Solarpunk Is Happening in Africa
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The article discusses how Africa is adopting solarpunk technologies, skipping traditional grid infrastructure and moving directly to solar energy, sparking a lively discussion on the implications and potential of this shift.
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anyway, I hope they get electricity. the article said a lot about markets for something related to an ideology that rejects them.
This is false. Senegal attempted small-s socialism under its first postcolonial regime (under Léopold Sédar Senghor, 1960–1980) and has had democratic political succession to the present day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
And guess what this bourgeoisie did when they found out that the grain they produced would now become common property (they sharply reduced the amount they producing).
Seems like it's completely capitalism
> but Russia from 1917-60 and China from 1960-2025, say, are big counter-examples.
Russia and China are good examples of that.
We have Khrushchev's memoirs about how, before the communist revolution, he, as a simple worker, lived better than workers live 40 years after the revolution. That is, the period from 1917 to 1960 in the USSR was one of complete stagnation, despite all the technological progress.
And in the example of China in the second half of the 20th century, we see yet another confirmation: their standard of living was literally directly proportional to the level of implementation of capitalist mechanisms.
> As are the many poor countries with capitalist economies.
As far as I understand, there is not a single poor capitalist country. Name a single poor country where private property is reliably protected and people enjoy economic freedom. There is no such country. As soon as even the poorest country begins to protect private property and guarantee economic freedom, it becomes rich within 10 years or something.
I would say it's more of a matter of the level of interference of the fief on trade. When 100% of the economy is controlled by the monopoly on violence I would say that is complete communism, and when 0% of the economy is controlled by the monopoly on violence that is complete capitalism. This is a kind of asymmetric definition of communism/capitalism because "complete capitalism" is a pretty unstable configuration.
Joint-stock companies are not a prerequisite in my opinion; You can have an capitalist economy of merchants that run everything as sole proprietorships. Socialists will try to define capitalism around ownership of the means of production but I am not sure this is a useful definition.
Modern industry is more capital-intensive than labor intensive historical industries. So the sort of pro-labor communist movements that design systems that ignore the value of capital have pretty much gone extinct in the current era.
The "communist" party of china has adopted a number of capitalistic practices since deng xiaoping. At the same time, the "capitalist" american economy looks awfully communist under my definition as a significant chunk of the economy flows through the government, the military-industrial complex and such.
The main difference is ownership of the means of production/companies by the workers or by a separate group that might not work at the company at all.
It is like saying that a sword is useless technology. It's directional: the pointy end goes in the other guy.
Capitalism is really centralized monopolistic oligarchical control in modern media parlance.
Distributed empowering democratic grassroots level capitalistic allocation of resources that don't provide centralized control and administration is "socialism".
> Capitalism is really centralized monopolistic oligarchical control in modern media parlance.
Of course, because the Capitalists try to control the industry they've invested in.
> Distributed empowering democratic grassroots level <word> allocation of resources that don't provide centralized control and administration is "socialism".
Yes, it is. When the people who actually do the work own it.
But does the system eventually result in a small number of capitalists taking power or is it distributed over many capitalists? Not all monopolies are natural.
What is the "work" being done here? Manufacturing or installation? It's not like all of the solar companies are co-ops and contractors.
Because it's based on sunlight which is distributed and noncentralized and free.
With battery storage, the intermittency is solved largely. Maybe you have your own gasoline peaker.
With enough solar, and an electric vehicle, you have transportation independence.
And I'm no expert on the historical and political nature of agriculture and centralized control, but I could argue agriculture is also fundamentally decentralized, certainly within the modern standards of deep technological stack control.
So if you can get your food, energy, transportation, water by yourself or within a local network... Then while I wouldn't call that socialist, I would call that highly democratilized, is that a word?
Now traditionally you also needed centralized power for defense.
And I'm wondering if drones will provide a fundamental advantage to guerilla defense.
I guess it is vaguely leftist in the sense that poor 3rd worlders are benefiting. But whether a system is capitalist or not does not hinge on this sort of grievance-based thinking.
So no, not fake, not AI, just written under the flu over the weekend.
@qarzxc: Not fictional, spoke to users & investors of both companies, see my breakdowns on them for a deeper dive.
Do you have more on climate companies? I have been quite interested in the area (for profit, for good... where profit is returned to more "for good")
Well, my apologies then. On the bright side you definitely have a super power when under the flu: the ability to perfectly emulate a chatbot in your writing :D
I hope you're back to full health and doing well.
> Then $40-65/month over 24-30 months
> replacing $3-5/week kerosene spending with a $0.21/day solar subscription (so with $1.5 per week half the price of kerosene)" in the next paragraph.
If it's $40-65/month that's $1.33 to $2.17 per day, not $0.21/day (assuming month with 30 days)
> Crop yields increase 3-5×
> Farmers go from $600/acre to $14,000/acre revenue
Wouldn't that revenue jump require a 23x increase in crop yield?
Suppose, a farmer has a farm which produces 1 unit of crop. Farmer uses 0.8 of the crop for subsistence and sells 0.2 of the crop. They get $600/acre.
Now, crop yields go up 5x, so now the farm produces 5 units of crop. Subsistence needs are the same, so the farmer is now able to sell 4.2 units of crop. This is 4.2/0.2 = 21 times more revenue or $12,600/acre.
Edit: looks like those numbers might be per year (it doesn't seem to specify explicitly), so it actually might be vaguely plausible (though misleading) if we make several charitable assumptions.
An example - say you have 4 acres of land and have a family of 4.
In the old world, say you needed one acre per person to grow enough food to the next crop harvest. This would be something like corn or potatoes that can keep. So all your land goes to growing food to survive and you cant make any money.
In the new world, with irrigation, you can do much more - say for the sake of argument, 4 times the crop, in the same space. Now, you only need 1/4 of an acre per person or an acre for everyone. So you grow vegetables that sell for 10 times as much on the 3/4s of land you have that you no longer need to use to survive.
Or even better, you grow high veg on the entire piece of land for income and use the cash to buy your corn and potatoes or whatever as you need them.
Just as all other commercial farmers do across the world.
In other words, solar allows them to become small business owners.
You've added the per month part. The article itself doesn't provide a time period but the two reasonable ones are month and year. For a year, that could actually be a reasonable amount of crops kept by a family for their own consumption and storage for later consumption.
If it's monthly, that is pretty high.
Every second paragraph thinks it's Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone.
>Here’s why this matters: M-PESA created a payment rail with near-zero transaction costs. Which means you can economically collect tiny payments. $0.21 per day payments.
Just one sentence here.
Then I realized.
That another sentence came after that.
I always wonder what the point is.
Now imagine a world where there's tons of bribes to government officials all along the way to get a grid going (in the US you just need to bribe landowners and hold-outs). Or there's bribes to get a permit for the large centralized electriticy generator. And you have to deal with importing a whole new skill set and trades, on top of importing all the materials, fuel, etc.
Decentralized solar plus batteries is already cheaper than electricity + transmission for me at my home in the US. The only thing stopping me is the permitting hassle or the contractor hassle.
Out in greenfield, solar plus storage is so revolutionary. This is bigger than going straight to mobile phones instead of landlines.
Africa is going to get so much power, and it's all going to be clean, renewable energy. Thanks to all the entrepreneurs and engineers over the past decades that have continuously and steadily improved this technology, it's one of the bright lights of humanity these days.
[1] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/maine-jury-clears-avangrids...
Local gangs go around and demand protection money and if you don’t pay up your solar panels will unfortunately suffer some “accidental” catastrophic damage.
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/507496-knock-off-solar...
In fact many people here praise those gangs, and wish they were bigger and demand more money.
How do they deal with the cost of storage for anything non trivial completely eclipsing any savings?
And many will make do without a battery, just relying on power during the day.
I mean it's several hundred fold more expensive I'd call that "eclipse" but maybe you have a higher threshold for that word?
> And many will make do without a battery, just relying on power during the day.
I mean I guess that's an option if you don't want these places to advance in quality of life or produce much of anything.
Most places in my state you need an electrician license, permits, bonding, insurance, a special 'solar' warranty, and inspections if you want solar.
I built my house without any inspection or licensing and connected to the electric grid without anyone from the government ever even looking at it or taking money for it. If I wanted to add a solar system, it basically completely fucked everything and I would have had to gone through the normal permitting and inspection system for my house which would have made even building the house basically impossible for me.
Unless I add solar.
That's... not common (perhaps more-so in rural areas).
In my area, being connected to the grid brings a lot more hassle: the utility gets a say in how much solar you can build, as well as how it's connected. Some of it makes sense (they want to make sure you're not going to backfeed during an outage and cause a hazard to linemen), but a lot of it is them protecting their bottom line.
If I added a solar system they would neither care nor have any idea. Only the government cares here.
Where exactly do you live? I'm not saying you're lying, but this smells like a tall tale. You can easily buy solar panels and batteries, and if no government inspectors are coming by anyway, then it doesn't matter.
Maybe what you're saying is, "my power company wouldn't let me use grid-tied solar without it being permitted." ?
>"my power company wouldn't let me use grid-tied solar without it being permitted." ?
Nah they didn't give a shit what I connected it to. I literally stubbed a 200 amp service entrance on vacant land then just went wild connecting it to whatever I like. I shot the shit with their engineer when they ran secondary off the power pole and that was it, I've never seen them again.
> no government inspectors are coming by anyway, then it doesn't matter.
I don't know for certain but having an unpermitted solar panel visible via satellite would likely trigger a visit.
I wouldn't want to go to someone's home to hassle them about their DIY solar installation.
I mean, are you saying that someone sticking up a few panels+batteries to run an electric fence, gate, and camera system has to have permits?
This all seems strange.
https://www.azleg.gov/ars/11/00323.htm
Because its dangerous to own solar. If its guns, then its perfectly fine and safe.
Hat tip also to China's ideological commitment to independence from external oil supplies, as nicely coupled to reducing pollution and greenwashing their image. It's their citizens who sacrifice to make solar power cheap enough.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636
However most of the "slave" talk these days comes from highly politicized sources, so it's hard to cut through to the truth. For example, it's not likely that there's enough Uyghur slave labor to be involved with "most" of the polysilicon even from Xinjiang, much less the entire world's supply.
IMHO, like the cobalt getting mined by children from artisanal-scale mines in Africa, it's a very serious issue that gets trotted out more as a political football against the entire technology, rather than expressed as an earnest concern to solve the underlying problem.
nice to discuss the degrees of slavery, little slavery is cool, little more perhaps not as much…
As I understand it, much of the rest of the world has similar views, but I'm sure this varies a bit from country to country.
It's just that in the 21st century, we prefer to use some less-upsetting euphemism to refer to the practice domestically.
For anyone not familiar with the US Constitution, the 13th Amendment forbids slavery and involuntary servitude "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
Without that "except as a punishment for [a] crime" clause, being sentenced to N hours of community service would be forbidden by the Constitution, and the second-lowest penalty judges could impose (the lowest being a fine) would be prison time. So that clause was actually necessary to include in order to allow for more lenient sentences for crimes that deserve something more severe than a fine: lowest level of sentencing is a fine, after that comes being sentenced to community service (which most people agree is less severe than prison, even though it does count as involuntary servitude), and then after that come the more severe sentences like prison.
Because while the precise definitions of servitude do vary from dictionary to dictionary, and some define it more harshly than others, in general it fits. One definition I found online (with no reference to which dictionary it came from) defines servitude as "A condition in which an individual is bound to work for another person or organization, typically without pay." Another one (Cambridge dictionary) says it's "the state of being under the control of someone else and of having no freedom". I couldn't check the Oxford English Dictionary as it requires a subscription to look up even one word. Merriam-Webster lists two meanings, one of which applies to land. the one that applies to people is "a condition in which one lacks liberty especially to determine one's course of action or way of life".
Now, being sentenced to community service is only a temporary condition of servitude, which ends as soon as a given number of hours have been served. And it might not fit the strict definition if the person being sentenced is allowed to choose the form their community service will take; I lack knowledge of what kinds of community-servitude sentences are commonly handed out. But if the person being sentenced does not get to choose the form his community service will take, but instead is told "Your community service will be served in the city clerk's office. Show up at 9:00 AM on Monday ready to make photocopies and run errands," then that counts as being under the control of another and lacking freedom during the period of community service. It's not a permanent state of servitude, but even a temporary state of servitude is forbidden by the 13th amendment (other than as a sentence for a crime), because otherwise people at the time would have argued "Oh, fifty years of involuntary servitude still counts as 'temporary', so I'm allowed to carry on with imposing debt peonage on my debtors."
(I should also mention that I am not a lawyer, so perhaps US lawyers have already reached broad consensus on whether community service counts as involuntary servitude under US law; if someone knows whether that's true, I welcome being corrected on my point).
I wouldn’t call that “documentation”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/03/bbc-report-revea...
Not really an issue for solar battery systems as they typically use the cheaper LFP chemistry that has a much higher cycle count. The gravimetric density is a bit less, but that only really matters for high-performance mobility.
What does any of that have to do with cobalt?
LFP production is starting to pass NMC (lithium + nickel manganese cobalt oxide). Slightly lower density but a lot of advantages in lack of easily catching on fire, longer lifetime -- and lack of cobalt. LFP (LiFePo4) is the battery chemistry of choice today for solar installations, where the longer lifetime and increased safety are a big win and the slightly lower density doesn't matter, unlike mobile applications.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/business/economy/solar-xi... ("Solar Supply Chain Grows More Opaque Amid Human Rights Concerns" / "The global industry is cutting some ties to China, but its exposure to forced labor remains high and companies are less transparent, a new report found")
There's tons of countries with much cheaper labor.
The reasons we build in china are not related to cheap labor, this hasn't been the case from quite some time.
Three or four decades of proven ability to deliver, trusted relationships.
Even despite all the political noise.
I don't think trust has much to do with it
They're reliable, but would you really trust them?
I think there's a bit of nuance there to differentiate the 2 though.
Maybe I'm jaded from working with overseas factories though in ways others wouldn't be.
Trust implies shared values/worldview and past experiences where outcomes match expectations. Also respect.
Trust is not possible when there are regularly incongruous outcomes, or where definition of respect / values are just aren't aligned.
Do you think your counterparts overseas believe themselves to be as trustable as you are, and it's just a cultural rift? Or is that too charitable?
Now that hasn't been the case for more than a decade. The cheap labor is in SE Asia and South America.
What China has is decades of process improvement, factories, infrastructure, experience, and a willingness to work. They haven't been the cheapest, by far, for a long while.
It's cheap, yes. I can indeed buy 1,000 of something more locally or from other than China.
But when it comes to scale, needing vast shipments, then they are the ones who can actually ship it and do it reliably. It just also happens to be cheaper, too, which is more of a convenience or cherry on top, than the actual attractive part: vast scale.
I recal, the 1980s when Japanese manufacturing was dogy as. By 2000 it was the best
The same thing is happening in China
They are very good at everything they do, and getting better. Good.
“What do you mean doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan”
“Unbelievable”
Korean manufacturing might've been considered dodgy in the 80s but great by 2000. Taiwan (ROC) went through this also (70s vs 90s, ish?). And now China.
I definitely remember the sense that Japanese cars posed a real threat to the American auto industry, and in hindsight that seems to have been well founded.
They boomed through the 80s/90s, but then lost their edge as China moved itself up the car manufacturing hierarchy, particularly in EVs.
Same with competing with South Korea, but Japan are coasting a bit.
China is at the start of that curve.
They'll end up diversifying into the rest of the world, but the 21st century will belong to China.
They were not built to last so became unreliable after ~5 years.
That was because in the Japanese market five years as a long time to run a car. Not so in the west
Didn't they lose their edge earlier and because the US togheter with some european nations forced their arm after a trade war to limit their exports, enforce an unfavourable currency regime, etc?
This allowed for China to choose industries it would dominate outside of economic forces. It chose to dominate solar and was allowed to sell panels below raw materials cost in order to kill competition.
In one hand it’s good for world solar, on the other hand this has helped cause the rise of the far right all over the west.
...and poured their savings into the sole investment available, real estate, creating the largest bubble the world has ever seen...
Just Nvidia.
What?
https://insights.issgovernance.com/posts/forced-labor-in-the...
Yes there is a bunch of automation in there, and still a ton of manual work and re-work. And it is done by the lowest cost labor, with a hefty government subsidy (by china) and a purchasing program.
Does the supply chain contain less-than-free labor somewhere? Likely. Most probably somewhere in the raw material production, but it's not something that is a deciding factor in anything. These materials just as well likely go into making of iPhones and Lenovo laptops.
The problem is that "Highly automated" does not mean "free of people" ... the demand for low skill labor (and a fair amount of it to keep up with automated processes) is still required.
The cost of labor in china remains so low (on the whole) that these things are still not only feasible but cost effective.
/obvious sarcasm
In any case, I literally have a cousin who's lived ten years in China building a 3d printing company, and the last reason he went to China was cheaper labor, that was borderline irrelevant.
The only thing they've done to greenwash their image is spend money buying articles that present the false image of a green china.
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/china-energy-transi...
https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/wind-and-solar-gener...
https://electrek.co/2025/09/02/h1-2025-china-installs-more-s...
> Global solar installations are breaking records again in 2025. In H1 2025, the world added 380 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity – a staggering 64% jump compared to the same period in 2024, when 232 GW came online. China was responsible for installing a massive 256 GW of that solar capacity. For context, it took until September last year to pass the 350 GW mark. This year, the milestone was achieved in June. That pace cements solar as the fastest-growing source of new electricity generation worldwide. In 2024, global solar output rose by 28% (+469 terawatt-hours) from 2023, more growth than any other energy source. Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy analyst at independent energy think tank Ember, said, “These latest numbers on solar deployment in 2025 defy gravity, with annual solar installations continuing their sharp rise. In a world of volatile energy markets, solar offers domestically produced power that can be rolled out at record speed to meet growing demand, independent of global fossil fuel supply chains.”
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65064
> Utility-scale solar power capacity in China reached more than 880 gigawatts (GW) in 2024, according to China’s National Energy Administration. China has more utility-scale solar than any other country. The 277 GW of utility-scale solar capacity installed in China in 2024 alone is more than twice as much as the 121 GW of utility-scale solar capacity installed in the United States at the end of 2024. Planned solar capacity projects will likely lead to continued growth in China’s solar capacity. More than 720 GW of solar capacity are in development: about 250 GW under construction, nearly 300 GW in pre-construction phases, and 177 GW of announced projects, according to the Global Solar Power Tracker compiled by Global Energy Monitor.
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/20/chinas-coal-generation-...
> China’s coal-fired electricity generation took an unexpectedly sharp turn downward in the first quarter of 2025, signaling a potentially profound shift in the world’s largest coal-consuming economy. This wasn’t merely a seasonal dip or economic distress signal; rather, it represented a clear and structural turning point. Coal generation fell by approximately 4.7% year over year, significantly outpacing the overall grid electricity supply decline of just 1.3%. However, electricity demand, a better measure, went up by 1%. What gives?
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/08/21/china-clean-renewable-e...
> China’s Decarbonization Is So Fast Even New Coal Plants Aren’t Stopping It. In multiple sectors—transportation, renewable energy, and overall electrification—the clear trend is toward a greener energy system. In fact, in areas like renewables and electric vehicles, China is now the world’s leading player. With the United States essentially abandoning the field, it will become even more dominant.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/26/china-breaks-m...
> China’s installations of wind and solar in May are enough to generate as much electricity as Poland, as the world’s second-biggest economy breaks further records with its rapid buildup of renewable energy infrastructure. China installed 93 GW of solar capacity last month – almost 100 solar panels every second, according to an analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Wind power installations reached 26 GW, the equivalent of about 5,300 turbines.
(it is somewhat irrelevant that China has accomplished spinning up a clean tech machine of this scale out of energy security reasons, as it still accomplishes the goal of decarbonizing their economy first, and then, the rest of the world as their spun up manufacturing flywheel exports cheap clean tech to the world)
https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e...
We're at the point where things are changing fast. Yes, largely driven by the ginormous solar and battery production coming from China. The rest of the world better get their ducks in order if they want to compete.
The Western and Asian governments increased environmental regulations and the cost to do business rose. In China the government ignored its climate obligations and slashed environmental regulations and increased coal investment to drive energy costs down and thus the manufacturing moved there. You think Germany couldnt have cut environmental regulations slapped down a few coal plants and made solar panels?
Thats why there was climate meetings to get everyone on the same track. If everyone is aligned in their goals then the economic hurt is easier to bare. China intentionally captialised on this and I do not think they deserve any praise for it.
It's completely stupid to pretend China is going green when their emissions have continuously increased and the rate has even accelerated the richer they got.
It was all done so they could capture the business of western countries and run a silent economic war. Now most of europe is so dependent on China it's hopeless and they are not even cheaper because all kinds of costs have been added.
They are a growing economy of a billion + people.
You need to realize this is a population that was virtually 90% poor just 3 decades ago.
No. Manufacturing labor cost in China is not cheap. In fact since 2012 or so, it is more expensive than in most of Asia. Companies who want cheap labor look elsewhere.
https://www.economist.com/business/2023/02/20/global-firms-a... (Archive link: https://archive.fo/tdhXJ )
China is also the only major economy where wages have increased at the same rate as GDP in the last 40 or so years.
That is objectively dirt-cheap compared to basically all of the west.
Yes, wages might be even cheaper in neighboring countries, but those lag behind in infrastructure, education, political stability, availability of capital and network effects from existing industry (and are thus not a viable alternative to China yet for lots of things).
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