really significant because 1) immediate food aid 2) they give people the chance to develop a personal relationship with nature, which is so important and life changing and a necessary step in being a meaningful steward of the ecosystem on every level. BUT capitalism is still keeping you alienated from everything beyond your backyard, and you canât give away enough zucchini to fix those structural problems.
and again. itâs easy to turn your brain off and get lost in the pleasure of Having Stuff and the ways that you, personally, are better for your involvement with your backyard garden. we just have to not get complacent with those material victories, and keep challenging the systems that keep us alienated from our own food and our own environment.
âWomenâs imprisonment has always differed from that of men, because the imprisonment of women, as well as all the other aspects of their lives, takes place against a backdrop of patriarchal
relationships.â
- Nancy Kurshan
can i get some solarpunk/ancom blogs to interact with this post please? preferably if you post about things to do, things you do, and just activities in general, like stuff i can take into my every day life. i need inspiration!
For the question 'how much food can I grow on a 4m2 balcony?' quite a lot actually. I have 5 tomatoes which would ideally have a bigger container but are producing their first tomatoes. A small eggplant variety, a melon 'minnesotta midget', zucchini, salad leaves, loads of herbs, hot peppers, chard and some Pak chois. It looks lovely I think. Let's hope they continue to grow well.
also be VERY careful w/ âhumans are an invasive speciesâ that is an Eco-fascist rhetoric.
humans are not invasive; we deserve to live and develop on this planet. the only stipulation is that we have to help nature do its thing in turn. plant some native veggies, forage invasive ones like crazy and cook them up!!, rescue worms from the driveway when it rains
I donât engage with posts that wear me out so Iâm making my own post to say that if youâre middle class and you go to a thrift store to get clothes to cut up for your crafts and sewing or support your purse collecting habit thatâs fine.
Youâre not a gentrifier. Youâre not taking resources away from less fortunate people who need them more because thrift stores are businesses, not services, so the more you patronize them the more they expand. I used to work at a thrift store and my boss told me we threw away about half of our donations from the street because they were too damaged or dirty and we threw away another half of the merchandise on the floor that didnât sell. And that was before Marie Kondo got popular.
So yeah those sheets would look better on somebodyâs bed than as a tablecloth you made but they look better as your craft project than getting thrown away. You donât know. And youâre paying the store to stay open and put another set of sheets out tomorrow. So feel free to shop at thrift stores especially if you donate to them.
Salt to Stars: The Environmental and Community Impacts of Lithium Mining.
A comic by the Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice with art by Sophie Wang, text under the cut. This is part of a toolkit to challenge greenwashing in the climate movement. Please share to support Indigenous water protectors and non-extractive decolonial solutions to climate change!
In the highlands of the Andes, Indigenous peoples have used lagoons of ancient brine to interpret the night sky since time immemorial. These lagoons are sacred cultural sites and home to their ancestors, some of the earliest forms of microbial life.
This region is one of the driest deserts in the world. (The Salar de Atacama receives ~80 mm/3 inches of rain per year. Sahara desert 100 mm.)
Even so, ecosystems--including people--have adapted to the hyperarid, hypersaline environment. Organisms include stromatolites, extremophile bacteria, flamingos, llamas and vincuña, brine shrimp, and halophyte grasses. People living in the salar regions are agro-pastoral farmers, meaning they integrate crop and livestock cultivation. They have always managed the existing water systems to grow food crops and to sustain their animals and families.
The extremely salty water is called brine. The brines formed millions of years ago when the climate was wetter, as rain and snow carrying dissolved minerals collected in closed basins. Strong sunshine and dry conditions have concentrated this water over thousands of years. Brine rich in lithium and other minerals is part of a complex interconnected groundwater system, that supports Indigenous peoples and their traditional ways of life.
Mining companies, see this sacred landscape only as profitable resources. Lithium mining is expanding here to make electric vehicle batteries and other so-called ârenewableâ energy storage infrastructure.
In fact, investors and prospectors call lithium âwhite gold.â But to Indigenous peoples around the world, gold rushes have meant genocide and ecocide.
To mine lithium, brine is pumped into shallow pools where the water is evaporated and the minerals are collected. Lithium mining is groundwater mining, and the groundwater in the Atacama desert is nonrenewable. Lithium brine used to make ârenewableâ energy storage is a nonrenewable resource. 1 olympic size swimming pool of water = 23 Tesla vehicles. Teslaâs production goals = 20 million vehicles per year by 2030 (thatâs 869,500 olympic size swimming pools per year).
Indigenous communities are resisting the destruction of their sacred waters and traditional homelands. Many say âNoâ to lithium mining. Communities the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc, Argentina, blockaded the highway in February, 2019 to protest violation of consultation rights.
Many fear the destruction of ecological, cultural, and spiritual life cycles and further displacement of indigenous communities, forcing people off their homelands and into the cities where they become the racialized urban poor. Farmers are already noticing a sharp decline in their crops.
Electric vehicles and lithium batteries are not sustainable nor climate change solutions.. They only shift exploitation and extraction to differerent non-renewable resources and people.
True solutions to climate change require radical re-imagining of our extractivist practices. Like our Andean Indigenous compas, we must see ourselves as part of the same interconnected world, human and ecology, from salt to stars.
Lithium and other metals needed for various low emissions/renewable energy technologies, and their associated environmental impacts, are sort of the hidden piece of the picture when we talk about sustainability. One of the reasons I'm so intrigued by geothermal energy is the potential for associated cascade applications, like lithium co-production with geothermal fluids:
Cornish Lithium has been testing grades of the metal in deep geothermal waters near Redruth.
I saw the tag "eat your foes" on a @suzirya post about garlic mustard and thought it made for a good slogan! Eat your foes, especially when your foes are tasty invasive species.
I haven't actually tried making garlic mustard pesto bc I don't know for sure whether the patches nearest me have been sprayed with anything (lots along the roads/culverts).
Living shorelines are proven to be environmentally beneficial and resilient against the effects of rising sea levels, but for decades, bulkh
"Living shorelines are a type of nature-based infrastructure that combine biology with engineering. From North Carolina to Florida, scientists use them to reestablish the sloped shape of healthy shorelines at eroding coastal edges. When the shape is constructed, native plants and other species are introduced to help absorb and disperse the energy of waves that would normally cause erosion.
.....
One of the most vivid examples of their resilience is that they survived flooding and heavy winds from Hurricanes Hermine and Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Irma in 2017, according to Coleman. âWe didnât notice any significant impacts from any of the storms, which is pretty remarkable,â he said."
I love this - better for the environment and cheaper too, compared to seawalls and bulkheads! Using oyster shells recycled from restaurants offers such a great opportunity for local engagement and education, too.
