this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
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Solarpunk technology

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Technology for a Solar-Punk future.

Airships and hydroponic farms...

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[–] evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I've always wanted to create a low-tech version of this concept.

The problem (for me) is that many crops like lettuce can't handle full strength summer sunlight. The normal solution is shade cloth, but I always feel like that's just throwing away energy. I'd rather devise a method where rather than having 50% shade cloth over 1 square meter of plants, I somehow split that same amount of light over 2 square meters of plants.

Thats effectively what agrivoltaics do, with some energy taken up by solar panels, but I'd like to sort out a plant-only version that works on a small scale. You could have 2 grow beds stacked on top of each other, and use a one-way mirror and some other optics, but i don't think there's a low tech way to keep the sun tracked.