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Guerrilla Solar Panels

Flexible Solar Panel

I live in the old city of Amsterdam, in a 350 year old house.  Like a lot of people, my circumstances limit my ability to install solar panels on my house.  While not many people may live in such an old house, many are renters and may not be able to get permission from their landlord or live in an apartment building and not have access to their roof.  In some cases the local authorities may not allow connecting solar panels to the grid.

In my case, even if the city let me, my roof is 30 or so years old, and too old to consider putting holes in it.  I’m also not likely to get the necessary building permits from the city to install solar panels.  I am however allowed to lay something on my roof, and am allowed to make temporary installations.  As long as whatever I do does not change the structure of my house, is not visible from the street and can be removed if necessary, the city is not likely to bother me.

In addition, solar panel technology is rapidly evolving, and in the last few months a number of new possibilities have come on the market.

As a test, I bought the solar panel you see above, a 500w grid tie inverter:

Grid Tie Inverter

And a meter, which is visible above connected to the inverter:

The meter cycles through a number of different readings, showing watts, watt hours, amps and so on.  Pretty much everything you need to know.  One side connects to the solar panel(s), and the other side to the grid tie inverter.

The purpose of this post, and the ones that come later, are to take you through some of the thought processes involved in designing your own solar system like this.

Solar Panels

The solar panel pictured above is a new kind, laminated in plastic, and weighs about 1kg.  They are flexible, and can be bent to about 30 degrees.  It’s easy to carry a stack of 5 of them, under your arm, and up the stairs.  You can install them in an area that gets light foot traffic, and walk on them with soft soled shoes.  They have grommets in the corners, and you can tie them down with rope, or mount them on a wall with 4 screws.  You can also glue them to a vehicle or home roof.  They are intended for temporary installation, and so often don’t require a building permit to place on your house.  Even though they are intended for temporary installation, they are just as durable as the older glass panel type.

It’s not really the purpose of this post to do product reviews, so I won’t mention the brand.  In fact this same type of panel is made by different manufactures, and they all seem very similar.  I suspect they are all more or less the same.  They all seem to be made in China, but I think the technologies were developed in the Bay Area in the US and are being made under license.

The price of these panels is coming down very quickly right now.  If you are considering buying some, you might want to wait.  The panel I bought for testing cost €180, I recently ordered 5 more to expand my setup for €160 each, and I now see they are going for €130.  In a year or two they will probably be much cheaper.

These panels are so-called 12v panels, even though they really operate at 18v.  I guess they’re called 12v because, they are suitable for charging a 12v battery, if your system uses batteries.  The voltage they produce is dependent on the load and amount of sunlight, as well as the temperature of the panel.  They also have a Voc, or maximum possible voltage of 20v.  This is an important number, because equipment is easily damaged by over-voltage, so you want to make sure anything you connect it to is within it’s Voc rating.

System Voltage

If you use equipment that’s designed for a higher voltage, it’s easy to achieve this by combining solar panels in series.  When you connect the positive lead of one panel, to the negative lead of another, then use the remaining unconnected leads, you have the equivalent of a 24v panel (that really operates at 36v, and has a Voc of 40v).  If you connect more than 2 in series, the voltage continues to increase in a similar way.

If you connect the panels in parallel, the voltage stays the same but the current increases.  The current will double with 2 panels in parallel, triple with 3 panels in parallel, and so on.  Most equipment like inverters is not damaged by the presence of too much current, but you have to be careful not to use cabling and connectors with equipment that may draw more power than they can handle.  You can think about this in comparison with household appliances, for example a table lamp or a mobile phone will need one thickness of wire, whereas a washing machine or oven will need a larger cable.

In terms of the cost of a solar system, lower voltages tend to need simpler and cheaper equipment, but heavier and more expensive cabling.  If you try to work at the extremes, for example trying to do everything at 12v or everything at 100v+, you are likely to find yourself developing a very expensive system of solar panels.  Also, except for combining solar panels like I describe above, using equipment to change to another voltage, is also likely to be expensive and limited in it’s capacity.

Also, if you’re tempted to try to connect your system of solar panels to multiple devices, for example a combination of battery charge controllers or inverters, you are also likely to find yourself limited.  Some brands of inverters or charge controllers are ‘stackable’ with the same brand, but you are likely to have a lot of issues with load balancing and race conditions, where one device draws all the power.  You have to be very careful with cable length, and mixing technologies like MPPT and PWM (more on these later).  Here’s a video that explains this a little.  In general, you need to match a single solar panel or combination of panels, at a single voltage, to a single device.

Meter

The meter I use pictured above cost about €15, and works well enough.  It’s really only useful for testing and not gathering long term information, because it only goes up to about 8kWh, then resets to zero.

You can see on the left side of the picture, some small wires.  There are small pins which you can connect to a supplemental power source.  This is necessary, because the meter itself requires some power to operate and retain it’s memory.  It can draw this from the solar panels, but of course only during the day.  At night, there is no power available, and so it loses it’s stored information.  You can connect to the pins with jumper wires used with circuit breadboards, that have a female end.  For example, these.  The minimum required voltage is 4.6, so I cut off the micro USB connector from a standard USB charging cable, and exposed the red and black wires in the cable.  I then used a standard USB charger for the power source.

Grid Tie Inverter

With a solar system you can either use a system of one or more batteries, a grid tie inverter, or both.  A grid tie inverter simply connects to your household wiring, and feeds power back to the grid.  In my case, the one I bought is designed to simply plug into a standard outlet.  It works very well and is trouble free.

There are different suggestions on the Internet, but mostly the suggestion is that if you feed back more than 450W, you should use a dedicated circuit.  In other words, you should hire an electrician or install a dedicated fuse in your fusebox for feeding back onto the grid.  I would take particular care when using a circuit that has sensitive appliances, like computers or those that use high power like ovens or washing machines.

What happens when you feed back onto the grid?  For most people, in most cases, your electric meter will turn backwards.  The main exception to this is if you have a so-called smart meter, that can detect the direction of the current and records this together with the time of day.  Even modern digital meters will usually just turn backwards when you feed power back.

In most cases you can do this without prior arrangements with the utility company, although this may be illegal or against the policies of your utility company.  Consider that it may not be appreciated if your utility company comes to read your meter, and you have a negative usage.

In this way, using a grid tie inverter is like using the power grid as a giant battery, feeding it when you have surplus power, and drawing from it when you need power.  Your electric bill is calculated as the net.

The argument is sometimes used that safety can be an issue in unauthorized feeding back to the grid, especially during a power outage.  You have to consider this yourself, but modern grid tie inverters have what’s known as anti-islanding protection, where they will automatically shut off during a grid failure.

MPPT and PWM

PWM is the standard type of charge controller.  If you have a relatively small solar panel setup, this may be enough, and they are much cheaper than MPPT.  MPPT (Mamimum Power Point Technology) is included with many inverters and the more expensive battery controllers.  Solar panels perform better at their working voltage (18V for 12V panels), and if you attempt to draw too much power from them, the voltage will drop and they will become less efficient.  MPPT attempts to maintain the ideal voltage, but some products implement this differently than others, and are more or less effective.

Most serious solar panel systems will use MPPT.

With MPPT charge controllers it is technically possible to use different voltage on the solar panels than on the batteries, but the charge controllers that do this at higher currents are very expensive, and there are limits in any case.  You will find it difficult to maintain large differences.

My Setup, Issues and Specifications

The solar panel I bought to test, pictured above, is 100cm x 50cm.  I have two places on my roof, one for a row of 6 of these, and another place for a row of 8.  I have another spot on my roof terrace wall for 2 more, and beyond that there are a few places where I might put more if necessary, but they wouldn’t be convenient.  In short, I have a convenient place for 16x 100w solar panels.  Some will get more light than others.

My electric bill is about €500 per year, about €100 of which is paid by a subsidy that I would receive in cash if I didn’t use the electricity.  My goal is to bring my electric bill somewhere between the total amount, and the total amount less the subsidy.  If I generate more electricity than I use, the amount paid back to me by the utility company is trivial.  It’s not my intention to generate 100% of my own electric needs.

I have done some calculations, making some assumptions that may or may not be true, that suggest a 2kW solar panel system would meet all my electricity needs and cost €4000.  This should mean it pays for itself in 8 years.  Since I have convenient space for a 1.6kW system (16x 100w solar panels), I will make due with this and perhaps look for ways to make my house more energy efficient to make up the difference.  I’m expecting to spend €3000 in total, and will do it step by step rather than installing a large system in one go.  As I expand, I will look for ways to eliminate bottlenecks and use the cheapest and most efficient technologies and products.

Results of My Test

At the beginning of this post I explained I bought a solar panel, meter and inverter to test.  The idea was to learn about the equipment, the sun conditions on my roof and so on.  In broad terms the test was a success and proof of concept, but I also learned some things.

First of all, while the meter one time recorded 104w from my 100w panel, proving it is working to specifications, that was really an exception.  In general, the efficiency was much less than that.  I never personally witnessed the panel generating more than 75w, and doubt it frequently goes beyond that.

This is probably due to the angle of the sun with respect to my roof.  On one hand this means some of my expectations weren’t met, however my original calculation that I need a 2kW system does seem to be correct.  This is because while the peak output of the panels are not as high as I expected, the panels are unexpectedly good at lower light conditions.  In particular, on a cloudy day, the panels can usually generate 50W, and in the evening with no direct light, but a lot of indirect light, they can usually do 25W.  Normal panels are about 15-18% efficient, but these are rated at 22-24%, and that may be the difference.

Because the panels rarely reach their peak performance, I can think about using a cheaper grid tie inverter, one that’s rated for fewer watts.  This is because when if the panels do generate more power than expected, the excess power will be wasted, but if this doesn’t happen often, not a lot will be lost.

One issue that came up was the size of the cables needed.  As a rule of thumb, you need a 4mm cable for up to 30amps, and a 6mm cable for 50amps.  These are very heavy cables, and since they are designed to be in the direct sun and outdoors, they are covered with a thick and heavy layer of insulation.

For a 1600W system, the number of amps is calculated by dividing by the number of volts.  So,

A 12V system (operating at 18V) would be 1600/18 = 88 amps

A 24V system (operating at 36V) would be 1600/36 = 44 amps

After pricing various options, and taking into account that I already had one 500w 12v grid tie inverter, I came to the conclusion that I would need 2x6mm cable pairs.  One of the pairs would be 12v and the other would be 24v.  It might also be possible to start at 12V, using what I have, but then later switching to 24V.

I went over and over these calculations, and was really looking for another solution.  These cables are not only expensive, but very heavy and would be difficult for one person to manage.  The main problem was this:

View to my roof

This is the view up from where the cables would run.  It would be a 6-7 meter straight drop from the edge of my roof, and the cables themselves weigh some 10’s of kilos.  I may eventually need to run 2 pair of them, about 50kg combined, and drill holes in my 350 year old wall for them.  If something happened, and one or both of them dropped, the weight would potentially bring the solar panels off the roof with them, or at least rip the wiring out of the panels.  This would have been a lot of trouble to install securely.

They needed to come this far down, because this is where I both had a dedicated circuit to connect them to the house electric wiring, as well as space for inverter(s) and batteries.

The Solution, and the Next Step

I have a spot on my roof good for 6 panels, and already have the one panel I bought to test with.  I will later expand to 16 panels in total, but buying 5 more now is a good step.  What you see a little to the left in the picture above is this:

Back Side of my Roof Terrace

And more specifically, this in the bottom center:

Electric Junction Box

This is a disused junction box, for an outdoor light.  There’s already a hole in the wall for this, and as it turns out, it’s on it’s own electric circuit.

Together with the 5 new panels, I will buy an outdoor grid tie inverter, what’s sometimes called a micro-inverter.  This will convert the power from the solar panels into electricity suitable for feeding back to the grid, at the level of the roof, eliminating the need to run heavy cables down the back of my house.  A normal electric cable can be used for connecting it to the junction box in the picture.

More on this in a future post!

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Ending Fossil Fuels

The Goal

I think many people agree, in an era of global warming, air pollution and international agreements like the Paris accord, we need to phase out the use of fossil fuels.  That at least seems like the obvious direction to head in.  Alternatives like sequestering carbon, which may be very important in the future, don’t seem viable at the moment.

Although I believe agriculture has a very important role to play in carbon sequestration, I also believe it’s important to phase out fossil fuels, at least in the way they are used today.  I think it may be possible to continue to use fossil fuels, in a very modest and efficient way, if they end up being the best solution under limited circumstances.  The issue is more that today they are used in very inefficient ways.

Air Pollution

I’m very unhappy air pollution is being used as a red herring in the issue of global warming.  If we phase out fossil fuels, cleaner air will certainly be a consequence.  Unlike climate change, when the sources of air pollution are addressed, the effects are pretty immediate and air quality rapidly improves.  Climate change however is something we will all have to live with during our lifetimes, no matter what we do now to address it.

I’m certainly in favor of taking steps to improve air quality, especially in the world’s largest cities, where it’s a major problem today.  At the same time, reasonable steps are being taken, and continue to be taken, and air quality in most places is improving.  Air quality should not be an obstacle to addressing climate change, except possibly on a localized basis, where it’s an unusually serious problem.

Air quality is also something that has not been well quantified by realities around us.  For example, we all know smoking is bad for you, and in many places lung cancer has even become the leading cause of death.  This is something that’s a clear and obvious threat.  Air pollution is less clear, and while politicians consider it top priority, very little is being done to make it a relevant day to day issue for people.  Lots of questions exist in my mind about the strategies being used to address air pollution.

For example, the two major components of diesel pollution are nitrous oxides and PM2.5 nano-particles.  While I don’t deny these are dangerous, the issue is putting them into perspective.  In the Netherlands, the places where nitrous oxide levels are considered high enough to be a health threat are in areas around intensive meat farms.  I’m not aware of any serious efforts under way to address this pollution.

I also don’t have any reference for considering PM2.5.  Who are the people dying or made sick by it?  What are their symptoms and medical diagnoses?  Besides politicians considering it serious, what other credible metrics can ordinary people use to gage it’s seriousness?  Why is it that since the industrial revolution air quality has been an issue, but only now is it so urgent?  This has not been well enough explained, and there is not enough independent science addressing the issue.

What about all of the freight being hauled by diesel fuel around the world: boats, trucks/lorries, trains?  I read somewhere that diesel cars produce more pollution than other sources.  Okay, if we accept that as true, a lot is being done to address the issue with cars.  For example we now have low sulphur fuel and  the EURO6 standard for diesel cars in Europe, although many people consider this inadequate.  What is being done for the other sources of diesel pollution?  Surely these cannot be considered completely insignificant?  We have all lived with diesel pollution for all of our lives, so why is it so urgent now and isn’t it getting better anyway?  If we phase out the use of fossil fuels, isn’t this a problem that will solve itself?

Why do we urgently need to address the issue of diesel pollution at the expense of climate change?  At the moment diesel is one of the best, most established and cheapest technologies for reducing greenhouse emissions.  Even hybrid electric cars are generally not more efficient than diesels, and diesels generally emit less greenhouse gases.

The High Price of Electricity

As a world, we pay a very high price for maintaining an electric grid and generating electricity centrally.  It’s a very inefficient way to produce and distribute energy, it’s main benefit is convenience.  Much of the generated electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels like coal or natural gas, and it’s often much more efficient to use these fossil fuels directly, to heat homes or run engines.  We take major risks using nuclear technologies for this purpose.  Even so-called renewable sources have their costs, cluttering landscapes and filling farmland with windmills or vast solar panel arrays, which all have their energy costs for construction and disposal.

At the moment, no one could even begin to argue that using electricity as a substitute for other fuels is a greener thing to do.  Only about 5% of electricity comes from renewable sources now.  Even if in the future we are able to generate 100% of our electricity from renewable sources, there will still be environmental costs.  Some people even argue that nuclear power is green, because there’s no greenhouse gas emissions.

The argument that switching to electric cars is more environmentally friendly is seriously flawed.  Now you have the inefficiencies of generating and transporting electricity that’s not sustainably produced, and even once that’s addressed you will still have problems associated with sustainable energy production as well as the manufacturing and disposal costs of the electric cars themselves.  It’s very unlikely modern lithium ion car batteries will ever be effectively recycled, together with the rest of the circuitry in a modern electric car.  In fact a great deal of mined finite resources go into electric cars, with few if any recycling possibilities.  Air pollution is another issue, and electric cars may make sense in some areas for this reason, but electric cars are unlikely to be a complete or sustainable solution for climate change.

Another problem with electric cars is their enormous power consumption.  You may not think of a light vehicle driving around on a battery as a fuel hog, but modern batteries are in fact very large and powerful.  Those of you familiar with 3-phase power may appreciate that electric cars benefit with faster charging with such a connection, and in some cases an electric car can consume many times more than an entire household.  Such a massive expansion of our power grids is not going to be a benefit to the environment, it’s only going to make the energy companies bigger and more powerful, and the wealthiest people richer.  Reducing energy consumption is a better approach than increasing it.

It’s also an incomplete argument that you might be able to choose the energy company you buy power from, and therefore can buy renewable energy.  If you draw power from the electric grid, it tends to come from the closest source.  If the closest source is a nuclear plant, then that’s where your power comes from.  Who you pay for using that power is more political than anything else, and is too dependent on government subsidies and taxes.  It’s false logic to say that if everyone stops paying for non-renewable energy it will cease to exist, there are simply too many variables at play.  If you want renewable energy, you need to generate it yourself.

Local Generation and Tesla vs Edison

Solar panels and electric cars have something very important in common, they both operate on DC current.  On the other hand our houses operate on AC.  Electricity generated by turning a turbine, like almost all modern electricity production, is also AC.

Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison are arguably two of the most important pioneers in electric power engineering.  It turns out the two of them worked side by side and had some very important philosophical differences, especially regarding the benefits of AC vs DC.

The main difference is that AC can be more easily transported greater distances by means of a power grid, but DC is safer because the voltage is generally lower and can be stored more easily.  It’s also a little costly to convert to and from AC and DC.  In the end Tesla won, and except for small battery powered devices, we use AC almost exclusively at home.

Now, if we need DC power for example to charge our phones, we plug a converter into an electric outlet.

What’s interesting, now with solar panels and electric cars, is the same debates Edison and Tesla had are coming back.  Since both solar panels and electric cars work on DC, it actually may be better to reassess if we actually need AC power at all, and if it would be better to base most things on DC power, and use a converter to change to AC when it’s really necessary.

Without AC power, it would not be possible to transfer it long distances with a power grid.  However with the technology of solar panels rapidly improving and getting cheaper, it may be possible to generate the majority of our power locally.  The problem now is it’s generally not feasible to power an electric car with solar panels alone, because a lot of solar panels are needed and electric cars need to be charged too frequently and rapidly.  It is however feasible to power your home with solar panels, and if necessary to store the excess energy in a battery, possibly even a car battery.  Converters can be used when necessary to power devices designed to operate on AC.  This is not the future, this is very much the reality now.

What’s handy, especially because we are in a transition phase now where we still have an important electric grid, is being able to feed back to the grid.  More specifically, there is a device called a grid-tie inverter, that converts DC power to AC in a form that can be fed onto the grid.  This means the grid acts as a sort of large battery, and you can draw the power back when you need it.  A grid-tie inverter can be purchased for as little as €100, and assuming your house is not fitted with a ‘smart meter’, you can feed onto the grid without your energy company knowing about it.  A standard electric meter will turn forward when you use electricity, and backwards when you feed back to the grid.

A grid-tie inverter simply plugs into a standard electric outlet.  If your grid-tie inverter has a capacity of more than 500w, it would be a good idea to use a dedicated circuit for it.  An alternative is to use more than one inverter on different circuits, or a battery with a charge controller to delay feeding some of the power back to the grid to hours when there is little or no power coming from your solar panels.

Glass panel solar panels are now old school.

The latest solar panels are plastic and weigh about 1kg.  They usually have grommets in the corners, and can be tied down with rope or fastened on a wall with a screw.  They are more efficient than solar panels from a few years ago, meaning they work better in lower light environments and don’t necessarily need to get full sun all day long.  A south facing wall is a good location.  They are intended for ‘temporary installation’, meaning building permits are often not necessary and you can take them with you when you move.  You also don’t need to put holes in your roof during installation.  The electricity they generate is DC, which means there is little risk of shocks, and they are generally safer than standard household electricity.

The wiring is easy for anyone with very basic handyman skills, but be sure to pay attention to the current rating of the various components and ensure you are using sufficiently heavy cabling.

The relationship between watts, amps and voltage is as follows:

I = amps
E = voltage
P = watts

P = I * E
I = P / E
E = P / I

For a short length, typical installation, a 4mm cable is sufficient for 30A and a 6mm cable is sufficient for 50A.  For distances longer than a few meters, be sure to consult an online calculator for the correct cable size.  To save on wiring costs, consider installing a 24V system instead of a 12V one.  24V can be made by connecting 2 12V or 18V panels in series.  Solar panels can be connected in parallel to combine their current outputs.

Poor connections, pinched cables or overloaded components are all fire hazards.  Be sure to pay attention to these things.

In my case, a 2kW installation would meet most of my needs.  That’s about 20 x 100w panels (€160 each), a grid-tie inverter for about €200, battery controller and battery, and some wiring.  About €4000 in total, for a system that should generate about €500 of electricity per year at current prices.  This would require about 10m2 of space on a wall or roof.  All the work can be dome by most people themselves often without permits, just figure out what you need, buy the parts and install it.  Everything can be bought online, almost anywhere in the world.

Prices will almost certainly come down further, so waiting might be a good idea.

My Conclusions

According to your personal situation, consider installing as many solar panels as is reasonable and possible.  Consider doing it yourself, or hiring a simple handyman.  Consider a long-term ‘temporary’ installation, without a contract with the energy company and without building permits.  Consider the technology is rapidly changing, so if you are forced to sell your house with the solar panels still installed, it may be like trying to sell an old computer.  Your house may have less resale value, and the new owner may want to install newer and better solar panels.

If you manage to install enough solar panels to heat and cool your house, as well as cook, great.  Otherwise, consider natural gas where possible.  This is more efficient than buying electricity.  When you are completely satisfied that the electricity powering the grid is better, then buy the electricity.

If you live in one of the larger cities where air pollution is a serious problem, consider if you need to buy an electric car.  Also, if you are able to generate enough electricity for a car, and only intend to drive it locally and charge at home, this might also be an option.  Otherwise, consider buying a diesel.

By some accounts, the greenhouse gasses and other environmental problems coming from the power grid, is much worse than that of cars.

Remember, the goal is to minimize fossil fuel use.  Think about this, don’t waste money on expensive new junk, and try not to buy consumer items that will become problems to dispose of in environmentally friendly ways.  Remember to consider the energy used in manufacturing, transporting and recycling your purchase.

It’s better to do what’s right, then to do what politicians and corporations tell us to do.

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Glyphosate ECI — Fake News

This is a follow-up post to one I made a few weeks ago.

Fake News

Fake news is on people’s minds at the moment.  It’s a very powerful tool for controlling public opinion and manipulating politics.  It’s been around for a long time now, only people are just starting to see it for what it is and it’s becoming less effective.  Social media platforms like Facebook have recently been criticized for spreading fake news, especially during the recent election campaign in the US, where some people blamed it for influencing the outcome and unfairly favoring Donald Trump.

Glyphosate European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI)

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the weed killer Round-Up, is a disgusting chemical.  There’s no doubt about this.  Of course it should be banned.  The root of the problem however is not a single product that we all hate so much, but the entire industrial food industry, who develops, markets and uses a chemical like this.

The issue at stake is the ability to patent glyphosate.  It has now been on the market for 43 years, and the patents have all expired.  It’s not profitable to sell any more, and no one is using similar but more profitable products, because glyphosate is too cheap and is widely sold as a generic product.  It’s simply time to ban glyphosate, like traditional light bulbs and square TV screens, so the food industry can make more money by selling expensive alternatives.

Bayer already has a patent on a very similar product, called glufosinate, and there are many other products in the development pipeline.

The other part of this ECI, that the process of approving chemicals like this should be reformed, has no political meaning.  To reform something might be a good thing, it might make matters worse and it might mean nothing at all.  It’s just not something tangible like ban glyphosate is.  Since there are no known independent groups, that might be able to stand up to the food industry and lobby for a positive outcome, it’s reasonable to assume a reform process like this could make matters much worse.

To support this campaign, and this ECI, is simply to support the food industry.

Good Side?

There are a number of risks associated with running an ECI.  The most obvious is that you may get far fewer signatures than expected, making your cause look like it doesn’t have much support.  There are also several other risks.  I was involved in discussions on a possible ECI, so I have some experience with this.

ECI’s are very expensive to run.  In general the advice is that it may cost as much as €1 per signature, so by starting an ECI you are pretty much committing to spending €1,000,000.  This however is assuming things go well, and you are sponsoring a fairly popular initiative.  If you are struggling to get signatures, you may have to spend a lot more money for a positive outcome.  For example, if you have to pay a student legal minimum wage to collect signatures, you may have to pay €10-25 per signature, or more.

An ECI is a 1 year process, and cannot be stopped.  You simply have to see it to the end.  It’s very possible you get in the middle of it, and find yourself having to throw good money after bad, in order to avoid an embarrassing outcome.

It’s reasonable to assume the food industry will pay whatever they need to to get this passed, and a lot of money will be spent in the process.  No independent organization, with good intentions, has this much money to spend on something like this.

Keep an eye on how the money is spent.  For example, there are openings now advertised on the internet for country managers in Romania and France.  Think about who is spending that money, and why.

Infiltration

If you support an activist organization, who is promoting this ECI, you should ask yourself what’s going on.  You should ask them why they are supporting industrial agriculture, and think about the answer they give you.

Most environmental and activist organizations receive large financial support from corporations, or the worlds wealthy families, and as a result try to promote their interests.  Maybe these are causes you don’t need to support any more?

Have a look at the ECI page on the Internet, and all the organizations who have let their logo be used for promoting it.  At the very least these organizations were very careless, and at worst there are bad intentions.  If you know these organizations, talk to them and find out the reason.

Above all else, talk with others.  Talk with the people gathering the signatures and their organizations.  Explain the situation to others who might give their signature.  Talk about where the money is, and why it is being spent.

Together we can stop fake news in activist causes, and we can put pressure on activist organizations to support our causes, instead of telling us what to believe and support.

update: 12 march

Analysis of the Text

Subject-matter: We call on the European Commission to propose to member states a ban on glyphosate, to reform the pesticide approval procedure, and to set EU-wide mandatory reduction targets for pesticide use.

Main objectives: Ban glyphosate-based herbicides, exposure to which has been linked to cancer in humans, and has led to ecosystems degradation; ensure that the scientific evaluation of pesticides for EU regulatory approval is based only on published studies, which are commissioned by competent public authorities instead of the pesticide industry; set EU-wide mandatory reduction targets for pesticide use, with a view to achieving a pesticide-free future.
  • “mandatory reduction targets” A target is an approximation.  A mandatory approximation?  This won’t have much meaning in practice.  If these mandatory approximations are EU-wide, even estimating them will be a big challenge, and local authorities may not have the authority to enforce them.
  • Banning one herbicide by name, glyphosate, will not benefit anyone.  There are many others with other names, both on the market and under development.
  • “approval is based only on published studies” This means taking into account public opinion is explicitly ruled out.  Also unpublished studies will not be considered, for example when the manufacturer or patent holder refuses to give permission for a study to be published.  Published studies nearly always reflect the wishes of the company that pays for them, which in this case will be the one seeking the approval for marketing the pesticide.
  • “competent public authorities” In the era of privatization and industry self-regulation, these are controlled by the food industry.
  • There is no pesticide industry. Pesticides are sold together with seeds, and are part of the food industry.  Barring the pesticide industry from participating doesn’t accomplish anything.
  • “a view to achieving a pesticide-free future” This is like a view to achieving a future free of nuclear weapons.  We certainly all hope it happens, but the chances are pretty small.  This statement has no political meaning.
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Glyphosate: Celebrating 43 Years of Failure

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the well known herbicide RoundUp.  First used in 1974, it’s now been on the market 43 years, and has become the world’s most widely used herbicide.  It’s pollution is widespread; it pollutes land, surface and groundwater, and our food.  One test showed detectable levels in 1 out of every 2 people tested.

Glyphosate is a ‘probable carcinogen’, and associated with a long list of other health and reproductive problems.

It’s used by farmers, gardeners, cities and municipalities and others all over the world.  Huge numbers of people come in physical contact with it every day.  People use it in their own gardens, but also spray it other places.  I’ve been through RoundUp wars in my community gardens, where gardeners sprayed it in each others gardens, and heard of many similar stories with home gardeners.

Most people I know who use it are completely unaware of the dangers, and don’t think anything of endangering others.  Certainly local governments are rarely concerned about using it in public spaces.

We’ve now had 43 years of complete failure.  Governments have failed us by approving it’s use, and not properly regulating it.  Farmers and corporations have failed us, by putting profit and greed before our health.  NGOs and environmental organizations have failed us, by failing to speak out loudly and effectively against a flawed and failing system of industrial agriculture and it’s poisons.  There are no winners and no victories, only complete failure.

End of Life

Now we’ve finally reached glyphosate’s useful end of life.  All relevant patents have expired, and there’s no way for the world’s wealthiest 1% to make grotesque profits from it’s use any more.  It’s available in cheap generic formulations.  There are super weeds in many areas that are resistant to it.  In addition there are many newer, more effective, herbicides in the research pipeline.  It’s time to send it the way of the standard light bulb, and ban it, so everyone who currently uses it is forced onto more expensive and possibly more dangerous alternatives.

Want to help out?  If you live in Europe, there’s a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) calling for glyphosate to be banned.  With your signature, you can help make the world’s wealthy wealthier and help increase corporate profits.

In Europe the funding of organizations is always a secret, and the only way you can follow the trail of money is by taking notice of an organizations activities and partners.  Many of the organizations putting their names forward on this initiative are the same ones that have failed us in the past, and are known to accept money from the food industry.

The Real Solution

The real solution is a complete reform of the food industry, grassroots driven, top to bottom.  We need to address those profit mechanisms that have polluted the world with RoundUp.  We need a complete rethink of the way our food is grown, and how it’s paid for.

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Organic Plant Breeding and Seed Production in Poland

EkoSeedForum

Organic plant breeding and seed production as well as the preservation of agro biodiversity are very important topics for agriculture and especially for organic farming. In Western Europe, organic plant breeding as well as production of seeds under organic conditions has started already more than 20 years ago and interesting cooperation models have been realised. In Central and Eastern Europe a strong organic agriculture sector with about 3 million ha of organic area has developed but only a few initiatives work in organic breeding and organic seed production. On the other hand, many old crop varieties still can be found, which without utilization concepts are threatened to be lost.

In order to improve the situation of organic seed supply in CEE as well as to support initiatives of organic breeding and maintenance of crop biodiversity in all Europe the */EkoSeedForum — International Conference on Organic Seeds, Organic Plant Breeding and Crop Biodiversity/* will be organized in Poland next year. With this e-mail we kindly invite you to this event on the *20 to 22 March 2014 at the University of Life Science in Poznan*.

The EkoSeedForum conference will be conducted in English, Polish and German language (and Russian if necessary). Parallel to the conference, participants can show their work at presentation tables and in a poster session. The Forum will give a great opportunity to see the activities of colleagues from East and West, to learn from each other and to develop future cooperation. EkoSeedForum is organized by EkoConnect e.V. in cooperation with University of Life Sciences in Poland and the partners IFOAM EU Group (Belgium), ECO-PB (Switzerland), Zukunftsstiftung Landwirtschaft (Germany), Association for Old Varieties and Breeds (Poland), Kultursaat e. V. (Germany), Association Forum of Organic Agriculture named Mieczyslaw Górny (Poland), Bingenheimer Saatgut AG (Germany), SAVE Foundation (Switzerland), Agrolink (Bulgaria) and Seed Guardians (Slovenia).

The registration to the event is now open until the 25th February 2014.

More information and registration at http://www.ekoconnect.org/en/ekoseedforum.html

Please note: EkoConnect e. V. is organizing besides the EkoSeedForum in Poznan a /second event in Poland:/ the second one is the Organic Marketing Forum in Warsaw on the 1 and 2 of June 2014 www.organic-marketing-forum.org. You are cordially invited to both.

With kind regards,

In the name of all project partners,

Bernhard Jansen; Anna Tarnowska

Chairman EkoConnect Project Manager

P.S. Maybe you know partners who are especially interested in breeding, seeds or biodiversity. It would be nice if you forwarded this invitation to them. Thank you.