Harvesting is different from generating - Here I thought it was using solar energy and some previously unexplored process that rips the O2 from CO2, then adds that to Hydrogen
That's a good point. I generally copy the title verbatim from the article but as you've pointed out it's a bit misleading. This is definitely not magic.
I'm still trying to figure out how to store the water I pump with my ram pump on a hillside in a sustainable and safe way. I have started to think about reservoirs made from living trees (willow might be a good candidate). I don't want to lug a pile of ugly materials up any beautiful mountain if it can be avoided.
Yes, that's what that is called, I'm just trying to figure out better ways to create them on steeper hillsides where you can not just build an earth wall. The traditional way used to be granite, but it's heavy work. I am just dreaming up a solarpunk future where we could plant reservoirs. I'm too lazy to carry stones. And the current method of building cheap, quick water reservoirs involves corrugated sheet metal, and that is ugly and awful to work with, and usually gets imported from elsewhere (as do bricks and concrete). My tree reservoir has the problem that the quick changes in water level of the reservoir could be bad for the trees.
This kind of consumerist green-tech is not solarpunk. Solarpunk is about imagining a postcapitalist future, when human needs are met not just within ecological constraints, but as part of a healthy ecosystem, and technology exists to aid us in doing that. It's about envisioning a radically changed world. Tools like these are the exact opposite end of green-tech: They're specifically designed to fit neatly into our life as it exists today. The ad copy is super clear about that. The promotional materials even have an SUV.
To be clear, I'm not taking a stance on whether they're bad or good, but I am saying that they're not solarpunk.
I think the idea of battery storage is solar punk in and of itself, just because it's had some nice branding doesn't take away from the fact that in a post capitalist future, everyone would have a battery attached to their house.
Just because a postcapitalist world should have a battery for every house does not make batteries in and of themselves solarpunk. The story surrounding the battery, in this case, the branding, is actually precisely what matters, because solarpunk is explicitly about speculative futures. It's a genre of science fiction that creates an optimistic and green aesthetic to aid in imagining a postcapitalist world. Posting a link to a currently existing consumer grade technology with consumerist branding is, by definition, not solarpunk.
"A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam." You're posting the automobile. Science fiction is about the social context of the technology as much if not more than about the technology itself.
Again, I'm not saying that personal batteries are bad, or have no part in a postcapitalist future.
"Technology for a solar punk future". By your own admission, you're not disputing that batteries have a place in a solar punk future, so no harm, no foul. If you're interested in a conversation about the pros and cons of exploiting capitalism to get to that future, that's a different conversation for a different post completely.
This was reported as advertisement and the only reason I didn't remove it was because you seem to have posted it genuinely as an interesting innovation to share here.
Anyway, I guess even though the entire branding and story around this "almost an advertisement" is indeed not very "solarpunk", its still better than a Tesla powerwall and you need to start somewhere if you want to become less dependent on fossile fuels.
😂 people are so weird. Do they think I work for Anker or that I'm involved with the blog? I have a Miniflux installation set up, I'm subscribed to a few news sources, this blog being one. I genuinely believe that in order for us to manifest a better tomorrow, we need to invest in infrastructure that allows us to destroy the status quo. If ground source heat pumps, solar panels, wind turbines and batteries become commonplace in our neighborhoods, we'll start moving towards energy independence. It's only when we don't rely on fossil fuels that we will begin to invest in even cleaner and sustainable technologies.
I just use the resuable pods. Can throw any coffee grounds in them, dump them in the compost when done, rinse, and use again. Have used these for at least 5 years.
This might be a really stupid question, but if you're going to use reusable pods, why not just... Use a classic Mr. Coffee-style coffee maker that has been around for decades?
The biggest area this will be a win in is offices. Areas where groups of different people with different tastes gather and can pick a coffee that’s better suited to their taste. Having reusable k pods is nice, but when people don’t frequently work in there, or don’t realize a keurig is available they might not have one. Although I V60 everyday so this has no real personal impact.
Coffee can, single piece of packaging for months on end.
Vs.
K-cups, paper, dyes, increased packaging volumes, increased energy in production, increased raw materials, 6 month shelf life = increased trips to the store to purchase more. Sustainable /s
How does the coffee get from where it's grown and into the can? Where does the space to grow it come from?
Also, what are you talking about? Helium's uses are largely medical, which is pretty far up there on the list of things we can't do without.
Also, so what? These new coffee pods are also more sustainable than both helium and coal when you use whatever definition of sustainability you're using
For fast easy machine single-serve, get a machine that takes beans. They cost about three pod-machines but they're worth it. The pod-machines are cheaper because they come with vendor lock-in for the pods, and they just profit more on those instead.
It's not as convenient, but a moka pot makes the best single serving coffee I've experienced. You can get a small version for less than $30. It takes me less than 5 minutes to make a barista level cup, and even the more expensive coffee is going to cost less than 50 cents per serving.
The only downside is the coffee is highly caffeinated--nearly espresso levels. So you're forced to add water if you just want a "cup" of coffee and it's more of an Americano-style. But the taste beats the shit out of drip or Keurig cups...imo.
I’ve never been able to get good moka pot coffee, but I’ve gotten good aeropress and french press coffee. I’ve got friends who swear by their moka pot and they’ve served me some excellent coffee.
French press, aeropress, and moka are all good ways to get single servings of coffee. It will always beat kuerig coffee, even freshly ground kuerig coffee.
Unfortunately, french press coffee is often silty, but if you are drinking kuerig coffee, you are probably also drinking silty coffee.
FYI, espresso has roughly the same level of caffeine as a cup of coffee per serving, granted a serving of espresso is a lot smaller than a cup of coffee.
If you want some good coffee you can get somewhat cheaply in bulk, Cafe Zapatista is great, ethical, and you are supporting indigenous mayan communities in Chiapas 😊. I get 3 pound bags every other month. Just know the bag isn’t resealable.
In Switzerland we got something similar, it's little balls though. It comes packaged in cardboard and you can compost the remains https://www.coffeeb.com/en-ch
Literally no mention in the article of how durable these things are. Kind of matters for how well they could just outright replace regular PCBs. I imagine it's perfectly fine for stuff you'd have at home or an office, but there's electronics everywhere these days. Would they last just as long in a car? Airplane? Tractors? Boats? Submarines? Satellites? Shuttles?
In the article there was a link to UW:s own article which had a link to research groups own page, which had a link to original research: "Recyclable vitrimer-based printed circuit boards for sustainable electronics" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01333-7 .
I'm just a curious layman, but on my cursory look it seems that it's quite stable against heat, moisture and chemicals. Looks promising, hopefully this is cheap enough that manufacturers actually start using it.
They don't need to replace PCBs everywhere, even doing so just in the stuff that already doesn't last long would make a huge difference. In long term applications you get less waste per unit of time anyway.
Yes! We can finally buy our way out of unnecessary waste, and ultimately climate change, with this new thing that keeps us buying. Just gotta buy the ecological things and everything will be good.
Good to see Keurig try to cut down on plastic waste, but if they really wanted to make an impact, they could open-source the design of the pods so all the alt-cup manufacturers could switch as well. It may be counter-intuitive, but the more options customers have, the more machine sales and goodwill Keurig will create.
Same size as paper ones. Thin, perforated metal. Came in two gradations. Taste-wise, couldn't tell the difference. When opening to clean, it slid off so you could wash it, then compost the coffee as usual.
Pretty handy. But somehow, I managed to dump them away. Went back to paper.
If you built dense cities, like this you massively reduce land usage of cities. It also removes the need for cars and allows for easier sharing of many other resources. This means dense cities have a much lower carbon footprint then other forms of living. London for example has per capita emissions of 3.3t. Skyscrapers are not the best solution for density, but they work and in this case thats mid density housing.
This is a good way to have some greenery in a place, where planting a tree is difficult. This is a 6m wide street with shops on both sites, which is mainly used by pedestrians. If you plant a tree on the sites of the street, it does not get enough light. In the middle of the street it ends up blocking trucks from resupplying the shops, which is also not an option.
If you build dense cities, you don't need to build car infrastructures. You rely on walk, bike and public transport. You have plenty of space for trees and green spaces everywhere.
I grow up next to an old medieval town. I'm not a stranger to how these towns are build. There are a lot of places where you can plant trees in the streets. Of course, the streets will be narrower with the place for just the pedestrians, bikes, and emergencies services. It's a fully car free town in this case. Your link is perfect. You have Pl. de España on the right where you could plant a small forest on it.
You see all the terrasses. They could have trees in the middle.
For this purpose of reducing the temperature, you have this project where they will keep a central bus stop but plant many trees to cover it.
They probably also need an irrigation system? Or need to be watered daily? They don't look like they would hold a lot of water when the sun evaporates everything.
It does have an irrigation system. You can see the pipe assembly on the left. It is that big white thing running through. That goes to a water tank, which collects the rainwater from the sails and then pumps it back up when needed.
I also have concerns about nutrient cycling, every rain and over watering is going to wash nutrients into the street below. This is an interesting idea, but could use more refinement.
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