Hacker News Reader

Comment by rgmerk | Hacker News Reader

Not to mention they’re talking about lead-acid batteries, which have been replaced for pretty much every application, except (for now) starter motor batteries for combustion vehicles, by the various lithium batteries.

View on HN

To be fair (as a joke), it's from Low Tech Magazine. Lithium batteries are too high-tech for them. They want you to power your mechanical blender, mixer, and other machines with a drive belt. Turn the drum of your washing machine with a wood fire heating the water.

Solar panels I think are too high tech for them.

I remember reading about low tech efficient cook stoves for poor countries and thinking the misses would rather have an induction burner, microwave, and an ice chest running off a solar panel.

> the misses would rather have an induction burner, microwave, and an ice chest running off a solar panel.

Those would definitely be hits.

Also, solar panels are old. Bell Labs demonstrated the first practical silicon solar cell in 1954. At some point, you're just trying to split (possibly nonexistent) hairs for an aesthetic, as opposed to making a principled stand against technology.

https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2009/04/bell-labs-silicon-solar-...

I would too...but an off-grid solar and battery setup sufficient to run the induction stove and microwave is still well into four figures - cheap for a developed country resident who wants some basic comforts in their wilderness lodge, but still well out of reach for a subsistence farmer in the poorest parts of the world.

Increasingly becoming more affordable. Especially as financing becomes easier. And you don't have to buy everything all at once.

That's the thing, like the used to be very expensive swing compressor ice chests that you can buy in the US for $150. You'd only need a 100 amp hour battery and a 100W solar panel to power it.

And you can probably share it between a few families, or even use it to run a small business.

The server the article is being hosted on is battery powered via solar. You can see it's charge percent on any page the server sends back to you.

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/power/

even EVs still have lead acid batteries, not all, but most

"have" is doing most of the work here. Most EVs have a small 12v battery to power 12v components. But the driving the car to the store part is done with lithium.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com