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Soylent [food replacement] founder Rob Rhinehart shares his thoughts on extreme sustainability.
I am electrically self-reliant. My home life runs comfortably on a single 100W solar panel, which cost $150 and was available on Amazon Prime. I tracked down a few manufacturers in China who all said it costs around $40 to make. The US for some reason leverages massive tariffs on Chinese solar panels, so they ship them through Malaysian customs. Why do the politicians even bother?
For storage a $65 lead acid automobile battery does the trick. It's 12V so can be charged directly from the solar panel, and holds 420Wh, way more than I use in a day. That's $0.15 / Wh so I don't see why everyone is so excited about Tesla charging $0.43 / Wh for the Powerwall, sans inverter and installation.
He got rid of his fridge and other kitchen implements to make it work. What are the biggest energy users in your place? Could you pare things down as much as Rob?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @11:23PM
This comes to mind.
https://www.youtube.com/v/PS6lNDrCi88?version=3&start=55&end=65&autoplay=1&hl=en_US&rel=0 [youtube.com]
I get you are trying to 'lower your usage'. But the epic level of douchebagary here is amazing.
To lower your footprint you buy/make things and then reuse the hell out of them. Then if they break you repair them. Shipping everything from china and driving all over town is NOT it.
This is basically an extreme consumer. Everything is consumed and nothing is created or reused. He is trading dollars for OTHER people to create and use his energy then thinking he is being 'green'. No you are being lazy and cheap.