<story><title>Afghan opium growers have switched to solar power</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53450688</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>hosh</author><text>I like solar and all, but I will say that just looking at the farming practices of these growers, this transformation will likely be shortlived (I am thinking in terms of generations, not in terms of seasons). Yes, the solar allows people to rapidly deploy solar to use as pumps, but those pumps are also depleting the aquifer. They are probably not putting anything back into the aquifer with practices such as rainwater harvesting (earthworks and improving infiltration, rather than rain barrels).&lt;p&gt;In metro Phoenix, AZ (here in the States) we have been seeing something similar as the deep water have been drying up. Arizona is at the bottom of the water rights (from the Colorado river), and people’s solutions have been to install an electric pump to  get at the water. With so many people draining off of the aquifer, people who have been depending on the water have been having difficulty with getting consistent water. Many of them are finding that they have to try to sell the property. What they have &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; been doing are things like, capturing the rain that does come to the region to irrigate crops or landscape; use of greywater; use of a composting toilet (which cleans waste with the carbon cycle rather than the hydrologic cycle), and otherwise conserve &lt;i&gt;drinking&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;cooking&lt;/i&gt; water.  Tuscon, AZ and Flagstaff, AZ have residents and public policies in place that does a much better job with this than Phoenix.&lt;p&gt;With cheap solar added to the mix, what will happen is that it hastens the aquifer depletion.&lt;p&gt;So those poppy farmers are not thinking with whole systems or thinking in the long term. On the other hand, if they were thinking in the long term, they probably would not be growing poppy as a cash crop in the first place. Perhaps small batches to make high quality anesthesia for local use, as part of of a more diverse crop. You don’t kill off your aquifer, and you don’t make something that will kill off your customers. You’d have nothing left.&lt;p&gt;My conclusion is that that the market forces, while transformative, is also very limited and short-sighted, and there are better ways for humans to interact with each other.</text></comment>
<story><title>Afghan opium growers have switched to solar power</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53450688</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>curiousllama</author><text>Super cool, but not going to solve the question of renewable energy at scale.&lt;p&gt;Farmers have been doing things like this for generations. American Homesteaders - settlers of the sometimes-rather-arid Great Plains in the US - used windmills for exactly this purpose in the 1800s.&lt;p&gt;We know renewable energy is super useful under specific circumstances (remote&amp;#x2F;underdeveloped electrical grid, low power, low need for consistency). Another example in the US is emergency phones on the highway - solar panels power those too, and have for a decade or more.&lt;p&gt;The critical question is whether it can overcome those specific circumstances and be useful in developed electrical grids with strong needs for high power and consistency.</text></comment>