gndclouds
@gndclouds
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Methods of Power Generation
A series on know and speculative methods.
Introduction
Methods
Pika Power ⤴
We have created a lot of ways to make power, some very traditional and some that feel like they are out of a sci-fi movie. This is an overview of how you can think about the scale of power we use with some deeper dives into each method of generation.
What is a Kilowatt Hour?
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster ⤴
Hydro
Biofuels
Wave power
Solar power
Nuclear
Biomass
Each method of energy production will get its own separate article to avoid this post becoming too long. Now for how we generate power, each week I will add a link to the below examples. Click the ↗ or name to read the article.
What is Entropy ?
References in for the Interim
Live in 1 week
Live in 1.5 weeks
Live in 2 weeks
Live in 2.5 weeks
Live in 3.5 weeks
Live in 4.5 weeks
Live in 5 weeks
Live in 4 weeks
Biogas
Live in 3 weeks
From Discourse on Sustainability from IxD 5 Course ⤴
First, some terms and numbers to give some context for the different ways to generate power. These are going to be most helpful in the later articles over the coming weeks.
Since each article will take a bit of time to complete, here are some other places you could start your climate edu journey.
Scientists at Drawdown have a very comprehensive list of what we could do to replace our current energy infrastructure. The crazy thing is many of them are highly profitable to undertake and yet they are not being deployed at scale.
I found my self frequently thinking "ok well what have we tried " and found Losing Earth to have the best summery of the last 50 years fo climate policy.
"Whenever you hear “kilowatt,” think “house.” “Gigawatt,” think “city.” A hundred or more gigawatts, think “big country.”"
Great for deep dives on policy ⤵
Good for understanding what currently being worked on ⤴
Resources: Natural Systems · Methods of Power Generation · Twitter
The entire book is FREE to! ⤴
We have fixed a similar issue before with the ozone! ⤴
If you want to follow along with my research on natural systems and climate I just started a newsletter called Ökohaus and will be posting all articles in Multiverse and there as well.
Highlights from: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
All illustrations by Thoka Maer
" ... transmission and distribution are responsible for more than a third of the final cost of electricity."
Chapter 4: How We Plug
Chapter 9: Adapting to a Warmer World
"If it starts looking as if we’re headed toward one of these tipping points, you’re going to hear more about a set of bold—some would say crazy—ideas that fall under the umbrella term “geoengineering.” These approaches are unproven, and they raise thorny ethical issues. But they’re worth studying and debating while we still have the luxury of study and debate."
"A megawatt is a million watts, and a watt is a joule per second. For our purposes, it doesn’t matter what a joule is, other than a bit of energy. Just remember that a watt is a bit of energy per second. Think of it like this: If you were measuring the flow of water out of your kitchen faucet, you might count how many cups came out per second. Measuring power is similar, only you’re measuring the flow of energy instead of water. Watts are equivalent to “cups per second.”"
Chapter 5: How We Make Things
"But—and this is essential—we need innovation in the manufacturing process, ways to make things without emitting carbon"
Chapter 11: A Plan for Getting to Zero
"12 different federal agencies involved in research (the Department of Energy has by far the largest share). It has all sorts of tools for managing the direction and pace of energy R&D: research grants, loan programs, tax incentives, laboratory facilities, pilot programs, public-private partnerships, and more."
"How much power does it take? The world 5,000 gigawatts The United States 1,000 gigawatts Mid-size city 1 gigawatt Smalltown 1 megawatt Average American house 1 kilowatt."
Chapter 3: Five Questions to Ask in Every Climate Conversation
After reading How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates I wanted to share some of the core moments which grounded the climate crisis for me.
Twitter | Newsletter | Blog | Futureland
First Impressions
Getting started with the Inky Impression for RasPi
Snoopy ⤵
Pokemon Puzzle ⤴
Inky Impression ⤴
The inky impression is a 7-color e-ink display by pimoroni. This is a getting started guide for anyone new to python and e-ink hardware.
Pimoroni has an official tutorial everything after this point assumes you have never used python and have installed an OS on your RasPi.
Inky has 3 sizes ⤴
3 ✻ After it's downloaded move the directory
We are now going to download the frame repo from GitHub which is based on the repo and lets you get up and running quickly.
4 ✻ Before we can run the code we need to install python3
5 ✻ Let's run some code by entering
6 ✻ Next you can customize your code and change what each button on the display does by calling the given function. For example, calling unsplash() will get a random image from Unsplash.
python frame.py.
sudo apt-get install python3
cd frame/
git clone https://github.com/gndclouds/frame.git
cd Documents/
This terminal is called hyper.is ⤴
There are a few files in this repo, run ls to see all the files.
frame.py is the main file ⤵
This is what comes in the repo ⤴
1 ✻ Connect to your RasPi by opening your preferred terminal.app
2 ✻ Then change pick a folder you want to download to by running `cd` and clone the repo.
You did it the impression should be running the demo code
Resources: Purchase an Impression · Frame Repo · Twitter
↘
Addresses of color space
How the color cube picker works.
For years I only interacted with color in a 2-dimensional context. By choosing a color swatch for a wall, picking a background color in a presentation, or highlighting text in a book. Then in college, many of my design tools started to have a new color picker with much more complexity. We are going to call this new interface the color cube.
Moving along the R(ed) along the X-axis ⤴
Moving along the G(reen) along the Y-axis ⤴
Moving along the B(lue) along the Z-axis ⤴
At first glance, the color cube feels just like other 2D interfaces but the power comes when you realize that this interface is an attempt to communicate color in 3D.
Each primary color is given an axis R(ed), G(reen), and B(lue). Where R is the X-axis, G is the Y-axis, and B is the Z-axis as shown below.
This enables you to think of color as a space which shows the relationship between colors more accurately while letting you see the more direct effects of changing the hue or saturation.
Although this color cube interface has become pretty standard in design tooling there are a few other interfaces which abstract the color space which I wanted to call out.
Radial or Spectrum Pickers display most available colors and arrange them by saturation where the center fo the circle it the most saturated and the outside is the least.
Mixed or Blending Picker allow for a base palette to be mixed with a new color similar to how you might mix paint.
And that it for now, I have collected all the example in and are.na collection and would love to have anyone add to it!
Color Swatches tend to sort a color by hue and limits the number of hugs available.
