How about a break from all of the climate-related fire and storm disaster news for a nice prose-infusion on a #SolarPunk based community infrastructure? 
Distributed and decentralized #energy is the path to infrastructure #resilience amid escalating climate uncertainty.
Obviously.
A locally-administered Mastodon instance is to the Fediverse what a neighborhood microgrid is to the backup potential of the grid as a whole.
A #Microgrid is an independent electric grid that can operate as a node independent of the central power grid. It allows for a steady power supply even when an outage on the main grid happens. Several types of energy can be used to "collaborate" on a microgrid's design (See "The Neighbors Theory" on QE) for energy and informational storage capacity ideas.
Some big IFs to keep in mind:
(1) Photovoltaic panels make use of (and therefore contribute to the mining of) rare earth materials; mined materials are not sustainable. Continents with a hefty or spreading desert / #desertification problem are evidence of this.
(2) Electricity generation from renewable sources can be intermittent and variable depending on many factors including time of day and weather. What kind of energy your grid should be powered on depends on how well you can predict climate change.
(3) Distribution protection: when power generation happens within the distribution system, energy flows both ways, making voltage regulation especially difficult.
(4) While "rare earth" metal recycling can be done, recycling on the whole ought to be preceded by "Reduce, Reuse". What do you care enough to reuse? What does your town care enough to recycle?
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/28/20926446/california-grid-distributed-energy
(2/n) cont'd 
When I happened across an article titled "We Don't Mine Enough Rare Earth Metals to Replace Fossil Fuels With Renewable Energy", my internal skeptic kicked in.
So of course, my first instinct was to look for more sources: other established experts whose professional opinions align. What do they mean, exactly, when they say "Rare Earth", and how are they applying it there?
Such research can take a person deep down the rabbit hole. Research into the legitimacy of opposing and differing views, however, is *always* worth it; a #SolarPunk attitude ought to be open to information from multiple angles, even if it's info that "interferes" with an established world view.
That metals, plastic, and even industrial waste are just about everywhere is a #fact of modern society as it exists today. One of the biggest problems with global industrialism is the built-in (but probably erroneous) assumption that everything should be scaled out to "production" quality and transported as far as it can be transported for limitless business growth.
That's a stupid assumption, obviously, because the greater the distance of transport, the more middlemen need to get involved. Like everything else involving supply-chains, it's the middlemen who tend to do the most damage.
BTW should I mention that while my employer* includes the best metallurgists on the planet, Ecosteader is an entirely non-affiliated side project I started before I was hired. All digital-based work I do here is for the public benefit (we are legally a B Corp). No income from this project has ever been collected.
* https://ecosteader.com/@indie/102833036289757289
More reading:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3mavb/we-dont-mine-enough-rare-earth-metals-to-replace-fossil-fuels-with-renewable-energy
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution
