Episode Details
Back to EpisodesWeekly Solarpunk, of 24 April: Court Stops Blockade, Earthship Permit Fight, Plug-in Solar Kits, Homes Can Electrify
Description
Weekly Solarpunk for 24 April follows 6 future-facing stories and member reactions, moving through court stops blockade, earthship permit fight, plug-in solar kits, homes can electrify.
1. Court Stops Blockade
A federal judge halted an effort to block new wind and solar projects that need federal permits or use public land. According to Canary Media, Chief U.S. District Judge Denise Casper sided with clean energy groups challenging the blockade.
2. Earthship Permit Fight
This story is about a video claiming Earthship-style houses can eliminate energy bills and are blocked across much of America. According to the Lost Build Archives video linked in the post, the example house is presented as proof that utility-free housing is possible, though the title's sweeping claim is only lightly supported in the discussion.
3. Plug-in Solar Kits
This story is about the UK government offering free plug-in solar panel kits to poorer households so they can cut bills and send unused electricity back to the grid. According to the linked iNews report, the kits are meant to be simple enough for residents to install themselves, and the post framed that as a small move toward more distributed power.
4. Homes Can Electrify
A new discussion focused on a study-backed claim that many homes can switch from gas appliances to electric ones without expensive panel upgrades. According to the linked Canary Media report, a nine-home pilot in San Mateo County replaced gas and propane appliances in several 100-amp homes, and the quoted summary says most households then saw lower monthly energy bills.
5. Solar Pi Server
This story is about a tiny solar-powered web server built to host personal static sites and lightweight file sharing on almost no hardware. According to the linked Hackaday project, it runs on a Raspberry Pi Zero W with Alpine Linux in diskless mode, lighttpd, and a small Python app, idling at about 27 megabytes of RAM.
6. Utah Plug-in Solar
Portable plug-in solar in Utah is the idea here, with the post arguing that a conservative state helped kick off a model for small solar systems people can plug in at home. According to the linked Grist report, Utah state Representative Raymond Ward said a New York Times story about a growing trend in Europe helped inspire a push to make home energy cheaper and more portable.
That's it for today.