#Local Solar Experts

[solarpana]

Top 10 Solar Panel Technicians in Your Area

Looking for a reliable solar panel technician to handle installation, maintenance, or repairs? With the increasing popularity of solar energy, it’s essential to find a skilled professional who can meet your specific needs. To help you get started, here are some key tips for identifying top solar panel technicians near you:

Research Local Listings: Start by searching online platforms such as Google, Yelp, and local directories. Look for technicians with high ratings, positive reviews, and verified customer feedback.

Check for Certifications and Qualifications: The best solar panel technicians are typically certified by the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) or hold similar credentials. This ensures they are trained and capable of handling solar systems properly.

Read Reviews and Testimonials: Client feedback is a crucial indicator of the quality of service a technician provides. Look for technicians with a consistent record of satisfied customers who praise their professionalism and expertise.

Get Multiple Quotes: Don’t settle for the first technician you find. Request quotes from several professionals to compare pricing and services offered. This also helps you gauge their communication and customer service.

Ask About Experience and Specialization: The best technicians will have extensive experience in solar panel installation and repair. Be sure to ask about their experience with systems similar to yours.

Warranty and Post-Service Support: Top technicians often offer warranties on their work and continued support after the job is completed. This shows their commitment to customer satisfaction and ensures peace of mind.

Reach Out to Your Network: Don’t hesitate to ask friends, family, or colleagues who have installed solar panels for recommendations. Personal referrals often lead to the best service.

By following these tips and exploring local technicians in your area, you can find a qualified solar panel expert who will meet your needs and help your solar system perform optimally. Always make sure to do thorough research before making your choice!

[miqenergy]

Why Solar Power Systems in Sydney Are a Smart Investment for Your Home and Wallet

With energy prices on the rise and environmental concerns growing, many Sydney homeowners are turning to renewable energy as a long-term solution. Among the most popular and accessible options is solar power. Solar power systems Sydney are gaining popularity not just for their environmental benefits but also for the significant savings they can offer. If you're considering making the switch, here’s everything you need to know about why now is the perfect time to invest in solar energy.

The Rise of Solar Power in Sydney

Sydney’s sunny climate makes it an ideal location for solar power generation. With an average of over 2,600 hours of sunshine each year, solar panels can capture a vast amount of energy from the sun and convert it into electricity for your home. This abundance of sunlight is one of the key reasons why solar power systems in Sydney are so effective and efficient.

As more homeowners become aware of these advantages, the demand for solar installations continues to grow. Government incentives, falling installation costs, and advancements in solar technology have all contributed to this rising trend.

Financial Benefits of Solar Power Systems

One of the main reasons homeowners are investing in solar power systems in Sydney is the financial return. Installing solar panels significantly reduces your electricity bills. In many cases, you can even eliminate your power bills entirely, depending on the size of your system and your household’s energy usage.

Additionally, the government offers rebates and incentives through programs like the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES), which can help offset the initial installation costs. These incentives are designed to make solar more affordable and accessible to everyday Australians.

Another major financial benefit is the feed-in tariff. When your solar panels generate more electricity than you use, the excess power can be exported back to the grid. Your energy provider then pays you a set rate for this power, further reducing your energy costs.

Environmental Impact

Choosing solar isn’t just good for your wallet — it’s also great for the environment. Solar power systems in Sydney help reduce your carbon footprint by lowering the amount of fossil fuels burned to produce electricity. A standard 6.6kW solar system can reduce carbon emissions by over 9 tonnes per year — that’s equivalent to planting more than 150 trees annually!

By switching to solar, you're playing a direct role in combatting climate change and promoting a cleaner, greener future for Australia.

Energy Independence and Reliability

As Sydney continues to grow, so does the demand on the power grid. This can lead to power outages, especially during peak usage periods like summer heatwaves. Solar energy Sydney systems provide a level of energy independence, allowing you to generate your own electricity and reduce reliance on the main grid.

Pairing your solar panels with a battery storage system takes this one step further. Batteries allow you to store excess energy generated during the day and use it at night or during outages. This means more control over your energy usage and even greater savings in the long run.

Increasing Property Value

Installing solar power systems in Sydney can also increase the value of your home. More and more buyers are looking for energy-efficient homes that offer long-term savings. A property with a quality solar setup is not only more appealing but can also command a higher selling price. In a competitive market like Sydney’s, this can make a big difference when it’s time to sell.

Choosing the Right Solar System for Your Home

Not all solar power systems are created equal. Factors such as panel quality, inverter performance, warranty terms, and installer reputation all play a role in how effective your system will be.

When choosing a solar power system in Sydney, it's important to work with a reputable provider who can assess your specific energy needs, recommend the right size system, and ensure a professional installation. Look for companies that are Clean Energy Council (CEC) accredited and offer solid after-sales support.

Final Thoughts

Solar power systems in Sydney are more than just a trend — they’re a smart, sustainable investment. With the city's favorable climate, generous government incentives, and rising electricity prices, there's never been a better time to go solar.

Whether you're motivated by financial savings, environmental impact, or energy independence, installing a solar power system is a decision that pays off in more ways than one. If you're ready to take control of your energy future, now is the perfect time to explore solar solutions tailored to your Sydney home.

[zonnepanelenmaastricht]

Zonnepanelen Maastricht: Uw Lokale Expert in Duurzame Energie!

Welkom bij Zonnepanelen Maastricht, uw lokale expert in zonne-energieoplossingen in Maastricht, Nederland. Wij bieden topkwaliteit zonnepanelen en professionele installatieservices voor zowel particulieren als bedrijven. Ons toegewijde team helpt u bij het verduurzamen van uw energieverbruik en het verlagen van uw energiekosten. Bij Zonnepanelen Maastricht staat klanttevredenheid voorop, en wij streven ernaar om elke installatie soepel en efficiënt te laten verlopen. Bezoek onze website voor meer informatie en start vandaag nog met besparen op uw energierekening. Samen maken we Maastricht groener! ☀️🔋🌱

📞 +31435690251

📍 Robert Schumandomein 2, 6229 ES, Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands

U kunt ons op verschillende platforms bezoeken. X | Pinterest | Flickr | Twitch | Github | YouTube

[no-passaran]

Genocide experts warn that India is about to genocide the Shompen people

Who are the Shompen?

The Shompen are an indigenous culture that lives in the Great Nicobar Island, which is nowadays owned by India. The Shompen and their ancestors are believed to have been living in this island for around 10,000 years. Like other tribes in the nearby islands, the Shompen are isolated from the rest of the world, as they chose to be left alone, with the exception of a few members who occasionally take part in exchanges with foreigners and go on quarantine before returning to their tribe. There are between 100 and 400 Shompen people, who are hunter-gatherers and nomadic agricultors and rely on their island's rainforest for survival.

Why is there risk of genocide?

India has announced a huge construction mega-project that will completely change the Great Nicobar Island to turn it into "the Hong Kong of India".

Nowadays, the island has 8,500 inhabitants, and over 95% of its surface is made up of national parks, protected forests and tribal reserve areas. Much of the island is covered by the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve, described by UNESCO as covering “unique and threatened tropical evergreen forest ecosystems. It is home to very rich ecosystems, including 650 species of angiosperms, ferns, gymnosperms, and bryophytes, among others. In terms of fauna, there are over 1800 species, some of which are endemic to this area. It has one of the best-preserved tropical rain forests in the world.”

The Indian project aims to destroy this natural environment to create an international shipping terminal with the capacity to handle 14.2 million TEUs (unit of cargo capacity), an international airport that will handle a peak hour traffic of 4,000 passengers and that will be used as a joint civilian-military airport under the control of the Indian Navy, a gas and solar power plant, a military base, an industrial park, and townships aimed at bringing in tourism, including commercial, industrial and residential zones as well as other tourism-related activities.

This project means the destruction of the island's pristine rainforests, as it involves cutting down over 852,000 trees and endangers the local fauna such as leatherback turtles, saltwater crocodiles, Nicobar crab-eating macaque and migratory birds. The erosion resulting from deforestation will be huge in this highly-seismic area. Experts also warn about the effects that this project will have on local flora and fauna as a result of pollution from the terminal project, coastal surface runoff, ballasts from ships, physical collisions with ships, coastal construction, oil spills, etc.

The indigenous people are not only affected because their environment and food source will be destroyed. On top of this, the demographic change will be a catastrophe for them. After the creation of this project, the Great Nicobar Island -which now has 8,500 inhabitants- will receive a population of 650,000 settlers. Remember that the Shompen and Nicobarese people who live on this island are isolated, which means they do not have an immune system that can resist outsider illnesses. Academics believe they could die of disease if they come in contact with outsiders (think of the arrival of Europeans to the Americas after Christopher Columbus and the way that common European illnesses were lethal for indigenous Americans with no immunization against them).

And on top of all of this, the project might destroy the environment and the indigenous people just to turn out to be useless and sooner or later be abandoned. The naturalist Uday Mondal explains that “after all the destruction, the financial viability of the project remains questionable as all the construction material will have to be shipped to this remote island and it will have to compete with already well-established ports.” However, this project is important to India because they want to use the island as a military and commercial post to stop China's expansion in the region, since the Nicobar islands are located on one of the world's busiest sea routes.

Last year, 70 former government officials and ambassadors wrote to the Indian president saying the project would “virtually destroy the unique ecology of this island and the habitat of vulnerable tribal groups”. India's response has been to say that the indigenous tribes will be relocated "if needed", but that doesn't solve the problem. As a spokesperson for human rights group Survival International said: “The Shompen are nomadic and have clearly defined territories. Four of their semi-permanent settlements are set to be directly devastated by the project, along with their southern hunting and foraging territories. The Shompen will undoubtedly try to move away from the area destroyed, but there will be little space for them to go. To avoid a genocide, this deadly mega-project must be scrapped.”

On 7 February 2024, 39 scholars from 13 countries published an open letter to the Indian president warning that “If the project goes ahead, even in a limited form, we believe it will be a death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide.”

How to help

The NGO Survival International has launched this campaign:

From this site, you just need to add your name and email and you will send an email to India's Tribal Affairs Minister and to the companies currently vying to build the first stage of the project.

Share it with your friends and acquittances and on social media.

Sources:

India’s plan for untouched Nicobar isles will be ‘death sentence’ for isolated tribe, 7 Feb 2024. The Guardian.

‘It will destroy them���: Indian mega-development could cause ‘genocide’ and ‘ecocide’, says charity, 8 Feb 2024. Geographical.

Genocide experts call on India's government to scrap the Great Nicobar mega-project, Feb 2024. Survival International.

The container terminal that could sink the Great Nicobar Island, 20 July 2022. Mongabay.

[Maps] Environmental path cleared for Great Nicobar mega project, 10 Oct 2022. Mongabay.

[reasonsforhope]

"The man who has called climate change a “hoax” also can be expected to wreak havoc on federal agencies central to understanding, and combating, climate change. But plenty of climate action would be very difficult for a second Trump administration to unravel, and the 47th president won’t be able to stop the inevitable economy-wide shift from fossil fuels to renewables. 

“This is bad for the climate, full stop,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at the Columbia Business School. “That said, this will be yet another wall that never gets built. Fundamental market forces are at play.”

A core irony of climate change is that markets incentivized the wide-scale burning of fossil fuels beginning in the Industrial Revolution, creating the mess humanity is mired in, and now those markets are driving a renewables revolution that will help fix it. Coal, oil, and gas are commodities whose prices fluctuate. As natural resources that humans pull from the ground, there’s really no improving on them — engineers can’t engineer new versions of coal. 

By contrast, solar panels, wind turbines, and appliances like induction stoves only get better — more efficient and cheaper — with time. Energy experts believe solar power, the price of which fell 90 percent between 2010 and 2020, will continue to proliferate across the landscape. (Last year, the United States added three times as much solar capacity as natural gas.) Heat pumps now outsell gas furnaces in the U.S., due in part to government incentives. Last year, Maine announced it had reached its goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps two years ahead of schedule, in part thanks to state rebates. So if the Trump administration cut off the funding for heat pumps that the IRA provides, states could pick up the slack. 

Local utilities are also finding novel ways to use heat pumps. Over in Massachusetts, for example, the utility Eversource Energy is experimenting with “networked geothermal,” in which the homes within a given neighborhood tap into water pumped from underground. Heat pumps use that water to heat or cool a space, which is vastly more efficient than burning natural gas. Eversource and two dozen other utilities, representing about half of the country’s natural gas customers, have formed a coalition to deploy more networked geothermal systems.

Beyond being more efficient, green tech is simply cheaper to adopt. Consider Texas, which long ago divorced its electrical grid from the national grid so it could skirt federal regulation. The Lone Star State is the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer, but it gets 40 percent of its total energy from carbon-free sources. “Texas has the most solar and wind of any state, not because Republicans in Texas love renewables, but because it’s the cheapest form of electricity there,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, a climate research nonprofit. The next top three states for producing wind power — Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas — are red, too.

State regulators are also pressuring utilities to slash emissions, further driving the adoption of wind and solar power. As part of California’s goal of decarbonizing its power by 2045, the state increased battery storage by 757 percent between 2019 and 2023. Even electric cars and electric school buses can provide backup power for the grid. That allows utilities to load up on bountiful solar energy during the day, then drain those batteries at night — essential for weaning off fossil fuel power plants. Trump could slap tariffs on imported solar panels and thereby increase their price, but that would likely boost domestic manufacturing of those panels, helping the fledgling photovoltaic manufacturing industry in red states like Georgia and Texas.

The irony of Biden’s signature climate bill is states that overwhelmingly support Trump are some of the largest recipients of its funding. That means tampering with the IRA could land a Trump administration in political peril even with Republican control of the Senate, if not Congress. In addition to providing incentives to households (last year alone, 3.4 million American families claimed more than $8 billion in tax credits for home energy improvements), the legislation has so far resulted in $150 billion of new investment in the green economy since it was passed in 2022, boosting the manufacturing of technologies like batteries and solar panels. According to Atlas Public Policy, a research group, that could eventually create 160,000 jobs. “Something like 66 percent of all of the spending in the IRA has gone to red states,” Hausfather said. “There certainly is a contingency in the Republican party now that’s going to support keeping some of those subsidies around.”

Before Biden’s climate legislation passed, much more progress was happening at a state and local level. New York, for instance, set a goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 40 percent by 2030, and 85 percent by 2050. Colorado, too, is aiming to slash emissions by at least 90 percent by 2050. The automaker Stellantis has signed an agreement with the state of California promising to meet the state’s zero-emissions vehicle mandate even if a judicial or federal action overturns it. It then sells those same cars in other states. 

“State governments are going to be the clearest counterbalance to the direction that Donald Trump will take the country on environmental policy,” said Thad Kousser, co-director of the Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research at the University of California, San Diego. “California and the states that ally with it are going to try to adhere to tighter standards if the Trump administration lowers national standards.”

[Note: One of the obscure but great things about how emissions regulations/markets work in the US is that automakers generally all follow California's emissions standards, and those standards are substantially higher than federal standards. Source]

Last week, 62 percent of Washington state voters soundly rejected a ballot initiative seeking to repeal a landmark law that raised funds to fight climate change. “Donald Trump’s going to learn something that our opponents in our initiative battle learned: Once people have a benefit, you can’t take it away,” Washington Governor Jay Inslee said in a press call Friday. “He is going to lose in his efforts to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, because governors, mayors of both parties, are going to say, ‘This belongs to me, and you’re not going to get your grubby hands on it.’”

Even without federal funding, states regularly embark on their own large-scale projects to adapt to climate change. California voters, for instance, just overwhelmingly approved a $10 billion bond to fund water, climate, and wildfire prevention projects. “That will be an example,” said Saharnaz Mirzazad, executive director of the U.S. branch of ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability. “You can use that on a state level or local level to have [more of] these types of bonds. You can help build some infrastructure that is more resilient.”

Urban areas, too, have been major drivers of climate action: In 2021, 130 U.S. cities signed a U.N.-backed pledge to accelerate their decarbonization. “Having an unsupportive federal government, to say the least, will be not helpful,” said David Miller, managing director at the Centre for Urban Climate Policy and Economy at C40, a global network of mayors fighting climate change. “It doesn’t mean at all that climate action will stop. It won’t, and we’ve already seen that twice in recent U.S. history, when Republican administrations pulled out of international agreements. Cities step to the fore.”

And not in isolation, because mayors talk: Cities share information about how to write legislation, such as laws that reduce carbon emissions in buildings and ensure that new developments are connected to public transportation. They transform their food systems to grow more crops locally, providing jobs and reducing emissions associated with shipping produce from afar. “If anything,” Miller said, “having to push against an administration, like that we imagine is coming, will redouble the efforts to push at the local level.” 

Federal funding — like how the U.S. Forest Service has been handing out $1.5 billion for planting trees in urban areas, made possible by the IRA — might dry up for many local projects, but city governments, community groups, and philanthropies will still be there. “You picture a web, and we’re taking scissors or a machete or something, and chopping one part of that web out,” said Elizabeth Sawin, the director of the Multisolving Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes climate solutions. “There’s this resilience of having all these layers of partners.”

All told, climate progress has been unfolding on so many fronts for so many years — often without enough support from the federal government — that it will persist regardless of who occupies the White House. “This too shall pass, and hopefully we will be in a more favorable policy environment in four years,” Hausfather said. “In the meantime, we’ll have to keep trying to make clean energy cheap and hope that it wins on its merits.”"

-via Grist, November 11, 2024. A timely reminder.

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

Hermitcraft / Life Series Fic Recs

Because I love so many of them...

I'll split the fics into completed and updating fics, and try to only recommend currently updating fics (i.e., not abandoned). I'm going to write a little about why I like each fic and what the general vibes are - so this is also a kind of review I guess?

I've tried to @ the authors if they have a public tumblr. Sorry to anyone who didn't want to be tagged, I can remove any @ if you ask (or if I have embarrassingly tagged the wrong person). Anyway, enjoy, and I appreciate reblogs because I want as many people to see these fics as possible!!

This ended up being incredibly long so I'm putting a divider here. Click to keep reading!!! Also, fair warning: shipping ahead! Some fics will have mild sexual content, please read the tags if you are unsure <3

Updating Fics

I have already recommended Help Me To Breathe, lost in the dark (he's got a heavy heart), and There Are Monsters Nearby in this post, so I won't explain why I like them a second time, but definitely check them out!!

Death's A Good Gig by @mawofthemagnetar is probably going to be finished by the time this post gets to you, reader, but I'm putting it here anyway. It's short and sweet, one of my favourite representations of Zedaph (or, Zedeath) I've read, and just a joy to experience. If you like grim reapers and discussions of unions, this one is for you. Also I need more Zedaph in my life.

Look, I'm Sorry, Please Stop Scaring Everyone by @cat-in-the-desert reminds me a lot of a particular TV drama I liked when I was younger, which followed a similar premise. This fic follows Mumbo (vampire) and Grian (ghost) as they get up to various housemate shenanigans and meet their local magic-expert and salesman Scar. This fic is fun, but still includes a nice amount of Feelings and hinted-at Angst which I really love. It's lighthearted, but never boring.

It Hurts To Hope by Inquillitory is my favourite of the "Grian crash lands into Hermitcraft and causes problems for everyone" genre. Seeing how many fics there are with that premise, I think that says a lot. It handles Grian's weird Watcher stuff really well. Honestly, I just want to know what happens next!

killing the boy in the tv by @raspberrystruck is like a sickfic on steroids. If you want Grian with so much past trauma he forgets how to function in society, this is basically the fic for you. I really love how hybrid traits affect the characters' interactions in this fic, and how everyone is kind of messed up because of the imbalance Grian brings. It is wonderfully descriptive in all the right places!

Love Me Like I'm Dead by @daniofcrows is such a gem. You know how hard it is to find good Xisuma whump? It's impossible. I absolutely love how Xisuma and Evil X are characterised in this, and I am obsessed with the unique take on hanahaki disease which I have never seen handled in this way before. The balance between flashbacks and present day is maintained wonderfully and I cannot wait to continue reading this one. Wow.

Oh, you wanted me to do a verse? by @bugbbear is... kind of indescribable. It's horror. It's comedy. It's the apocalypse. It's boatem. Scar eats someone. One of the most interesting and unique apocalypse stories I have read. Slowly updating but worth the wait, in my opinion. This one NEEDS more attention.

So Much For Stardust by @a-plethora-of-peters is basically one of my all-time favourites. Which is a damn good achievement seeing as I don't usually read ZITS fics. Like, ever. In this fic, Skizz is a human abducted and hurt badly by aliens, now recovering in the care of good aliens who don't know how 'sentient' he is. Every update of this one makes me smile, it is wonderful. I love how the characters are written and how the different perspectives are shown. It is just great.

Solar Waltz by @raspberrystruck and aroundtheclock is a brilliant and very very sad regression fic. I love fluffy regression fics as much as the next guy, but this one just... hits different. The hurt/comfort levels are off the charts. Grian is so damn cute the whole time, while also being harrowingly complicated and sad. I am so ready for whatever comes next.

Tango's Castle of Cards by @evilrat-sabre is the one where Tango is a BUG. He's just a little guy (horror). This one is so beautifully written, with poetry-type interludes and perspective changes that really make everything feel so much more impactful. Finding out your buddy is a murder bug isn't the easiest thing in the world. I love this so much.

Traveling Thieves {Dark Fantasy AU} (series) by @amethystfairy1 is basically one of the series of all time. I know I keep saying that but it really really is. I love a good fantasy au, and I love an au with hybrids even more. In this world, hybrids are treated like slaves, but it isn't all doom and gloom for the main characters of each installment. There is a lot of hurt/comfort and the different stories feed into each other in really interesting ways. I try to read as much as I can, though I've missed a few because my emails are buggy. Definitely worth reading these fics, especially since now they're all starting to come together!

Completed Fics

Solving Counting Sheep by @theminecraftbee might have rearranged my brain chemistry a little. Another strong contender for 'fics that inspire me to kill Grian', this time with a more concrete notion of "replacement". Three is my favourite fucked up living weapon. It's so rare to find Evo fics in this day and age, too. This fic had me immediately clicking on every update as soon as I got the emails.

Rescue Fire by @imaginethat0327 is one of the most unique takes on a fictionalised life series game that I have ever read. The whole concept is explained in a realistic and easy-to-follow way, as we learn what's happening with the characters. There are several brilliant storylines happening in this one, but my particular favourites are Jimmy & Tango, Joel, and of course Scar & Grian. This fic is full of whump and, well, read the tags, it isn't always pleasant, but those are my favourite things ever. Definitely worth checking out this fic and its currently updating sequel.

don't you know about me? by takenbadgering is a wonderful comedy of errors with just the right amount of angst for a realistic setting type of fic. If you enjoy polyamory miscommunications, rave aesthetics, kandi, school teacher dynamics, and a lovely blend between grumbo, cubscar, and mumscar, this is the one.

Eventually the Birds Must Land by @milo-hypno follows a polyam ship I would have never thought of, and I cannot believe how much I loved it. This married-as-friends fic premise is wonderful, and captures the main trio (Grian, Mumbo, Impulse)'s personalities so well, while balancing them with the incredibly terrifying descriptions of the Watchers and their power. There's a lot of angst here, but it is ultimately hurt/comfort to the maximum degree. I loved reading it as it updated. Yay for gay marriage!

From The Archives (series) by @sixteenth-days was the absolute inspiration for my own Comms AU, and I will never forget its influence on me. As someone basically unfamiliar with TMA, I thought this series might be hard to follow, but it was not! I read all 57 parts in the span of two days, and I think it altered my brain chemistry. Please read it, even if (especially if) you don't know anything about TMA. The Cleo and Grian storyline lives in my head rent free. I mean it. This is horror at its finest. Also there's an audio series of this fic being released rn, which is very cool.

SUPERCRITICAL by @masque-of-plague hits different. It is such a wonderful take on the superhero/HotGuy trope, and it gets so super dark at some points! This one really takes swings at it's fictional government, which of course I love, while at the same time building this brilliantly emotional relationship between Scar and Grian. I do enjoy a bit of enemies to lovers, but the actual plot mixed into the story makes this one extra special. It is thrilling, with action that I don't get to see too often! Great work.

I am weary with contending! is one of the mumscarian fics of all time. From 'this house has people in it'-type horror, to magic gone wrong, to childhood trauma, to attempted assassination, to gender fuckery, this fic has it all. Usually I don't go for convex siblings, but this one is good enough to get a pass from me. Amazingly detailed worldbuilding alongside a brilliantly creative story.

It Spreads by @foxxology may not count as a fic, actually. It's a comic. But it's posted on ao3 so it counts. I was obsessed with this one as it was updating, honestly. It rocked me to my core. The art is phenomenal. The writing is brilliant. I love sculk.

Luck of the sea by Sleepy_Duck is a lovely take on mermaid and human interactions, with Grian as a marine life conservator and Scar as a very neglected mer. This one takes us emotionally in all sorts of directions, and offers lots of hope for the future of the characters. I heavily enjoyed this fic - if you like mermaids and marine biology, check it out.

there are many downsides to being a marine biologist by donnerstag is another mermaid fic but with a pretty different vibe. First of all, it follows what I would consider a rarepair Doc/Martyn. Second of all, reading this as it updated was a thrilling experience that nearly made me cry at certain points. I love how the relationship builds in this fic. It is honestly amazing. The whole idea of experimenting on a sentient sea creature, learning that he can communicate, then losing funding and having to save him from being dissected?!?! It's crazy. I love it.

Thus concludes my fic recommendations. I hope you enjoy at least some of these, and consider reblogging to spread these wonderful fics around <3

[wachinyeya]

Junior Brown- Thu 3 Apr 2025

With millions of solar devices failing, the African solar repair movement is training local technicians to extend their lifespan.

Africa’s solar energy boom has changed lives, bringing power to millions without electricity access. However, as solar equipment ages, a growing number of systems are breaking down. Without repair services, communities risk losing their only source of power.

A growing network of solar repair entrepreneurs is working to fix this problem. Known as the African solar repair movement, this initiative trains local technicians to restore broken solar devices, extending their lifespan and keeping power accessible in off-grid areas. Experts say this approach is crucial for creating a sustainable solar economy.

Solar energy has expanded rapidly across Africa over the past decade. In 2014, the continent had just 1.67 gigawatts of solar capacity. By 2023, that number had grown nearly tenfold to 13.48 gigawatts—enough to power 100 million lightbulbs.

Africa is an ideal location for solar energy. According to the International Energy Agency, the continent has 60% of the world’s best solar resources. In many areas, solar is already the cheapest way to generate electricity.

However, as more solar devices are installed, a new problem has emerged: maintenance and repair. Solar products such as home lighting kits and mini-grids are breaking down; without proper servicing, they become waste.

According to SolarAid, a nonprofit focused on solar access in Africa, over 250 million solar energy kits worldwide have fallen into disrepair. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, 75% of all solar products—an estimated 110 million solar lights—no longer work.

Most of these devices could be fixed with simple repairs. However, because there is little infrastructure for solar maintenance, broken systems are often discarded.

This creates three major problems. One is the loss of access to electricity. Many communities depend entirely on solar power. When systems fail, families are left in the dark.

Two, electronic waste accumulation. Non-repairable solar devices contribute to Africa’s growing e-waste problem.

Finally, there is economic loss. Solar products are expensive for African households, and replacing them frequently is not sustainable.

To address this crisis, organizations like SolarAid have launched programs to train local repair agents. These entrepreneurs, often called “solar repair agents,” learn to diagnose and fix common solar equipment failures, such as faulty batteries, wiring issues, and broken switches.

Father Vincent Ngwira, a Catholic priest in Zambia, is one of these repair agents. He has been involved in solar energy distribution since 2017 and recently completed a three-day training program to repair solar devices in his community.

“In the past, people used candles for light, and that led to house fires,” says Ngwira. “Solar changed everything, but now many of these devices are breaking. Learning to repair them has been empowering.”

In September 2023, he fixed a faulty solar panel and a broken flashlight switch. The flashlight repair cost just 20 Zambian Kwacha ($0.75)—a price that makes solar maintenance affordable for even the poorest households.

The African solar repair movement does more than keep the lights on. It also provides economic and environmental benefits: Repair technicians and solar entrepreneurs gain new income opportunities. Repairing solar devices prevents unnecessary e-waste, and keeping money within communities instead of spending on new imports strengthens financial resilience.

In Zambia, 10 repair agents and 7 advanced technicians are now fixing more complex solar failures. SolarAid teams in Zambia and Malawi have repaired over 2,400 solar products in the past year.

“We’re creating a sustainable solar economy,” says Fred Mwale, project manager for SolarAid in Zambia. “Repairing devices instead of replacing them benefits both people and the planet.”

Despite its success, the African solar repair movement faces several challenges.

One is that spare parts are limited. Many solar batteries and components must be imported from China, which can take months. Manufacturers also limit access to repair information to protect their designs.

Two, repair shops must be centrally located in rural areas to be accessible. Some people still have to travel long distances to reach them.

Finally, Zambia alone has 72 spoken languages, making communication difficult for technicians working in remote villages.

Mwale believes that the movement can overcome these obstacles with better support. “We need manufacturers to make spare parts more available and governments to support repair-friendly policies,” he says.

Other renewable energy sources, such as wind power, also face maintenance challenges. However, large-scale wind and hydroelectric projects are usually managed by corporations with dedicated repair teams.

Solar, on the other hand, is often distributed through small-scale systems to individual households. This makes community-based repair models like the African solar repair movement even more essential.

The future of the African solar repair movement looks promising. With better policies and funding, experts predict that solar repair could expand across the continent.

Innovations like 3D-printed solar components and community repair hubs could make repairs even more accessible. Governments may also introduce policies that require manufacturers to provide repairable designs and spare parts.

With Africa’s demand for solar energy increasing, a strong repair network will be essential to powering the continent.

The African solar repair movement is proving that renewable energy isn’t just about installing new systems—it’s about keeping them running for generations. As Africa pushes toward sustainable and affordable energy for all, repair initiatives will play a crucial role in shaping the future.

[blueiscoool]

Dacian Silver Hoard Found in Romania

Amateur metal detectorists uncovered a stunning collection of silver jewelry, the first evidence of a Dacian settlement in Mures County, Romania.

When their metal detectors creaked, amateur archaeologists Dionisie-Aurel Moldovan and Sebastian-Adrian Zăhan never expected to unearth a treasure of silver jewelry that might change the history books.

The Dacian empire had long been thought to be absent from Breaza commune, Mures county, in central Romania. When they handed the hoard over to the state authorities, the Mures County Museum confirmed its origins were Dacian, but how did it get here? Why was it here?

The treasure sparked more questions than answers. Could an ancient Dacian dwelling or even settlement be waiting to be discovered beneath the surface? According to experts, the find attests to it.

An aristocrat's jewelry collection

As famous warriors, the Dacian empire expanded its reach in central Europe to the Danube in the south and the Black Sea in the east. They have a rich history that includes historic clashes with the Roman Empire. However, their artistic tradition remains relatively unknown. By the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, they had already developed a rich culture of craftsmanship. Their use of gold and silver can be traced back to 350 BC, or over 2,400 years ago. The recent discovery of a hoard of silver treasure highlights this overlooked aspect of their culture.

The collection, which weighed over a pound, included a circular silver bracelet decorated with plant motifs, two knotted broaches, a smaller fibula with four knots, a neck chain finished with a link with ends hanging from it attached to three pendants, and a girdle of oval plates fastened with a series of links. Most likely, a rectangular plate decorated with solar motifs was attached to the belt.

A prominent member of Dacian aristocracy wore this silver with intricate details on special occasions, but the museum cannot confirm whether the hoard belonged to a man or woman yet. Whoever he or she might have been, the jewelry communicated the splendor of their wealth.

According to the Mures Museum, the owner of the hoard could have stashed it underground as an offering to a deity or to hide assets during a difficult moment. Many questions arise about why the owner disposed of their wealth as they never recovered it. But the local museum received much more than jewelry; it also received a sign in silver.

A Dacian settlement nearby?

The Dacians were the first people of Romania. According to Brittanica, north-central and western Romania made up the core of their territory. But the jewelry presents the first clear indication that the Dacians were present in this region in central Romania: Mures County. Until now, archaeologists never found any evidence of their presence, leading experts to conclude that a dwelling, settlement, or fortress must be nearby.

“We hope that through upcoming field research, the Dacian settlement and even the fortification in the area will able to be identified,” the museum stated in a press release.

The silver treasure is currently being documented, studied, published, and exhibited at the Mures County Museum.

By Maria Mocerino.

[carionto]

Give them fetch quests

Humans love to be active. Or perhaps a better way to put it - their brains demand stimulation. Hence all of the thing they keep doing in the galaxy - unending exploration, setting up businesses for everything, inventing new (and deadly) leisure activities, and they just can't sit idle (yes each of those is a different little story).

Their ingenuity knows no bounds, though we wish it did at times. Like when they figured out how to kidnap moons. And apparently they've lost track of some of them! The sheer level of frustration is- unmentionable. *ahem*

Their seemingly hard-wired need to problem solve mixed with tenacity and disregard for established methods does provide a unique resource to the rest of the galaxy.

It is unwise to request other governing bodies of their respective species to act for our own interest, as the incurred debt may be quite steep, and official channels sometimes provide quite mundane and well-and-tested solutions.

However, there is nothing against coaxing or simply openly suggesting in a casual way that individual Humans do something for them, and no sane body would take full responsibility for the actions of a singular 'rogue' actor. This opens up the opportunity to give these Humans little activities they can do alongside whatever nonsense they were going to do anyway.

_______________________________

Bartholomew Reginaldo Hvarjarhstehd is on a mission from God to save a planet! [aka a gelatinous blob of an alien named '''Hl''k't'''' (and no, I have no idea how you're supposed to pronounce all those apostrophes, our vocal cords aren't made for that) was tasked by its local government to get a Human scientist to help with their pest problem (which unbeknownst to them was caused by another Human accidentally spacing their trash in the wrong spot) and Barthlolomew, high as a kite on space drugs, heeded the call]

Upon arrival, Balthrolomeow quickly activated his magic wand [grill lighter] and summoned the wraths of Hell [fired up the grill]. Disturbed by the sudden source of intense heat, but thankful it was contained, the local aliens decided to hunker down in their homes and watch with terrified curiosity at what this Human was going to do.

Thinking very, very.... slowly. And. uhh, not, actually. He just thinks he's thinking. But Bratholmowow was acting. With mighty leaps and thundering falls, the courageous Bathbormbalow was still managing to catch one mutated snake-wasp after another, tying their bodies in a knot, and throwing them on the grill!

It was a long and traumatizing night for the local aliens. For hours, Bambilorthabow chewed the charred husks of his failed grilling skills, cursing and spitting inedible chunks around the makeshift hunting grounds, the enzymes and organic fluids of the horrid pests that endured the cooking process further tampering with his addled mind.

Soon, the sun rose upon Bradfildermows snoring body, as he lay in the moss. He was taken back to his ship, and the kind autopilot AI informed them that the lighter fluid contains a chemical that is instantly poisonous to said pests and that they could synthesize a safe variant for their own use with minimal tweaking.

At the end of his adventure, Bamboreithrow had eradicated 0.04% of the pest population by his own means and gained a six week visit to the hospital for detoxification and radiation sickness as he forgot to wear his space suit on a planet with a notably higher solar exposure level than Humans can tolerate.

But on that planet, Brithmalkoniwi will forever be remembered as that weird Human who almost burned down a forest, ate a lot of snake-wasps, and almost died on the front law of the towns expert masseuse.

[spann-stann]

Setting Blurb: The United Markets Military (UMM)

Unified Militia Command (U.M.C.) - Refers to the “military” of the United Markets as a whole. Well, it’s multiple militaries due to the highly decentralized nature of the United Markets. Since there’s no central government, there's no unified military structure. The U.M.C. is a conglomeration of mercenary companies and local militias. Mercenaries vary in tactics and equipment, and their organizational structure varies wildly. Militias, depending on the community they’re defending, can be as armed and armored as an Imperial tumen. Most, however, focus on light infantry, supplementing additional equipment with specialized mercenary units.

(Famous) Mercenary Commands:

Ad Hoc Inc.: Ad Hoc Inc. prides themselves in their rather…irregular style of warfare they offer to their customers. Ad Hoc specializes in having a wide array of contractors at their beck and call to perform whatever kind of security a client would require. Don’t expect them to wage a war on their own for you, though.

Brigade of Belter Bombardiers: BBB serves the United Markets as one of the few “Mercenary Spacies” operating in human-settled space. BBB was formed from several aerospace enthusiasts that served in the Belt Wars. They provide advisory and apprenticeship services for up-and-coming pilots and spacecraft crews. Their largest asset at their disposal is the Invisible Hand, the 15-kilometer-long mothership housing BBB personnel.

Geldmeister’s: “When one wants a war fought, you hire mercenaries. When one wants a war won, you hire Geldmesiter’s!” The number one in offering armies – and at a great price! – Geldmeister’s is what most citizens of human space imagine when thinking of mercenaries. As the largest mercenary command, Geldmeister’s can field formations equivalent to an Imperial Bandon on the battlefield. Frequent contracts against CorpEmp have made them the U.M.’s experts in mechanized and maneuver warfare.

Hot Trod Proactive Securities: When you want an enemy gone before they have a chance to do the same to you, you call Hot Trod. The mercs of Hot Trod are specialists in lightning warfare, utilizing light combat vehicles and aircraft. They do not last long if their targets are well fortified.

Jungle Work(s): Specializing in operations countering the Green Consensus, Jungle Work(s) are masters of warfare in all forms of foliage. They have received a lot of lucrative, long-term contracts as the likelihood of resettling the Earth grows.

Myrmidon Martial Industrial: The other Mercenary command that offers whole armies for sale. Unlike Geldmeister’s, Myrmidon Martial Industrial is for the customer that wants to win a war, but not interested in casualty counts. MMI was formed by shell-shocked veterans of the Human-Crystalline War, and its purpose was to have mass produced clone armies ready for any future invasions of the Solar System. No such invasion has occurred in 800 years, but MMI is still perfecting their human wave tactics. Just in case. Ant-themed.

Philanthrope: For those that can’t afford the cheapest Ad Hoc security package (or want a cheap and moral security package), there’s the helpful folks at Philanthrope. This non-profit mercenary firm, governed by a board of anonymous donors, exists to provide some means of defense for the more impoverished portions of U.M.-affiliated territory.

Free Market Militias:

Militia Command: Even with the market anarchies of the U.M. (Belt and beyond), some semblance of centralization exists. Militia Commands, often, exist only on paper. During periods of peace, Militia Commands are left vacant. When the need arises, contracts are signed by officers of the Command’s soon-to-be subordinate units indicating the terms of the Command’s purpose and longevity. Among the singing officers, a Cincinnatus-General is elected to serve as commanding officer (or a third party from outside the command is elected). Due to their more defensive inclination, Militia Commands are given names like the Free Market Defenders, Free Market Guardians, Free Market Watchmen, etc.

Regiment: The regiment is the largest Milita formation that is active in peacetime. Due to variations in manpower and equipment, there is no real uniform definition of the term. A “regiment” is whatever command is responsible for the defense of a particular territory that isn’t subordinate to another active command. Each Regiment is created by the residents of a territory affiliated with the United Markets (sometimes the Reserves create Regiments of their own) coming together and drafting a contract. Said contract defines the structure of the Regiment, the contributions of each signatory, and delimitate the “territory” it will be defending. A commander is elected from among the signatories, with the elected commander allowed to grant subordinate ranks. Regimental commanders title themselves however they wish (since they’re usually footing most of the bill for upkeep).

Client Regiment: Sometimes a regiment does not have enough manpower or equipment to properly defend their contractually assigned territory. Larger Regiments may extend the hand of patronage of smaller neighboring Regiments, provide discounted supplies and additional manpower in return for contractual obligations (like defending their Patron’s territory including their own). To save face, clients are allowed to still call themselves Regiments.

Battalion: Ideally, a Militia Regiment will have two or more battalions subordinate to it at any given time. Much like their parent regiments, manpower and equipment are dependent on who is willing to serve in their local militia and what each member can afford to bring.

Company: Companies are the smallest combat unit within a Regiment due to aforementioned variations in manpower and equipment (if a Regiment is large enough to field Companies). Depending on their strength, Companies can either be broken down into Platoons or Squads.

How’ver: A common phrase among U.M. militiamen referring to the recruiting calls at a Regiment’s establishment. It refers to however many personnel that bothered to show up to join the Regiment. Depending on its size, a Regiment (and its subordinate units) can be made up of multiple How’vers, or the Regiment itself can consist of a single How’ver.

[magickkate]

Hey, lovely witchlings! As the sun reaches its zenith and the earth is in full bloom, we come to Litha, the summer solstice, a time of abundance, vitality, and celebration. This Sabbat marks the longest day of the year and the peak of solar energy, when the sun's power is at its strongest.

A Briefing on the History: Litha, also known as Midsummer or the Summer Solstice (Northern hemisphere: June 20th or 21st; Southern hemisphere: December 20th or 21st), is a magical time when the sun reaches its zenith in the sky. It’s the longest day of the year, and the sun seems to pause, bathing the earth in its warm glow. Our ancestors celebrated this pivotal moment with fire and water, acknowledging the balance between light and darkness. Stone circles like Stonehenge were oriented to capture the rising sun on this sacred day. Early European traditions included lighting large wheels on fire and rolling them down hills into bodies of water. The Romans honored this time as sacred to Juno, goddess of women and childbirth, giving us the month of June.

History:

Ancient Roots: Litha has ancient origins and has been celebrated by various cultures and civilizations throughout history. It is often associated with sun worship and the celebration of light, fertility, and abundance.

Solar Phenomenon: Litha occurs around June 20th or 21st in the Northern Hemisphere when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky, resulting in the longest day and the shortest night of the year.

Symbolism: The Summer Solstice symbolizes the triumph of light over darkness, as well as the peak of growth and vitality in the natural world. It is a time of celebration, joy, and abundance.

Correspondences: -> Symbolism: Life, fire, rebirth, transformation, power, purity -> Colors: Red, gold, orange, yellow, white, green, blue -> Herbs: St. John’s Wort, lavender, rose, peony, vervain, chamomile, chickweed, chicory, sunflower, lily, thyme, and more -> Crystals: Lapis, diamond, tiger’s eye, emerald, jade, and other green stones -> Animals: Butterflies, wren, horses, stags, robins, cattle, phoenixes, dragons, faeries, satyrs

Here are a few ways to honor the magic of Litha:

Rituals and Activities: - Bonfires: Light a bonfire to honor the sun’s power. - Sunrise/Sunset Greeting: Greet the sun at its highest point in the sky. - Create an Altar: Decorate it with sunflowers, oranges, and yellow candles. - Cleansing Herb Bundle: Make your own bundle for purification. - Sun Tea: Brew tea using sun-infused water. - Burn a Bay Leaf: Write intentions on a bay leaf and burn it - Fertility Ritual: Litha is a time of fertility and growth, and rituals may focus on promoting abundance, creativity, and prosperity. Some practitioners may plant seeds or perform fertility rites to symbolize the fertile energy of the Earth.

Modern Celebrations:

-> Community Gatherings: Many Wiccan and pagan communities host public rituals and gatherings to celebrate Litha, inviting people of all backgrounds to join in the festivities and honor the sun's energy. -> Altar Decorations: Altars are adorned with symbols of the sun, such as gold or yellow candles, sunflowers, citrus fruits, and solar symbols like the sun wheel or the Celtic solar cross. -> Feasting: Traditional foods associated with Litha include fresh fruits, vegetables, honey, bread, dairy products, and grilled meats. These foods celebrate the abundance of the summer harvest and nourish the body and spirit. -> Nature Walks: Taking a nature walk or spending time outdoors is a simple yet meaningful way to connect with the energy of Litha and appreciate the beauty of the natural world during the height of summer.

Recipes: 1. Mead: A honey wine enjoyed by our Celtic and Norse ancestors and many to this day. It is easier to support local experts in the craft of making this than starting up a whole kit of making mead. Choose wisely. (I included a basic starter recipe for those brave enough to venture into the fermentation game. I'll stick to supporting my local businesses!) 2. Sun Tea: If you are unable to drink alcohol or prefer not to, sun tea is a great alternative or a great addition to your Litha celebration! They are called "sun tea" because it is tea brewed from the warmth of direct sunlight! If the weather is cloudy, sun tea may not be the best recipe to try. Common sense <3! 5. Sunflower Seed Pesto Pasta: Cook pasta (such as penne or fusilli) according to package instructions. In a food processor, combine fresh basil leaves, garlic cloves, sunflower seeds, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Blend until smooth. Toss the cooked pasta with the sunflower seed pesto, cherry tomatoes, and sliced summer squash or zucchini. Serve topped with additional Parmesan cheese and fresh basil leaves. 6. Summer Solstice Salad: Mix a variety of fresh greens, such as spinach, arugula, and butter lettuce. Add sliced strawberries, blueberries, and orange segments for a burst of color and sweetness. Sprinkle with toasted almonds or walnuts and crumbled goat cheese or feta cheese. Drizzle with a dressing made from olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, and a pinch of salt and pepper. 6. Grilled Vegetable Platter: Slice a selection of summer vegetables, such as bell peppers, eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, and red onions. Brush the vegetables with olive oil and season with salt, pepper, and your choice of herbs (such as rosemary or thyme). Grill the vegetables until tender and lightly charred, then arrange them on a platter. Serve with a dipping sauce made from Greek yogurt, lemon zest, garlic, and fresh herbs. 7. Honey-Lavender Lemonade: In a saucepan, combine water, honey, and dried lavender buds. Heat gently until the honey is dissolved, then remove from heat and let the mixture steep for 15-20 minutes. Strain the lavender-infused honey mixture into a pitcher and discard the lavender buds. Add freshly squeezed lemon juice to the pitcher and stir to combine. Serve the honey-lavender lemonade over ice, garnished with fresh lavender sprigs and lemon slices. 8. Berry Galette: Prepare a simple pie dough or use store-bought dough for the crust. Roll out the dough and transfer it to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. In a bowl, mix fresh berries (such as strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries) with sugar, cornstarch, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Spoon the berry mixture onto the center of the dough, leaving a border around the edges. Fold the edges of the dough over the berries, pleating as needed. Brush the edges of the dough with milk or beaten egg, then sprinkle with coarse sugar. Bake the galette in a preheated oven until the crust is golden brown and the berries are bubbling. Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Remember, Litha is a celebration of the sun’s abundance and the Earth’s fertility. Embrace the warmth, dance, and honor the cycles of life. Blessed be! 🌻🔥🌿

Note: This post is a brief overview. For more details, explore the rich traditions and make Litha your own! 🌞🌙

[rachelroams]

💫 NORTHERN LIGHTS VACATION 💫

SAVE THIS POST 📌

If you’re dreaming of an epic winter adventure, look no further than Finnish Lapland! ❄️ This beautiful region is easily accessed via a well-connected airport in Rovaniemi, Finland, and the activity and accommodation options in this stretch of the Arctic are incredible. 🇫🇮

👀 Watch my video for activity and lodging recs + see below for recommended providers!

🐶 Dogsledding: @bearhillhusky 🌲 Treehouse hotel: @arctictreehousehotel 🌠 Igloo hotel: @santasigloos 🛷 Sleigh ride + reindeer visit: @christmas_house_safaris_santa ��� Snowmobiling: @snowmobilepark 🍸 Ice bar: @arcticsnowhotel 👙 Polar plunge + sauna: Metsäkyly through @arctictreehousehotel 💫 Northern Lights tour: @christmas_house_safaris_santa

👇 And now: some intel on the Northern Lights…

In Finnish, the word for Northern Lights is “revontulet,” a word that translates as “fox fires”, and practically dances off the tongue. 🦊🔥 The idea of “fox fires” comes from an ancient Finnish myth in which foxes speed across the tundra, kicking up snow and sparks with their tails, sending streaks of color up into the night sky. ⁣ ⁣⁣ Okay, so what really causes Auroras? 🤓

☀️ During powerful solar storms, the Sun ejects particles toward the Earth, and those particles can collide with our upper atmosphere in a brilliant display of fast-moving color and light. ⁣🌌

➡️ So — how can WE see them?! ⁣ Since the Northern Lights are dependent on particles from STORMS ON THE SUN TRAVELING ALL THE WAY TO EARTH 🤯, they can be tough to predict accurately… that said, 2025 is slated to be a great year for solar activity, and local guides tend to know where and when to see them. 😍 ⁣ 🌟 To catch the Northern Lights, your best bet is to book a winter trip to the Arctic for 4-7 days to maximize your chances of seeing the Aurora, and head out on a nighttime tour on a clear night with local experts. (Make sure to dress warmly!!!🧤)

In between your nighttime adventures, you can fill your days with the other beautiful experiences listed above. ⬆️ That way, regardless of whether you see the Northern Lights, you’ll have made memories to last a lifetime.

Northern lights 📸: @kristenkellogg.

[rjzimmerman]

Lithium-ion batteries have ruled for decades. Now they have a challenger. (Washington Post)

Excerpt from this story from the Washington Post:

After decades of lithium-ion batteries dominating the market, a new option has emerged: batteries made with sodium ions.

Scientists have been researching alternatives to lithium for years. Much of the world relies on this kind of battery, but the mining and processing of its materials can be harmful to workers, local communities and the environment.

Sodium has recently emerged as one of the more promising options, and experts say the material could be a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative to lithium.

In the past few years, sodium-ion battery production has increased in the United States. Last month, sodium-ion battery manufacturer Natron Energy announced it would open a “gigafactory” in North Carolina that would produce 24 gigawatt hours of batteries annually, enough energy to charge 24,000 electric vehicles.

But sodium-ion batteries are still early in their development compared with lithium-ion, and they have yet to hit the market on a massive scale.

“It’s unlikely sodium-ion could displace lithium-ion anytime soon,” said Keith Beers, polymer science and materials chemistry principal engineer at technical consultancy firm Exponent.

Here’s what to know about these batteries.

How sodium-ion batteries work

There are many types of sodium-ion batteries, but the ones that will be manufactured in North Carolina are produced in the same way as lithium-ion batteries, just with different ingredients. Instead of using expensive materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt, these will bemade of sodium, iron and manganese.

In a battery, ions move between electrodes during a charging and discharging process to generate electricity, explains Alvaro Acosta, a senior director at the solar developer Lightsource bp. In a sodium-ion battery, sodium ions carry the charge, and the negative electrode is made up of common materials like iron, carbon and nitrogen. Natron’s batteries use iron and manganese for their negative electrodes.

The biggest limitation of sodium-ion batteries is their weight. Sodium weighs nearly three times as much as lithium, and it cannot store the same amount of energy. As a result, sodium-ion batteries tend to be larger.

Jens Peters, an economics professor at the University of Alcalá in Madrid, said the energy density could be improved over time in sodium-ion batteries. But, he added, “what we found out so far in our assessments is that it is not a game changer.”

Sodium-ion batteries are touted to be the environmentally friendly alternative to their lithium-ion counterparts, thanks to their raw materials. Sodium, iron and manganese are all abundant elements on the planet, so they require less energy to extract and cost less.

“Everyone knows that lithium-ion batteries are the pulse of mobile phones, transportation,” said Yang-Kook Sun, professor of energy engineering at Hanyang University in Seoul. “The issue over lithium-ion batteries is that they use highly expensive materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt.”

[yeehaw-in-magic-space]

Campaign and Characters: Basic Rundown

(The campaign I’ll be posting about here is a space western with heavy fantasy and horror elements. It draws quite a bit from some of my favorite things including The Locked Tomb, Star Wars, Darkest Dungeon, Cowboy Bebop, and some other cowboy themed D&D stuff I've run in the past)

The campaign starts 3 years after a massive crisis of succession that accidentally fused four different wars into one galaxy wide conflict. After over 30 years of fighting, a new Sovereign of the Galactic Kingdom has been named, and people are trying to pick up the pieces of their scattered lives. This has led a lot of people to flee towards the frontier worlds in an attempt to make their fortune and free themselves from the burdens of living under the various Dukes and Counts that hold dominion over their solar systems (though most fall immediately into the hands of outlaws who treat themselves as monarchs). It’s a mix between the energy of scrappy space cowboys, noble fantasy houses, and a horrifying galaxy filled with undead abominations (at least, according to rumors).  

Our protagonists are a cluster of drifters and runaways who for one reason or another find themselves on an interstellar train that will take them to the edge of "civilized society", which is where they run into each other and experience the first rumbles of the hauntings and horrors that lie beyond what the Galactic Kingdom has managed to conquer. I have 4 players in this game whose characters I'll give a brief description of below:

Dolly (she/her): Dolly is a disgraced reporter who once captured the events of the war and rooted out corruption wherever she found it. Eventually, she poked a little too hard at a cluster of powerful nobles, and a scandal broke about her selling information (and having intimate relations with) some of the outlaw leaders at the edges of the galaxy. She now takes jobs from "Choice Information" a trashy tabloid that has her basically writing buzzfeed style articles and doing vapid interviews for upstart bounty hunters. They give her lackluster information and sexy costumes to wear to every interview. She is a Human Inquisitive Rogue.

Chuck (he/him): Ch’k T’k, nicknamed Chuck, is a bounty hunter who takes any odd job he can find. He’s an expert tinkerer, fast with his shooting hand (which is helped by him having four of them), and is never seen without his Automaton companion, MAC. He does his best to keep a low profile and take jobs that will be easy money without gaining too much attention from the authorities or high profile outlaws, but he seems to have a bad habit of being dragged in over his head and finding dangerous gigs. He is a Thri-Kreen Battlesmith Artificer.

Geraldine (she/her): Geraldine is a wide-eyed debutant from a new money family. Her family didn’t make as much money as they were hoping to selling weapons and supplies during the war, and their lack of progress left her with a lot of free time on her hands. She used this free time to perfect her shooting at the local range, and to indulge in romantic novels that paint pictures of love, lust, and adventure in the frontier worlds. She decided that she dreamed of writing a story of her own, and wandered off to the nearest train station to find a crew to take her on an adventure. She is a Human Battle Master Fighter.   

Prometheus (he/it): Prometheus is a mysterious con artist, and is visibly the most cursed gothic man ever conceived of (though he really doesn’t seem to notice). He is fleeing to the edge of the galaxy, and scamming as many people as he can along the way. He slings snake oil potions, certificates for distant stars, and shockingly openly brandishes eldritch magic when the situation calls for it. Prometheus is a fellow with an untrustworthy face, but a shockingly smooth tongue to compensate. He’s wandering further and further into the galaxy for reasons that perhaps aren’t clear to most, or maybe even to him. He is a Human Great Old One Warlock.

This is our primary cast and crew, and soon I'll be diving into how they met and the shenanigans they got up to during our first session.

[reasonsforhope]

"This year the world will make something like 70bn of these solar cells, the vast majority of them in China, and sandwich them between sheets of glass to make what the industry calls modules but most other people call panels: 60 to 72 cells at a time, typically, for most of the modules which end up on residential roofs, more for those destined for commercial plant. Those panels will provide power to family homes, to local electricity collectives, to specific industrial installations and to large electric grids; they will sit unnoticed on roofs, charmingly outside rural schools, controversially across pristine deserts, prosaically on the balconies of blocks of flats and in almost every other setting imaginable.

Once in place they will sit there for decades, making no noise, emitting no fumes, using no resources, costing almost nothing and generating power. It is the least obtrusive revolution imaginable. But it is a revolution nonetheless.

Over the course of 2023 the world’s solar cells, their panels currently covering less than 10,000 square kilometres, produced about 1,600 terawatt-hours of energy (a terawatt, or 1tw, is a trillion watts). That represented about 6% of the electricity generated world wide, and just over 1% of the world’s primary-energy use. That last figure sounds fairly marginal, though rather less so when you consider that the fossil fuels which provide most of the world’s primary energy are much less efficient. More than half the primary energy in coal and oil ends up as waste heat, rather than electricity or forward motion.

What makes solar energy revolutionary is the rate of growth which brought it to this just-beyond-the-marginal state. Michael Liebreich, a veteran analyst of clean-energy technology and economics, puts it this way:

In 2004, it took the world a whole year to install a gigawatt of solar-power capacity... In 2010, it took a month In 2016, a week. In 2023 there were single days which saw a gigawatt of installation worldwide. Over the course of 2024 analysts at BloombergNEF, a data outfit, expect to see 520-655gw of capacity installed: that’s up to two 2004s a day...

And it shows no signs of stopping, or even slowing down. Buying and installing solar panels is currently the largest single category of investment in electricity generation, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), an intergovernmental think-tank: it expects $500bn this year, not far short of the sum being put into upstream oil and gas. Installed capacity is doubling every three years. According to the International Solar Energy Society:

Solar power is on track to generate more electricity than all the world’s nuclear power plants in 2026 Than its wind turbines in 2027 Tthan its dams in 2028 Its gas-fired power plants in 2030 And its coal-fired ones in 2032.

In an IEA scenario which provides net-zero carbon-dioxide emissions by the middle of the century, solar energy becomes humankind’s largest source of primary energy—not just electricity—by the 2040s...

Expecting exponentials to carry on is rarely a basis for sober forecasting. At some point either demand or supply faces an unavoidable constraint; a graph which was going up exponentially starts to take on the form of an elongated S. And there is a wide variety of plausible stories about possible constraints...

All real issues. But the past 20 years of solar growth have seen naive extrapolations trounce forecasting soberly informed by such concerns again and again. In 2009, when installed solar capacity worldwide was 23gw, the energy experts at the IEA predicted that in the 20 years to 2030 it would increase to 244gw. It hit that milestone in 2016, when only six of the 20 years had passed. According to Nat Bullard, an energy analyst, over most of the 2010s actual solar installations typically beat the IEA’s five-year forecasts by 235% (see chart). The people who have come closest to predicting what has actually happened have been environmentalists poo-pooed for zealotry and economic illiteracy, such as those at Greenpeace who, also in 2009, predicted 921gw of solar capacity by 2030. Yet even that was an underestimate. The world’s solar capacity hit 1,419gw last year.

-via The Economist, June 20, 2024

--

Note: That graph. Is fucking ridiculous(ly hopeful).

For perspective: the graph shows that in 2023, there were about 350 GW of solar installed. The 5-year prediction from 2023 said that we'd end up around 450 GW by 2030.

We hit over 600 GW in the first half of 2024 alone.

This is what's called an exponential curve. It's a curve that keeps going up at a rate that gets higher and higher with each year.

This, I firmly believe, is a huge part of what is going to let us save the world.

[s3a0tterart]

Fallout ocs pt.23

🌹💀 La Rosa 💀🌹

Full name: Selena Luciana Cruz

Age:

(2277 fallout 3) 14yrs

(2281, fallout nv) 18yrs

(2287, fallout 4) 24yrs

(2292) 29yrs

D.O.B: (Leo) July 28th, 2263

Sexuality: Pansexual

Gender: She/They/It (gender-fluid)

Height: 5’9

Weight: 150lbs

Species/Race: human Hispanic/latina (Mexican + Colombian) (blood seer)

Eyes: grey/ silver

Hair: black

Faction (main): The Vultures

Alliances: Jess, Shay & Wyvern, Mangle, Cartels (fear based),

Karma/Alignment: Neutral evil, Evil Karma

S.P.E.C.I.A.L-

Strength: 8

Perception: 14

Endurance: 16

Charisma:10

Intelligence: 7

Agility: 14

Luck: 8

🌹SKILLS/PERKS🌹

💀Skills:

Guns, Energy weapons, melee, Traps, survival, athletics, lockpick, pickpocket, sneak, steal

Perks:

💪Strength- 8

* Big leagues

* Armorer

* Blacksmith

* Heavy gunner

* Strong back

* Steady aim

* Basher

👁️ Perception- 14

* Pick pocket

* Awareness

* Locksmith

* Demolitions expert

* Night person

* Penetrator

* Concentrated fire

⛑️Endurance- 16

* Toughness

* Lead belly

* Life giver

* Chem resistant

* Aqua girl

* Rad resistant

* Adamantium skeleton

* Cannibal

* Ghoulish

* Solar powered

😎Charisma- 10

* Cap collector

* Black widow

* Lone wanderer

* Attack dog

* Animal friend

* Local leader

* Party girl

* Inspirational

* Wasteland whisperer

* Intimidation

🧠Intelligence- 7

* V.A.N.S.

* Medic

* Gun nut

* Hacker

* Scrapper

* Science!

* Chemist

🏃Agility- 14

* Gunslinger

* Commando

* Sneak

* Mister sandman

* Action girl

* Moving target

* Quick hands

* Blitz

🍀 Luck- 8

* Fortune finder

* Scrounger

* Bloody mess

* Better Criticals

* Critical banker

* Grim reaper’s sprint

💀Other Perks-

* Cherchez La Femme

* Super slam!

* Hunter

* Spray and Pray

🌹💀 RELATIONSHIPS 💀🌹

Friends: Jessica, Mangle, Dolores, Valentino, Spitter, Xavier,

Family: (mother) Camila S. Cruz, (father) Arturo Cruz

Enemies: too many

Lovers: Jessica (eddie’s oc)