[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 days ago

Fox news: Breaking News: wOkE LiBeRaLs are kermitistioning and destroying traditional family values

[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

Hey now, don't be dissing rocks. We can trick rocks into thinking, the people on the other hand I'm not so sure.

[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

if they think they can get away with it.

You missed this apparently.

[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

Why the hostility and insults to ~~unskilled~~ essential workers? Those jobs are often worked at by young workers who don't necessarily know their rights. I agree it's bad business practice to do it but it absolutely happens.

Its not your employer’s job to babysit your paycheck.

LOL Yes, it literally is.

dolts like you ... If you arent reporting discrepancies, thats on you

Nice insult, very constructive. What would the capitalist business owners do without people like you putting down workers and defending their shitty business practices? Also ah yes it is the workers fault for that they are getting wages stolen from them not the owner's or manager's.

[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

And lots of employers will refuse to pay more than the tipped rate on slow days stealing wages from the workers if they think they can get away with it.

[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 38 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)
[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 weeks ago

Any governor that signs a bill rolling back a recent democratically passed voter initiative should be automatically trigger a recall election at the very least.

[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month ago

I imagine the people who own the land (ie. farmers) don't have an interest in it because there isn't an established industry to process it into products like cloth or rope or paper. This means they would have to buy the equipment not only to harvest / plant but also to process into usable material. If there was a pulp factory that would buy it from them they might plant it, but I doubt that any existing pulp factory would buy it as they would probably have to modify their production process slightly to make it into paper. Essentially it's the chicken and the egg problem of farmers don't have a market to sell it to, and factories can't buy enough to justify converting the production process to use the new material.

[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

Found this on a wiki page on Giant miscanthus.

Land use chart

Tldr; Less than 50% of 'suitable' land is in use.

I suspect their definition of suitable is also pretty narrow.

[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yeah I looked it into a bit recently, and found it very interesting mostly on the basis of production per acre. Are you planning on solar for the home's energy or some other source? Now that I think about it something like biomass would work quite well as a supplemental energy source for the winter when the sun isn't out much. If you are going for solar will you have a battery system as well for evenings / winter or are you grid-tieing for that?

Processing the biomass could take some planning if you produce it on a large scale. I ran some rough numbers for total energy production per acre per year for giant miscanthus and it is quite shockingly high. It takes 2-3 years to get established but once it does it is a powerhouse. It can produce 15-20 tons (short) of biomass per acre depending on growing climate/conditions once it is fully established. With 20t/acre, it has a 17 MJ/kg LHV(heat from burning) and it would contain about 85,679 kWh of energy; At 40% electrical conversion efficiency, you can expect around 34,271 kWh of usable electrical energy. That's enough to power and heat 3-4 houses if you burn it in a CHP power plant.

So you could potentially plant 1/3 - 1/4 acre of a home's yard and have easily have enough biomass to heat and/or power a home. Definitely could be worth looking into giant miscanthus (wiki link) depending on the area and site. Being a plant, it tends to produce more the warmer the weather is in the area as long as it has sufficient water to grow. At that scale all you would probably need is a scythe, a shed, and a fireplace for heat. A small hay-baler might be nice too, even if not strictly necessary. It may not be as efficient per area as solar but I imagine is a whole lot cheaper.

I also read that with torrefaction it could be a drop-in fuel for existing coal plants which would be stellar from an environmental perspective. I think it would compliment solar well particularly in the winter when you burn excess harvested sun for heat so you could have a battery / fuel usage then for when you can't produce any energy. Anyway I hope you / someone finds it useful. I hope I didn't overshare, I feel like I wrote a book lol.

Edit: I'd also be interested in hearing about your planned house. I have read about house building some from an energy use / conservation perspective and found it interesting. Have you read / heard about Passive House's? I suspect they overlap pretty well with carbon negative housing in general.

[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

I mean it might work with Luigi pic in the background. But we all know that won't happen.

[-] AndiHutch@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago

Good suggestions. Speaking of carbon negative and biogas digesters, have you heard of Giant miscanthus? It is both carbon fixing a great feedstock for biomass energy. It is a lot more productive per area planted than a wood would(heh) be since it is a fast growing perennial grass. It stores a lot of carbon and nutrients in it's roots which it then reuses to regrow when warmer weather comes.

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AndiHutch

joined 1 month ago