This misses the overview. It has lots and lots of technologies all at the same size. And no way to zoom out.
It's not ideal, but you can look at the bottom bar and get a sense of density of innovation over a certain time period.
Readit NewsMrsPeaches commented on Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC geacron.com/home-en/... · Posted by u/not_knuth
MrsPeaches commented on Show HN: I built a synth for my daughter bitsnpieces.dev/posts/a-s... · Posted by u/random_moonwalk
Thanks for all the kind words and feedback. There are some comments expressing interest in supporting a Kickstarter etc. If you're interested in receiving updates you can leave your email here:
Thanks again - this was a bit of a surprise!
It’s a great project!
I’ve got some experience with small batch production and I’ve written an email. Check your spam!
MrsPeaches commented on How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry construction-physics.com/... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
>The best time to try and fix this is 20 or 30 years ago, but absent a time machine, the next best time is now.
Sometimes the time to fix a thing in general (nevermind the "best time") has come and gone, and the rest is wishful thinking and platitudes like "the next best time is now".
The UK is actually doing something(ish) about it now.
Innovate UK (the UK’s public innovation funding) recently had a bid out for maritime R&D but with a focus on clean tech:
https://iuk-business-connect.org.uk/opportunities/clean-mari...
Obviously, this is not going to make up for the loss of the broader ship building industry, but it does show that the UK is thinking about maritime technology as a key strategic area.
MrsPeaches commented on Solarpunk is happening in Africa climatedrift.substack.com... · Posted by u/JoiDegn
I don't understand this space very well, but I wonder if an iFixit-esque solution would work there: publish DIY guides on identifying and fixing common faults, and have a network of sellers for replacement parts and tools.
Solar Aid who wrote this report have an app called SunnyMoney which has repair guides.
Don’t know about uptake:
MrsPeaches commented on Solarpunk is happening in Africa climatedrift.substack.com... · Posted by u/JoiDegn
Somebody who has the skills to fix electronics will be working with fixing devices which are much more expensive and critical than cell phones.
Industrial dishwasher breaks down? You need to get an electrician there ASAP.
Cell phone breaks down? Throw it away and buy a new one.
Brazil has very low salaries for skilled workers, so it makes sense that it's cheap to find somebody to fix your phone.
Note that mobile phone repair is the no. 1 service provided by repair shops in rural areas of many countries in Africa.
Like 50%+ of all repairs are mobile phone repairs
MrsPeaches commented on Solarpunk is happening in Africa climatedrift.substack.com... · Posted by u/JoiDegn
I know you have some bias for the education solution, but I can't see why this is not a market problem. You have broken devices; you send them to get fixed; you have to travel one day to get them fixed; you have someone take them for a fee.
You would be surprised at the amount of product repairs that are deemed not worth solving in a developed country that you can sort out in a couple of hours in a developing country.
That’s the premium solution that some, but not most, can afford and only makes sense if the cost of repair is less than the cost a new unit. Travel just makes that tip in favour of getting a new system with a $10 deposit.
Most of the people we’re talking about here are subsistence farmers who pick up casual labour at a local farm. Income is sporadic and seasonal.
That was the initial brilliance of the PAYGO system, it allows users to pay off their device sporadically I.e. they buy units when they get paid and that goes towards paying off an asset that in theory will then provide energy at 0 marginal cost. Turns out that last bit isn’t true.
Here the VC story is important, these companies were meant to be high growth and giving significant returns. We all know how that ends.
> You would be surprised at the amount of product repairs that are deemed not worth solving in a developed country that you can sort out in a couple of hours in a developing country.
I have been in the past, but not anymore. No one is saying people aren’t resourceful but there is a significant barrier to entry when it comes to electronics repairs for the general population. One part of what we provide is an off-grid repair lab bundled with our new education offering so it’s very much knowledge + tools.
MrsPeaches commented on Solarpunk is happening in Africa climatedrift.substack.com... · Posted by u/JoiDegn
> sell people cheap crap at a 10x mark up that pretty much immediately breaks once the warranty period is over.
Two massive exaggerations inside one sentence to drive home a rhetorical point.
Provision of retail solar is a highly competitive market in developing countries and the profit margins are small.
Cheap crap = lasts only as long as the warranty period.
I did a survey in partnership with a the African Leadership University in a Rwanda, where we surveyed people living in two rural villages and found 90% or units had broken within 3 years of purchase. This is the logical end point when 1/5 stop working after 6 months, which you can find in Cross and Murry 2018, linked in other comments.
10x mark up (i.e. the mark up on cost of the unit) comes from knowing that the COGS for one of these units is ~$20-30 and the premium sellers sell up to $300.
Sure it’s at the top end of the range but 10x markup on each unit is not an exaggeration, let alone a massive one.
Gross margins are indeed tight but that’s is a separate issue to markup. You can sell at a huge markup and still make a loss: for example if the default rate of loans you make turns out to be much higher than you expected.
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MrsPeaches commented on Solarpunk is happening in Africa climatedrift.substack.com... · Posted by u/JoiDegn
The article you link bundles together 5/10/15/20/25 years technology in one huge basket.
What about the most recent (last 5/10 years)?
Also, aren't almost all failures battery, rather than panel, related?
Yeah not much has changed, it’s simple technology that was developed in 2005. Main innovations of the PAYGO model in recent times was the ability to use the payment data you collected to offer other types of loans. One of the previous biggest companies in the space now sells mobile phones using PAYGO.
Technically battery chemistry has obviously moved on but we are talking a device capacity similar to a medium power bank. How much innovation have you noticed in power banks recently?
Panels are big problem from a e-waste perspective as they very difficult to repair.
Batteries failures are repairable. Usually battery packs will be 2+ LFP 18650s or 32700s. If one cell goes bad the the whole pack goes but the others may be fine. Just need to test and match cells and you can make new packs.
I can’t remember exact recovery rate for cells, I think it is something like 40-60%.
Dealing with these batteries at end of life is a challenge, but that’s a global problem.
Still a lot of legacy Sealed Lead Acid batteries around but these are very recyclable.
MrsPeaches commented on Solarpunk is happening in Africa climatedrift.substack.com... · Posted by u/JoiDegn
That seems more optimistic (or solar punk) than your summary e.g.:
> In terms of waste management, 85.3% of distributors reported that they had a waste management strategy. Mostly, this tended to involve collecting broken products, harvesting them for spare parts and then storing the remainder in a central warehouse before sending them to a (usually certified) local e-waste recycling facility. How effective these recycling facilities are, however, was beyond the scope of this report.
They seem to suggest that lithium batteries are the hardest to repair and recycle, but people want to do so. It feels like a problem that will get easier at scale.
For sure recycling is improving. That’s different from repair though.
The current cycle is 1. sell product 2. wait three years for it to break 3. Go back to 1.
The impact of the recycling can lessen the impact of that but it definitely doesn’t eliminate it. That’s just on environmental scale, think about the financial impact of carrying this debt for years on people earning $2 a day.
Also important to note that a lot of this is contingent of legislation that implements things like Extended Producer Responsibly (EPR) where you essentially have an additional tax on producers that gets used to fund collection. Kenya implemented this for the first time 12 months ago [1], so we will see the impact over the next couple years.
Re solar punk, my personal vision is that you basically teach people how to build and maintain these systems themselves by running solar tech bootcamp and giving them off-grid tools.
They then have tools and skills to fix anything without the need for the grid. Train 100k people and have them maintain these systems using a decentralised approach.
In fact, as part of our training we now have e-cooking stove suppliers who deliver training on their stoves to our students.
The economic impact of this cannot be over stated.
1. You are giving people the ability to 4x their income as repairers
2. You are saving the people who are getting new systems, instead of repairing them, multiples of their yearly income.
[1] https://cleanupkenya.org/30-things-to-know-about-kenyas-epr-...