One More Reason I Heart Solar

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/24511/page1/


also why I heart EV's:
http://gas2.org/2009/01/02/prius-powers-home-during-ice-storm/

Could we see a world in which we are nearly free from reliance on the energy grid?

http://en.afrik.com/article16124.html

A world in which most homes are powered by cheap, high efficiency solar cells, stored in our EV's rapidly improving batteries? Or perhaps a combination of our EV battery and a home hydrogen storage system?

http://poptech.org/popcasts/dan_nocera_personalized_energy

Decentralization. Less dependence on government and a delicate network of services. The recent snow reminds me of our dependence of government services. Without the skilled snowplow men and women of Michigan, Delaware was a royal mess all week. What happens if the power goes out for days or weeks? What happens if the water is shut off? If apartment complexes, homes and neighborhoods could become energy, heat and water self sufficient at a low cost, it wouldn't be such a big deal. Solar power stored in batteries and hydrogen storage tanks. Water collected from rain, snow, runnoff and gray water, reprocessed cheaply for washing and toilets and hydrogen, while purified water (waste from the hydrogen fuel cell) could be piped up for drinking. If all products (and packaging) were designed to be biodegradable and homes and complexes practiced composting, we wouldn't have to worry much about trash pick-up either. What would we even throw away if all packaging was biodegradable and products were reclaimed by the company after you used them for up-cycling?

http://poptech.org/popcasts/eben_bayer_biopackaging

What if we could be data independent also? I think about my iPhone's 3G capability and the above cellular base station idea. Apple and AT&T claimed to introduce tethering at some point. If I didn't have cable, if my cellular data offered enough bandwidth, I could tether my phone and get internet on my phone and computer anywhere that cellular signal was available. Solar powered, wireless world. Clean safe equitable profitable beautiful just transparent and diverse.

Idealist that I am I see this in the not too distant future. It may be messy, take a long time, and not look quite how I imagine, but I see some variant of these dreams just over the horizon.