There is something called "community solar", which my utility happens to offer among many others. The panels are in a solar farm, where they are cheap and easy to install vs rooftops. You lease or buy a block of panels. Whatever they produce is subtracted from your residential meter reading. This works for tenants, and also people like me who own a house, but have nice big shade trees I don't want to cut down. I live in the Atlanta area, shade trees are good. They lower the air temperature substantially.

The storage is now getting built at a rapid pace. Up to a certain point, renewables can be used whenever they run. But once past 20-30% there will be times they over-produce, and the excess gets wasted. California reached that point a few years ago, and started installing lots of battery farms. Now they can time-shift mid-day sun to early evening when peak load in the summer happens.

This is the same IEA that famously missed projections of solar installations every year for 15 years. I wouldn't place much stock in it. The US went from 313.3 to 341.7 GW of renewables capacity in the last 12 months. At that rate the 6.5 years to the end of 2030 gets us to 526.3 GW. However, installations are expected to increase in the next few years to more like 50 GW per year, which would get us to 666 GW, nearly a doubling.

President Nixon almost pushed this idea. It was called a "negative income tax. If your income was low enough, you wouldn't owe any tax, but get a refund anyway. It was intended to replace some social programs with less overhead. As an economy automates, you just increase the refund amount until people can live off them.

Note that "portland cement", the usual binder in concrete, is made from other ingredients in addition to limestone or other calcium carbonate material. It is also burned in a higher temperature furnace. Pure lime can be used as a binder once wetted, but it is slow to harden and does not lock to the other ingredients (sand and gravel usually) as well. Portland cement develops spiky crystals that do a better job, and it gains strength faster at the start, making it more practical for most projects. "Carbonation" - absorbing CO2 from the air - also happens with cement, but it is slow, taking years to decades. The strength of the concrete will continue to increase during this time.

Blast furnaces are giving way to "direct reduced iron". These can use hydrogen derived from electrolysis of water as the reducing agent. This makes for a low-carbon steel.

In metallurgy, "reduction" means removing oxygen from an ore, as most metals are found bound to oxygen. In a blast furnace, coke (purified coal) burns to carbon monoxide, which takes a second oxygen from the iron oxide ore. The burning also supplies heat to make the reaction go faster, and melt the iron into a puddle. But hydrogen is also a reducing agent.

should be called "rain". Why make up a name when we have a perfectly good one in wide use?

Or an all-terrain construction vehicle that can float:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...

I've been to camping events where insufficiently supported shade tarps become impromptu ponds. Just prop up the edges with poles and they become rain collectors.

Disney is now using "Steamboat Willie" as a trademark, rather than a copyrighted cartoon. He appears in the studio intro in recent Disney films. Trademarks never expire as long as they are in use.

Big box stores killed off the mom and pop places because they were open more hours. Online shopping further improved availability.

Some items, like fresh food and clothing, are still better shopped for in person. In my case I prefer to buy tools in person because there is a big difference between quality and junk tools that is hard to tell on a screen.

Yes, I still eat lunch, but at my desk in my home office. In my previous job I had to go to the company cafeteria or, more often, out to lunch because the cafeteria food was mediocre. So I can do one-hand tasks like reading email while eating at my desk.

Including getting ready for work and commuting time, my work effort was more like 10 hours per workday. After accounting for time and money wasted on unnecessary things, my productivity went way up. The economy also benefited from reduced wear and tear of my vehicles. Auto expenses could then be directed to other parts of the economy, generally improving efficiency.

Technically, farm tractors were "mechanization", the replacement of muscles with machines for power. Humans were still needed for "control", deciding how the farm equipment gets used.

"Smart tools" are ones that use automation, robotics, software and AI. They replace the human control function at some level. When Windows and other software do an auto-update without your involvement, that human update task has been replaced.

Eventually humans will be limited to managers/overseers - only giving orders and deciding what needs to be done, but not directly controlling tools and machines to get things done.

Look up the Atlanta Beltline. They are building a strip of park around the city on old railroad rights of way. The project is also buying up blighted property nearby and offering it to developers with strings attached as far as density, walkability, etc. People want to live near the amenities, so it is working out well.