Hear me out. On Reddit, the #solarpunk channel is decidedly anti-blockchain. To me, this is totally surprising and against the actual ethos of Solarpunk - to integrate technology for a bright, clean future.

Granted, blockchains don’t have much reputation in alternative circles. And for a good reason. A lot is just linked to scams, get-rich-quick dudes, and speculation, apart from energy consumption arguments.

But blockchain at its core is just a distributed database. One that has no central authority, can not be tampered with, cannot be altered, nor taken down if parametrized accordingly.

This allows - as a potential - to democratize access and value creation. Renewable energy is also fundamentally decentralized. Everyone can participate!

Now, with the costs of renewable energy creation (notably solar) shrunk significantly, and the demand for energy consumption rising heavily, if we only think about the booming electric vehicles alone -

What if people could earn money by generating solar energy and selling directly to vehicles, instead of the grid? I believe this could actually boost renewable energy generation over the roof.

Generators would be rewarded with a blockchain token for the energy generated, while consumers would pay for the energy in those tokens. Therefore speculation would be curbed as the tokens are for a real thing, energy, which on top is a stable unit - kWh.

Of course there are a lot of hurdles here - mostly institutional. Usually, energy is controlled by local authorities. They don’t want to allow anyone access to this market.

Then there is the distribution issue. Energy must be transported to the points of consumption, the charging stations. But due to the decentralized nature, this could actually result surprisingly cheap, as instead of transporting large distances, more charging stations in neighborhoods could reduce those distances. But still, this would require upfront charging stations and distribution investments.

I am an engineer. A dreamer. More often than not, as many many others, the realities of markets and economies clash with such ideals, thrashing generally good ideas.

But I wonder if such a scheme could made be possible. Anyone having some good suggestions? I mean mainly from the economics side. How to design the scheme, how to make it so that it is interesting to everyone? There are already several solar energy blockchains, but they kinda failed to get traction.

For the more radicals - I also dream of a money-less Solarpunk future, but to date, it seems further away than ever, looking at the right wing surge everywhere. Maybe we can build bridges at least from the technological side. Thank you if you got so far. Happy to respond to critique and questions.

  • holon_earth@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
    0·
    2 days ago

    Communal, local infrastructure. Not a grid spanning vast areas, although it could. Look, this might totally not be the way to do it, but essentially to achieve independence we need to break up those monopolies. Otherwise we will always be enslaved to the powers that I thought we wanted to replace. Energy and food independence as well as communal land management I think are fundamental requirements for that - whatever the means, I subscribe. Otherwise I don’t see how a Solarpunk future can be even envisioned.

    Blockchains (if used correctly) are good at breaking up such monopolies. But it’s just tech. People need to want and do it. So whatever people say :)

    • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.socialEnglish
      0·
      2 days ago

      Communal, local infrastructure. Not a grid spanning vast areas, although it could.

      Then why does it need a global management system? If it’s all local, why not use a local database and save the expense of distributing it?

      Look, this might totally not be the way to do it, but essentially to achieve independence we need to break up those monopolies.

      Independence from what?

      If you’re talking about independence from having to share electricity services with other people then you can just go off the grid, no blockchain necessary.

      If you’re talking about independence from utility providers then you’ve crafted a tautology, as the only way to achieve independence is to be independent.

      If you’re talking about independence from for-profit grid service utilities, then making every home an independent participant in the real-time electricity market will only compound the problem.

      Otherwise we will always be enslaved to the powers that I thought we wanted to replace.

      Those powers would still exist. Replacing the utility-scale grid operators with a local electric homeowners’ association doesn’t solve the problem, it just moves it closer to home. You still have to deal with the cost of building and maintaining the grid, as well as constant negotiation with all providers and consumers to ensure that the grid will remain stable.

      Energy and food independence as well as communal land management I think are fundamental requirements for that - whatever the means, I subscribe.

      Adding blockchain makes those goals more complicated to achieve for no benefit.

      If you want energy and food independence, you can just do that.

      Blockchains (if used correctly) are good at breaking up such monopolies. But it’s just tech. People need to want and do it. So whatever people say :)

      False. Blockchains, as a feature of Capitalism, create monopolies. If they broke them up, then the tech bros would have already replaced the banking system with them. What actually happened is that the existing banking system started using crypto too, so now most blockchain-based value is held by an extremely small number of obscenely wealthy folks.

      • holon_earth@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
        0·
        2 days ago

        That’s incorrect. Blockchains are not a feature of capitalism. Cryptocurrencies (mostly) are. The only reason why they haven’t been able to replace the banking system is that they live in a purely digital realm. What can you do with some digital tokens which you have obtained bypassing the government and powers? Not much. If you want to buy a house, or a car or anything substantial, you have to legalize your earnings, essentially mooting the very thing the “revolutionaries” thought they were doing (bringing down the banking system). So, they moved to do DeFi and other “virtual” stuff (basically a Casino), pretending they never meant to do that.

        I still believe blockchains have potential, but I agree with most commentators here, not for the wrong use cases. And my own idea seems to be the wrong use case. Alas, my goal was to increase and incentivize solar energy generation while giving control to people and communities, more than what utility companies allow us to do.