Comment by Gibbon1
6 hours ago
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.
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.
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/
> 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-...