#solarpunk af

According to Ron Finley, growing regenerative gardens and nurturing soil can transform the world. A  former fashion designer turned urban gardener, he is turning unused spaces in Los Angeles into abundant greens to feed, nurture, educate, and build communities.

After realizing that his South Los Angeles neighborhood had an abundance of accessible liquor stores, but purchasing organic produce required a 10-mile walk, he decided to become a “gangsta.” In Finley's perspective, a true gangsta is “having knowledge of how systems work and being able to support yourself.”

Aurax, a Spanish company, has developed an innovative device called MouthX, dubbed the most complete and compact hands-free controller on the market, with which users can manipulate smartphones, computers and tablets using their mouth.

Volunteers at Leeds Ukrainian Community Association (LUCA) recycle components, such as batteries and wires, from the discarded vapes to send to Ukraine to be turned into energy sources for soldiers in remote locations.

The recycled components are used to power drones, phones and night vision devices in the trenches.

Viacheslav Semeniuk, a LUCA trustee, said the repurposed vapes are used "as a light source and in cooking" adding, "this is sometimes the only source of power".

It is estimated 8.2 million vapes were being thrown away every week prior to the ban in the UK.

"It is a creative way to use these vapes," said Mr Semeniuk.

"We crack open the vape and pull out the battery, isolate the wires, and pack them into boxes".

Volunteers in Ukraine turn the dismantled disposables from LUCA into working energy supplies for soldiers.

"If we can utilise whatever is not needed any more and make it for free, why not?"

said Mr Semeniuk.

Since 2011, the StEnSea (Stored Energy in the Sea) project has been exploring the possibilities of using the pressure in deep water to store energy in the short-to-medium term, in giant hollow concrete spheres sunken into seabeds, hundreds of feet below the surface.

An empty sphere is essentially a fully charged storage unit. Opening its valve enables water to flow into the sphere, and this drives a turbine and a generator that feed electricity into the grid. To recharge the sphere, water is pumped out of it against the surrounding water pressure using energy from the grid.

Each hollow concrete sphere measures 30 ft (9 m) in diameter, weighs 400 tons, and will be anchored to the sea floor at depths of 1,970 - 2,625 ft (600 - 800 m) for optimal performance.

“From the beginning, we wanted to create something that felt futuristic and forward-thinking, much like the advanced technology and concepts you’d see in space exploration.”

Fajar Ismail (@fjismail) is an industrial designer who works for Quest Motors, an electric motorcycle startup and custom EV workshop based in Bandung, Indonesia, and founded by former Tesla senior engineer Niko Questera. Fajar and team set out to create an electric daily commuter that looked like a landing craft or two-wheeled rover from a science fiction film, dropped onto an alien planet from an exploratory starship.

The Stellar design was heavily inspired by a mix of spacecraft aesthetics, science fiction, and the solar punk genre. From the beginning, we wanted to create something that felt futuristic and forward-thinking, much like the advanced technology and concepts you’d see in space exploration. This vision influenced not only the futuristic shape but also combine with traditional custom elements.

It’s named “STELLAR,” a landcraft concept for a Post-Petrol Age. Stellar is an electric mini bike designed as a personal daily scooter for short- to mid-range distances. It’s powered by a 1000-watt BLDC electric motor with a 720 Wh Lithium-Ion battery as a powerplant.

Stellar was equipped with solar panels as an additional charging system; it’s suitable for a tropical country like our homeland of Indonesia, which has tons of sunlight resource shine every year, because range anxiety is a classic issue for electric vehicles. The solar panel is placed right where the fuel tank of gasoline powered counterpart would be.

Kieran, a longtime mechanical engineer, had just invented Ireland’s first micro-scale anaerobic biodigester.

What does one even do with a micro-scale anaerobic biodigester?

Well, this particular anaerobic biodigester takes care of nearly 100% of your food waste.

You feed in all your scraps and waste – even hard-to-compost foods like cooked meats, dairy, cakes and liquids go in. Then the anaerobic bacteria get to work breaking down the waste.

After that, out come two very different ready-to-use products: a biogas for cooking and a nutrient-rich liquid fertiliser for gardening.

Food waste goes in. Gas and fertiliser come out.

‘We were never really into gardening or growing food. That was the biggest thing to change with the digester,’ Kieran says.

‘During lockdown, we set up the polytunnel and started using the fertiliser from the egg to grow tomatoes and courgettes. Because not only have you got a way to get rid of your food waste, you’ve also got a way to grow more food. And the taste was extraordinary. We had loads of tomatoes so we gave them to friends. They couldn’t get over how tasty they were compared to what they were buying from shops.’

Another incident of guerrilla gardening, this time outside Tokyo’s Iidabashi Station. City officials discovered a small garden of zucchini and tomatoes growing in a plot of land that was previously used for cigarette butts and puke