While I do like the appeal of this aesthetic, I honestly feel like putting solar panels on everything you own is a bit like growing tomatoes in your backyard.
If we as a species, were truly committed to clean energy on a civilization scale, we would go all in on nuclear, and have renewables be produced at dedicated sites, built and maintained by professionals.
Which goes against the DIY 'punk' idea of it, but I think 'punk' itself is a contradiction - the ability to live free from the constraints of society means you are using much more resources than someone who makes use of communal resources - flats, public transport, etc. The lifestyle of living in a detached house (or even a row house) is not available to everyone, on account of there not being enough resources to go around.
Those tomatoes taste like real tomatoes, unlike those things, you can usually buy in a supermarket.
And nuclear as the only sane choice is just your personal opinion, not a fact.
What is the worst outcome, with too many solar panels vs too many nuclear reactors?
Only in your nuclear Utopia all those reactors will be maintained to the highest standards. In reality humans cut corners, are still lazy, don't give shit and who cares, "it will be allright". Until it isn't when multiplied with lots of reactors and time.
and would rather like some cheap solar panels and insulation to help get away from our impressively high energy costs. Sadly I live in a flat so it's not really a goer.
My dad had a 160 acre farm outside London on which you could have had loads of solarpunk type dwelling at zero cost to the government but instead it's impossible to build anything due to regulations plus they spend the billions on overpriced Sizewells.
I daresay the reason you can't build anything is people want green countryside rather than packed in unsightly housing estates but maybe something like the art in the Wikipedia could satisfy both? Functional while not hideous?
I live in an area of Belgium with plenty of countryside sprawl. We're kind of famous for our endless suburbia fragmenting the agricultural land and nature.
In my grandparents era most people out here were backyard farmers. That's not even remotely the case now.
Assuming you want to not grow less produce you can prep for higher agricultural land prices.
Meanwhile It's ridiculously bad for traffic and getting every other kind of utility available everywhere.
An aspect of solarpunk is that individuals and small communities can opt into this mindset and change their habits. E.g.: having your own power source, growing your own vegetables, etc. It's not only sustainable, but quite resilient; there's not as much dependency of a larger scale network.
Switching to solar requires a nation-wide initiative (or something close to that scale).
> The lifestyle of living in a detached house (or even a row house) is not available to everyone, on account of there not being enough resources to go around.
This is true, but you don't need a detached house. A row of houses can also have solar on top. A building with a couple of floors and a few apartments can have a shared roof and garden.
Sure, none of this works in a large metropolitan city, but living in a metropolis is kind of the antithesis of solarpunk.
If we as a species, were truly committed to clean energy on a civilization scale, we would go all in on nuclear, and have renewables be produced at dedicated sites, built and maintained by professionals.
Which goes against the DIY 'punk' idea of it, but I think 'punk' itself is a contradiction - the ability to live free from the constraints of society means you are using much more resources than someone who makes use of communal resources - flats, public transport, etc. The lifestyle of living in a detached house (or even a row house) is not available to everyone, on account of there not being enough resources to go around.