Title:  Solar Computing
Date:  20190521
Tags:  energy thoughts
========================================

Every so often someone mentions solar powered something or other at their home
or solar-punk lifestyle or some other low impact tech modification.  A recent
post[0] by cmccabe about a gravity battery powered raspberry-pi and reminder
about Low Tech Magazine going solar (which I loved) prompted this post.

Not as interesting as those that are actually accomplishing things, but just
some ideas I've been kicking around.

For a while, I thought about running all of my computing off of solar power.
Getting a panel and battery and setting it up so that the battery can charge all
day and I can use the stored energy in the evening for the computer things that
I do.  Charge my phone and laptop from the system and when power runs out, I'm
done and can just go do something else constructive.  I also occasionally flirt
with the idea of human power to charge the battery in an effort to
simultaneously increase my amount of exercise.  I don't have any experience with
this stuff but I feel like human power wouldn't be nearly enough energy, and
solar would be way more than enough.  Except when it's winter or raining for a
long time, which is when I'd have fewer options of things to do if I couldn't
use my computer.

I mostly haven't done this because I don't have room for another project. :)
Solar requires a bit of research to do right, and safely.  It would be a large
initial expense but if overly successful, could be used to power other things
and expanded.  I'm not a big energy consumer as it is.  The power company sends
out a graph of your consumption compared to your neighbors and I am almost
always the lowest.  For whatever that's worth...it might still be a disgusting
amount of energy.

I'm not sure the best "human powered" approach, either.  My first thought was a
bike and a generator but I'm not sure about efficiency there.  I'd like to hear
more about the design of cmccabe's gravity battery.

I need to do a test, too,  and see how much power my typical usage is.


[0] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~cmccabe/18-off-grid-pubnix-test-01.txt