From the math I looked at, that doesn't seem to be the case. What we're actually doing is fighting radiative and convective heat loss, basically requiring more energy per second to compensate for increasing heat losses per second. An adequately insulted sand battery would negate a lot of that.
The easiest method is using sand as an electrical resistor allowing the resistance to heat the sand up. I've also wondered about other methods too, such as solar ovens or baking the sand in some way and dumping the hot sand into the battery.
Good question, not being an expert I don't have a great answer. But maybe doing a composite sand that combined something like copper, iron, it aluminum dust with the sand to increase the ability of the battery to more easily move heat around. Or using the chosen metal in a bar or pipe as heat transfer out of the center. The only issue with that is it lowers the operating temp and would require more active cooling, this negating some of the self-insulating benefits of sand. This could be solved by treating them like control rods, and make them movable so they could be drawn out when extracting energy is not necessary.
Please share! My wife and I are starting a homestead and are always looking for ways to make it more solarpunk. We'd love the inspiration you could provide!
Went to a town called Sutton's Bay in Michigan, USA this last weekend. Definitely solar Punk leaning. Solar: a lot of people drive EVs, bike paths throughout the town and connecting other local towns, rain gardens are interspersed throughout the town, some business stops nearby from the local intercity bus network. Punk: residents are encouraged not to mow their lawns until the end of May, the only gas station in town looked pretty closed, their groceries is a mom and pop shop. Obviously, the town has a long way to go (economy is largely tourist/consumerism based, no public ev chargers, housing does not appear affordable, no light rail nearby), but as far as USA cities in the "middle of nowhere" go, it's a speck of hope.
Pictures taken in local coffee shop.
I agree meat is a luxury. If we look historically, farm meat was common at the table of the wealthy, but sparring at the table of the common man. It's often made me wonder about the sustainabity of hunted meats if we were to treat meat as a luxury item reserved for celebrations. It seems like there's quite the potential for carbon offset according to this article: Wild meat consumption in tropical forests spares a significant carbon footprint from the livestock production sector. The article also seems to suggest in this context a necesity of more and larger reforesting/rewilding efforts. I skimmed through this, so if there's contradiction I missed please comment.
Me too! Except I teach middle school (11-14 year olds). I'd love to see how this ideology impacts classroom expectations in a practical way. That and probably would do some volunteering in a large garden or electrical engineering.
Interesting distinction. Could you or another explane it? My Political "chops" aren't that good yet.
It looks like most of this can be grown too. I live in the Midwest region of the U.S., so l'd have to look to see. If i find any helpful planting guides or region guides I'll comment them.
Great connection to old maritime practices. I wonder if by following those routes at altitude could lead to a transatlantic of less than 48 hours? I imagine a big derigible with sails like pectoral fins and a dorsal and tail fin to steer in addition to solar propulsion.
I agree that supplementing with passenger rail is a must, especially to get from terminal to terminal. What you said makes me think of airport terminals, but they're countries away instead of a mile away. However, I do wonder about the impact on fauna that high-speed rail would has while cutting across continents, and if the airships are a way to skip that issue entirely.
As far helium...iirc, helium on Earth is a byproduct of the radioactive decay of certain elements. There definitely would be ecological consequences of helium "mining", if we were to source from the ground as is typical. Perhaps a breeder reactor could be built to produce in a way more cost effective (not monetarily). Another thought is an interplanetary drone that slurps up atmosphere from the gas giants and tows it back here. Keep the helium collection and corresponding pollution off planet (does this even work in a solar punk world)?
I was getting the same inspirational vibes from this!
Interesting perspective. I didn't hear that message at all, but rather that we need to seriously review who gets the lion's share of our (USA) state and federal taxes. I can see how the message you quoted could be extrapolated from his presentation, but it seems to me that it would be a misunderstanding of the goal of this presentation.