Solarpunk's most iconic meme is now real
Blimp turbines are making megawatts. Plus community ownership wins in the UK, Chinese solarpunk urbanism and more in this post
One of the most popular solarpunk images is taking off in reality. The first recorded mention of solarpunk was in this 2008 blog. The author was inspired by the conceptual image of a cargo ship being pulled by a huge modern kite.
Following on from that the Jessica Woulfe’s artwork depicting blimp turbines (pictured above) won the Atomhawk solarpunk art competition in 2019. Since then Airborne Wind Energy Systems or AWES (love this acronym!) have become some of the most popular solarpunk imagery.
Many have thought this was just a protopian dream but as Matt Ferell explored in this recent video, AWES are getting much closer to reality. As Matt explains, a flying turbine has been successfully deployed by the company Kitepower in Ireland, poweringing the local town of Bangor.
These types of AWES generate more energy from the higher altitude wind they are blown by. The cables attaching the kite to the ground are pulled back and forth by their movements power a dynamo at their base.
They can be deployed in much smaller areas that conventional wind turbines and set up in a fraction of the time, as little as 24 hours. While still in the early stages they show a lot of promise, especially for those areas where it’s impractical or uneconomic to fit a conventional wind turbine.
The type of floating blimp windmills that you see in solarpunk art, like this recent animated short, are called Buoyant Air Turbines or BATs (more acronym bliss!). Chinese startup SAWES has launched a prototype which they claim can produce 1 megawatt of energy and overcome the teething problems other such BATs have faced in the past.
Airborne wind energy will be featuring in an upcoming episode of SolarPunk Detective. Stay subscribed to catch it when it takes flight.
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Solarpunky Roundup
The Punk Rockers: Cypherpunks, Solarpunks & Afrofuturists - Purple Pages
Build, Don’t Escape – A Solarpunk Hands-On Workshop - Alex Jurj
The Solarpunk Urbanism of Shenzhen - Climate Act Now (Substack)
How communities are stepping up to revive our tired towns and cities - Positive News
Many people are individually optimistic but think the world is falling apart - Hannah Ritchie
Africa: Regenerative Agriculture Yields Big Wins for Farmers and Climate in Eastern Kenya - Agribusiness Global
Cooling paint also harvests water - Cooling Post
How the Netherlands (accidentally) Moved to a 4 Day Week - YouTube
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See you in the sunshine,
Alex Holland
Founder, SolarPunk Stories
This helps me to see the real world impacts of futurism and science fiction. It's a good tracking of lineage.
Thank you for writing!
Loved this one. It’s a perfect example of solarpunk ideas leaking into actual infrastructure.
Miss Purple’s video was also interesting: the intersection of cypherpunks, solarpunks and afrofuturists, and the idea of radical optimism as something you do, not just feel, is very close to where my own worldbuilding is heading. Feels good to see that.