Gratis busskort gav ökad frihet i utsatta områden (KTH)

"Does a monthly bus pass make a difference? Consequences of circumscribed mobility in two structurally disadvantaged districts in Sweden", Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, DOI: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2026.101857

• https://www.kth.se/om/nyheter/centrala-nyheter/gratis-busskort-gav-okad-frihet-i-utsatta-omraden-1.1460295. Fredrik Johansson, forskare på Institutionen för hållbar utveckling, miljövetenskap och teknik.

Höga priser på kollektivtrafik begränsar rörligheten för boende i utsatta områden. När sju personer med låg inkomst fick tre månaders gratis kollektivtrafik upplevde de att det gav dem frihet och ökad trygghet. Det visar en ny undersökning från KTH.
https://www.dagensarena.se/innehall/gratis-kollektivtrafik-gav-laginkomsttagare-okad-rorlighet-och-trygghet, 2026-02-27

Priset på kollektivtrafik påverkar de boende i utsatta områden. Höga priser kan leda till en begränsad rörlighet och en känsla av att ”sitta fast” i den egna stadsdelen.
https://forskning.se/2026/02/27/gratis-busskort-gav-frihet-och-trygghet, 2026-02-27

Mobilitetsorättvisa för familjer i utsatta områden påverkar social hållbarhet (SU)

• https://www.su.se/forskning/nyheter-forskning/nyhetsartiklar/2024-09-27-mobilitetsorattvisa-for-familjer-i-utsatta-omraden-paverkar-social-hallbarhet. Tanja Joelsson, Dag Balkmar, Malin Henriksson.
• "Familjers vardagsmobilitet i ”socialt utsatta områden”: Konsekvenser för välfärd, rättvisa och hållbarhet" fulltext i DiVA
• "Rättvist resande?: Villkor, utmaningar och visioner för samhällsplaneringen" fulltext i DiVA

• https://osc-international.com - International Network of Open Science & Scholarship Communities
• https://opensciencesweden.org - website shows no activities since last year. No RSS feed. No Masto account (only Twitter, email address and a contact form). They also have a forum https://onscienceandacademia.org/c/organisations/osc-sweden/59, but no activity there since 2023.
• https://open-science-community-uppsala.github.io/open_science_community_uppsala - Open Science Community Uppsala. Email list, Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook. The mailing list can be followed via RSS, which should give you all future events.
• https://osc-ksa.com - Open Science Community in Saudi Arabia. Twitter, Linkedin, and Github. No Masto, and no RSS feed.
• https://help.osf.io/article/677-explore-open-science-communities - a large spreadsheet with all kinds of stuff.

TinyTinyRSS has been my primary way of following and reading feeds for over a decade.

The original developer retired the project om 2025-11-01, but one the main contributors created a fork to pick up the mantle. Via https://fosstodon.org/@wallabag/115329272917315994 and https://pierce.xyz/@eric/115330726572632285.

TinyTinyRSS server

• https://github.com/tt-rss/tt-rss (main project since Nov 2025)
• https://github.com/HenryQW/Awesome-TTRSS - as far as I can tell this is an unofficial Dockerfile and Docker compose for TTRSS. I have not checked whether it still points to the retired repos or to the new fork.

Plugins

• https://github.com/joshp23/ttrss-to-wallabag-v2 - last commit 2021-03-14, repo archived on 2025-05-19
• https://github.com/Nikkiiw/ttrss-to-wallabag-v2-fix - last commit 2022-04-18, fork from joshp23's repo
• https://github.com/GregThib/ttrss-shaarli
• https://github.com/tt-rss/tt-rss-plugin-googlereaderkeys
• https://github.com/resticDOG/tt-rss-plugin-ntfy - huh, cool.
• https://github.com/lotrfan/ttrss_import_export_all - import/export all articles. But last commit 12 years ago, so I wouldn't expect it to work.
• https://github.com/cas--/tt-rss-plugin-hide_unread_count - another 12-years old repo.

Android

• https://github.com/tt-rss/tt-rss-android - does not have any releases yet, so we cannot use Obtainium to install it on Android.
• https://github.com/fbarthelery/geekttrss - an alternative TTRSS reader app. Also on F-Droid.

iOS

• https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tiny-reader-rss/id689519762 - I know nothing about it.

Other clients

• https://github.com/martinrotter/rssguard - runs on Windows, Linux, BSD, OS/2, and macOS.
• https://github.com/aooiuu/vscode-ttrss - crazy, TTRSS in VSCode. I don't even know what to say.

What others say about TinyTinyRSS

• https://www.extrema.is/blog/2021/11/10/rss-part-10-tiny-tiny-rss - this is part of a whole series of posts about different RSS readers.
• https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/kar97w/selfhosted_rss_with_entire_articles

include_tasks files that in turn contain import_tasks cause cryptic errors

It appears to be good practice to avoid using import_tasks in a file if the file itself was included with include_tasks.

Because if you don't, expect to get cryptic error messages like:

# ERROR! Unexpected Exception, this is probably a bug: expected str, bytes or os.PathLike object, not NoneType

This is something I'm still collecting more information on. If you have any tips, please do bother me.

Google's strangehold on casting is seriously annoying. Alternatives?

RaspiCast

• https://github.com/HaarigerHarald/omxiv - archived repo since 2023-05
• https://github.com/HaarigerHarald/raspicast - source code for Android app, last commit 2 yrs ago
• https://www.instructables.com/Raspberry-Pi-As-Chromecast-Alternative-Raspicast

PiCast

Has to be considered no longer maintained. May or may not actually work at this point.

• https://github.com/lanceseidman/PiCAST - last commit 8 yrs ago
• https://pypi.org/project/picast

PyCaster

Built on PiCast and youtube-dl using NodeJS.

You connect to the Pi, the server-side JavaScripts delivers a simple webpage. The communication is done in real time thanks to the socket.io library. Your browser connects to the Pi, you send the URL you want to stream, and the Pi streams it for you through omxplayer and youtube-dl.

• https://github.com/DevonLian/PYCASTER - last commit 8 yrs ago

Pipecast

• https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/PipeCast - archived repo since 2022-11. By the NewPipe team.
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23873892

NymphCast

Alpha stage. But interesting, worth testing it. They already offer Android APK and server software which could run on a Raspberry Pi, for example.

• https://github.com/MayaPosch/NymphCast - 2.5k stars, 80 forks, last commit 3 months ago
• http://nyanko.ws/nymphcast.php

So it seems that around 2020 there was a flurry of posts about this project, describing it as "alpha". So the fact that the project is still alpha five years later is perhaps not very encouraging. But it is still actively developed, which is more than you can say about most other projects in this field. The Google stranglehold on casting continues to be heavily felt, unfortunately.

• https://features.jellyfin.org/posts/1706/nymphcast-the-gentlepersons-google-cast
• https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/fhdnav/nymphcast_an_opensource_alternative_to_chromecast
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27482699
• https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/58714-nymphcast-network-audio-chromecast-replacement
• https://www.opensourceforu.com/2020/03/open-source-nymphcast-lets-you-use-raspberry-pi-like-a-chromecast
• https://www.tomshardware.com/news/using-raspberry-pi-like-a-chromecast-open-source-nymphcast-project-makes-it-happen
• https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/ter8fx/nymphcast_an_opensource_chromecast_alternative
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22457351
• https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/flgzu1/nymphcast_an_opensource_alternative_to_chromecast

MPV Cast for Jellyfin

Strictly Jellyfin only, but works nicely by casting from the Jellyfin Android app to the computer (by playing the video using mpv). Does not yet support IP-TV though (see issues 237 and 303).

• https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-mpv-shim
• https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-mpv-shim/issues/303
• https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-mpv-shim/issues/237

Mirrorcast

• https://github.com/ASHS-School/mirrorcast - last commit 7 yrs ago, 49 stars, 7 forks

AirTame

Proprietary dongle with a proprietary app. Pricing really only meant for businesses.
Supports AirPlay, Miracast and Google Cast.

• https://airtame.com/products/airtame-2
• https://technicalustad.com/chromecast-alternative

TeeWe 2

Proprietary dongle. It was sold in India around 2015. Very likely long since dead.

• https://www.crazyengineers.com/threads/teewe-2-review-this-hdmi-dongle-packs-a-punch-for-the-price.81277
• https://www.purevpn.com/blog/best-chromecast-alternatives

iPazzPort Cast

It's just a Miracast dongle. Out of stock and probably long dead. Chinese no-name webstore.

• https://www.ipazzport.com/product-category/ipazzport-cast/miracast-dongle
• https://www.purevpn.com/blog/best-chromecast-alternatives

TV Buddy Caster

Looks like vaporware.

• https://old.reddit.com/r/TVDetails/comments/g175t4/tv_buddy_is_it_legit_or_is_it_a_scam
• https://www.amazon.ca/Streaming-Smartphone-Widescreen-AirMirror-Cross-System/dp/B081SYDYXJ
• https://www.purevpn.com/blog/best-chromecast-alternatives

Google Cast reimplementations

• https://github.com/vishen/go-chromecast - 900 stars, 86 forks, last commit a month ago
• https://github.com/tristanpenman/go-cast - 8 stars, 1 fork, last commit 3 weeks ago

Notes

• https://github.com/enen92/script.tubecast - learnt about it while researching Youtube on Kodi
• https://helpdeskgeek.com/the-best-4-alternatives-to-google-chromecast
• https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/11ygmqx/chromecast_alternative
• https://old.reddit.com/r/fossdroid/comments/8vavp2/chromecast_netflix_w_microg

My list of places where you can find RSS feeds. Quality may vary, buyer beware.

• RSS.tips - a massive list of goodies. Also https://github.com/aboutrss/ALL-about-RSS and @AboutRSS@mastodon.social.
• powRSS - public feed aggregator for independent/personal websites. Via https://mastodon.social/@enocc/114604749548949161.
• RSS Database by FeedSpot. I have no knowledge of the quality of these collections.
• https://codeberg.org/solarchemist/svenska-tidskrifter-rss - my own collection of RSS feeds to Swedish newspapers.

... and good alternatives, where available. To the best of my knowledge, and no guarantees obviously. All the apps listed here are distributed with libre licences (except where otherwise stated), but some may rely on non-libre backends.

Productivity

• DAVx5 - the easiest way to synchronize your Nextcloud contacts/calendar/tasks with corresponding Android apps. GPLv3. Available on F-Droid.
• K-9 Mail, or these days it is perhaps just as well to use Thunderbird for Android.
• Nextcloud
• Nextcloud Notes
• Tasks.org - a great tasks app that synchronizes with your Nextcloud tasks.

Chat, messaging

• Signal messenger. The app is FOSS, but relies on a proprietary and centralized service.
• Nextcloud Talk
• Beeper

Feeds, social networking

• TinyTinyRSS. Official recommendation is to use Obtainium to install latest APK from the TTRSS for Android release page. For background see forum post.
• Tusky - Mastodon client that works well with multiple accounts across different instances.

Keyboard

• Unexpected Keyboard, F-Droid - keyboard with a smart swipe-inside-each-key UX that exposes a massive amount of special characters in a smart way.
• HeliBoard, F-Droid
• https://github.com/futo-org/android-keyboard
• Thumb-Key - cool keyboard meant for thumb typing and swiping inside each key.

Reading, listening, watching

• Wallabag
• Librera Reader, F-Droid.
• Tempo - music client for Subsonic-compatible servers.
• Jellyfin, F-Droid - mobile client for Jellyfin media server.
• NewPipe, F-Droid - I recommend you install it on F-Droid using their repo to get updates faster (but note that this means you trust their repo to push updates to your phone). "NewPipe represents the best of FOSS"
• VLC

Misc

• Audio Recorder, F-Droid. Easy to integrate with Nextcloud's "Auto Uploads" functionality, in my experience. But the default quality settings (bitrate, etc.) are quite low and I suggest raising them.
• Binary Eye, F-Droid - a competent QR code scanner.
• FreeOTP+, F-Droid - 2FA authenticator.
• Kvaesitso launcher - it looks great by default and can be customized in lots of useful ways.
• OpenKeychain - in combination with Password Store to sync pass to Android.
• OsmAnd - OpenStreetmap for Android.
• Tailscale - app is FOSS, but the underlying service is proprietary, but can replaced with Headscale (but unfortunately I cannot recommend it - tried it once and never figured it out).
• Transdroid - Bittorrent client that lets your monitor and control your server.
• Transportr - public transport timetables. Works well in Stockholm.

Other lists

• https://github.com/hakerdefo/Robota-Liberated via https://old.reddit.com/r/degoogle/comments/1slg8gb/a_curated_list_of_fdroid_apps

• Green Solvent Selection Tool by the OPEG group at the Department of Physics at Umeå University. Written in Python. With publication and source code.

[I will add more dashboards here as I (re)-discover them].

• Signal app and protocol (end-to-end encrypted by default, but centralized server, no federation) - use it daily
• Matrix protocol (end-to-end encrypted, decentralized, federated, user gets to choose app to use) - finds it use, but can be slightly annoying when using multiple devices
• Delta Chat - please see notes below
• Briar - does not rely at all on a central server, so can work even when Internet is down (via wifi, BT or memory cards). Syncs via Tor if Internet is up, which does make the mobile app a battery hog. I have not tested this personally, thanks to Slim for insights
• Quicksy (an XMPP/Jabber client). But as for XMPP, consider that although it's federated, it's not very private, e.g., discussion here.
• Simplex Chat - I haven't tested this

Matrix servers infinitely accumulate user data in the transport layer, namely encrypted messages and attachments as well as cleartext metadata about users and groups. A permanent metadata and room membership record may be ok, or even useful accountability-wise, for government officials but is not suitable for many people threatened by rising authoritarianism where “guilt by association” suffices for prosecution or worse. Operators of servers who can access all the social metadata about its users, and maybe even public messages, are becoming themselves a potential target for hacking or authoritarian repression.
Signal’s key architectural innovations were ephemeral message routing, usable E2EE with metadata-minimization where the transport server only stores messages temporarily and aims to know nothing about anything (except your phone number). Metadata-minimization is why Signal’s founder felt fine to entrust all “Signal Server” activities to Google, Amazon, Cloudflare, Microsoft, our very fine riders of the big tech apocalypse. A big step for cryptography in 2014 but a daring gamble, looking from 2025.
chatmail relays follow the Signal transport model and use SMTP and IMAP only for ephemeral message transport where the server keeps literally nothing except a (random) password and last login time. Turns out, if you hold those ancient protocols right, you can have a metadata-minimizing e-mail transport server with 0,001 EUR of costs per year per address.
https://lobste.rs/s/muk05v/reflections_on_matrix_criticism_over#c_1sijfo

Delta Chat

From the FAQ:

• Images, videos, files, voice messages etc. are handled as usual.
• For performance, images are optimized and sent at a smaller size by default, but you can send it as a “file” to preserve the original.

⚡️ Sign up to secure fast chatmail servers or use classic e-mail servers

• Chatmail relays Github repo - Chatmail relays are designed to be very cheap to run, and are automatically deployed and updated. Official list of relays.
• Besides the recommended usage of chatmail relays, you can use many classic email accounts in chatmail apps. List off email providers known to work with Chatmail.
• Chatmail core Github repo

List of clients is quite impressive, includes Android, iOS, a special "family-geared" Android client, a TUI client, and more.

Push notifications

Instant push notifications available for iOS and Android devices.

They seem to have put careful thought into how to handle notifications, especially on Android. By default, depends on Google FCM Push service or microG.
But you can change this to instead use a "background connection" or a "forced background connection". I have not yet found any client that supports UnifiedPush.

Note that classic e-mail servers do not support Push Notifications for Delta Chat users.

Audio or video calls

Not really, at least not yet.

You can invite others to an audio/video chat, but it's essentially a Jitsi meeting (or whatever provider you choose). No ring tone on the other end, so you must have otherwise arranged the "call".

• https://delta.chat/en/help#how-can-i-use-audiovideo-calls-with-delta-chat
• https://support.delta.chat/t/i-made-a-video-call-app-with-15-second-ping
• https://github.com/WofWca/video-call-over-email
• https://github.com/WofWca/webxdc-video-call

webxdc apps

• https://delta.chat/en/help#webxdc
• https://docs.webxdc.org
• https://support.delta.chat/c/webxdc/20

Watch out for insecure copy-cats

As far as I can tell these services, also named ChatMail, have nothing whatsoever to do with Delta Chat.

• https://nextqconnect.com/chatmail
• https://chatmailsecure.com

Delta Chat setup flow

I would like to test using the same profile on multiple devices.
So on device 1 (phone) I downloaded and installed the Delta Chat app from the F-Droid appstore. Opened the app and followed the instructions to create my profile. That was painless.

On my second device (tablet) I downloaded and installed the ArcaneChat app from F-Droid. Opened the app, clicked on "Add second device" on the welcome screen which starts the camera viewfinder. On my already registered device (phone), I opened the app, opened Settings, and clicked "Add Second Device". (Note! Don't make the mistake of clicking the QR code icon next to "Settings", because that will not work for adding secondary device, only for inviting others to a conversation).

ArcaneChat TUI client

I chose to create ~/.local/git/arcanechat, set it up for python using direnv echo "layout python3 > .envrc", then installed the client using pip:

$ pip install -U arcanechat-tui[full]

This installs the arcanechat-tui binary, an alias arcanechat, as well as the deltachat-rpc-server in .direnv/python-3.10/bin/.

Next, how to configure the existing account?

• https://github.com/ArcaneChat/arcanechat-tui/issues/91 - Setup as second device
• https://github.com/ArcaneChat/arcanechat-tui/issues/96 - How to add account as second device?

Create a backup in ArcaneChat Android and transfer it to the computer.

$ arcanechat import <path-to-backup-tar>

Worked flawlessly with a single profile in the first device.

Note to self: please come back to this post with links on R, its packages and related resources.

Grammar of graphics

• https://github.com/tidyverse/ggplot2
• https://exts.ggplot2.tidyverse.org/gallery - community-maintained list of extensions
• https://ggplot2-extended-book.com - how to use ggplot2 extensions
• ggiraph - makes ggplot2 graphics interactive.
• ggstraw - custom ggplot2 geom for deviations. Via https://nacnudus.github.io/duncangarmonsway/posts/2019-01-25-a-custom-ggplot2-geom-for-deviations.
• ggpattern - geoms with pattern fills that can be mostly anything (patterns, parts of images, etc.).
• ggside - add side panels to various geoms.

Other visualization frameworks

• https://grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot - tinyplot, an awesome extension of the base R graphics system.
• lattice

Both ggplot2 and lattice are built on top of the lower-level grid package, which was incorporated into the base R distribution back in R 2.0.0.
https://grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/#fnref1

Pipes, pipes, pipes

• https://nathaneastwood.github.io/2020/02/01/get-and-set-list-elements-with-magrittr - a neat way to get and set list elements in magrittr pipes thanks to some abuse of the .Primitive function. Could offer a nice way to handle higher-dimensional data.

Integration with reference manager Zotero

• https://github.com/oeysan/c2z (manipulate your Zotero collections, items from R; can be integrated with other tools such as cronR, mailR, or even HomeAssistant)

PDF tools

• https://ropensci.org/blog/2016/03/01/pdftools-and-jeroen (pdftools - A fast and portable PDF extractor)

Integration with GPG

• https://ropensci.org/technotes/2016/10/19/gpg-release (Encryption and Digital Signatures in R using GPG)

Web scraping

• https://blog.rsquaredacademy.com/web-scraping Introduction to web scraping with rvest, 2019
• https://www.brodrigues.co/blog/2018-11-01-nethack Scraping with rvest and building a data package, 2018
• My own package periodicdata uses rvest to create a data package

Email from R

• https://github.com/rstudio/blastula send great-looking HTML email messages from R
• https://github.com/datawookie/emayili send email messages from R
• https://github.com/rpremraj/mailR utility to send emails from R

Integration with MS Office (yes, yes, I know...)

• https://ardata-fr.github.io/officeverse
• https://github.com/davidgohel/officer
• https://github.com/davidgohel/flextable

Interfacing with Google Docs

• https://googlesheets4.tidyverse.org

Package repositories

• https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/available_packages_by_name.html
• https://www.cranhaven.org - for recently archived CRAN packages

Resources

• https://emilyriederer.netlify.app/post/team-of-packages (post of Emily Riederer's rstudio::global 2020 talk)
• https://indrajeetpatil.github.io/awesome-r-pkgtools Awesome R Package Development Tools, compiled by Indrajeet Patil, 2024
• https://win-vector.com/2017/02/05/evolving-r-tools-and-practices John Mount, 2017
• https://github.com/nanxstats/awesome-shiny-extensions
• https://zenodo.org/record/7023492#.YwnwHuxBxhH R from Zero to Hero, slides from talk by Batool Almarzouq (in Arabic)
• https://r-packages.io/datasets - list of R CRAN packages with public datasets

Tools to consider

• https://alexioannides.com/2016/11/02/asynchronous-and-distributed-programming-in-r-with-the-future-package (the futures package: distributed computation, non-blocking async input/output, and more)
• https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/geomtextpath/vignettes/geomtextpath.html

Stöd

• https://www.slutarokalinjen.se (samtal eller chatt på svenska, även samtal på arabiska)
• https://www.1177.se/Stockholm/liv--halsa/tobak-och-alkohol/tobak/hjalp-att-sluta-roka
• https://www.1177.se/Stockholm/undersokning-behandling/behandling-med-lakemedel/lakemedel-utifran-diagnos/lakemedel-mot-rokning

Kunskap

• هل التدخين الإلكتروني آمن ؟! هل يساعد على الإقلاع عن التدخين, video 15 min

• ENLIGHT European University Alliance, ten research-intensive universities (including Uppsala University). Site has RSS and Atom feeds.
• Arqus European University Alliance, Granada, Graz, Leipzig, Lyon 1, Maynooth, Minho, Padua, Vilnius and Wroclaw. Site has newsletter, but no visible RSS feeds.

I keep getting annoyed by Doodle. In this latest example, it proved impossible to change the shown "name" as guest user once my answer was submitted, despite it being possible to change everything else, or even decline. (I wanted to make use of the "name" field to include a single-word message to the organizer.) And when logged in the name field never even showed up during the answer flow.

Alternatives to Doodle

• https://crab.fit (it's FOSS, source code on Github)
• https://framadate.org/abc/en (FOSS, by the well-known French organization Framasoft)
• https://datumprikker.nl (not FOSS, but perhaps convenient since it offers Google and Apple apps). Don't forget to change to English in the menu.

Self-hostable alternatives

• https://github.com/lukevella/Rallly >2k stars, on v3.3.0, built on Next.js. Reddit thread.
• https://github.com/kellerben/dudle >300 stars, on v1.2, built on Ruby. Reddit thread.
• Nextcloud may have some doodle-like app (I haven't checked).

• An overview of redox flow battery manufacturers, video by "Just Have a Think", Youtube (2023).

Sverige

• In Skåramåla (Småland) eight wind turbines combined with 65k PV panels make up the largest "hybrid" renewable power plant in Sweden. In operation since 2024. Expected annual production from wind is 125 GWh, and from solar PV 2 GWh. 1, 2, 3
• In Tomteboda, Stockholm's largest PV roof-mounted plant, produces 400 MWh per year (1465 PV panels covering an area of 4000 m²). Co-owned by Areim and Blackstone and operated by Obligo Real Estate. (2021)
• The largest solar power plant in Sweden is built by a home-owner's co-op (HSB Södermanland) in cooperation with the energy company Energiengagemang. 41600 PV panels with a total power of 14 MW.
• In Morgongåva (40 km west of Uppsala) the logistics center of online pharmacy Apotea features Sweden's largest roof-mounted PV array with a capacity of 2.3 MW, enough to supply the building's entire annual electricity demand. Built by Solkompaniet. SVT.
• The ports of Stockholm and the port of Södertälje together have almost 4 GW of solar PV panels, and have plans for more.

Misr

• Benban solar park in southern Egypt is one of the world's largest PV plants, covers an area of 37 km² and has a power generation capacity of 1.65 GW (given the site's insolation expected to yield 3.8 TWh per year).
• In Kom Ombo, Egypt's largest privately-owned solar PV plant is expected to start commercial operation in January 2024. ACWA Power (Saudi Arabia) owns and operates the 200 MW utility-scale plant.

Europe

• Uniper (the recently nationalised German energy company) plans two PV plants near existing industrial sites in Wilhelmshaven (300 MW + 17 MW).
• Belgium's first floating PV plant. On a man-made lake on a site owned by Sibelco, a raw material producer.
• Spanish energy company Iberdrola commissioned a 500 MW solar PV park at Núñez de Balboa in the western Spanish region of Extremadura. At the time Europe's largest PV plant, as seen by NASA's Earth Observatory. The project cost €300 million and is made of 1.43 million PV panels. Via @S_Johan_Lindahl.

Asia

• I cannot find any updates on the status of the 1.1 GW Al-Henakiyah PV power plant that is supposed to go online in 2025 (or 2026 according to Masdar, which has a nice PDF summary of the project). NS Energy, Masdar
• Announcement of a large planned solar PV plant in Garadagh, Azerbaijan expected to produce 500 GWh annually. To be built by Masdar and it is co-funded by Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and Japan International Cooperation Agency. NS Energy
• Oman seems to be on a roll. Their governmental energy company Hydrom (recently created to spearhead their green energy transition) is planning a massive green hydrogen project with a capacity to produce 750 kiloton/year (if I understand correctly). 1, 2.
• In Qinghai province, China, a 2.2 GW solar PV plant was connected to the grid in 2020 (at the time the world's largest solar plant).

Africa

• A large hybrid PV and battery plant has commenced operation in South Africa. The billion-dollar facility is owned by Norwegian Scatec ASA and South African investment company H1 Holdings (51% and 49%, respectively). The plant will supply the state-owned utility Eskom 150 MW of dispatchable power for 16.5 hours per day year-round. The facility comprises 540 MW PV and 1140 MWh battery storage. PV Magazine

Americas

• In the five first months of 2023 the United States power sector saw more electricity generation from wind and solar (combined) than from coal for the first time ever. Many other countries have already passed this particular milestone (or phased out coal entirely), so welcome to the club, yankees, and keep it up.

Oceania

• In southern Australia, a 4 MW concentrating PV plant combined with 50 MWh thermal storage for almost round-the-clock power generation is now in operation. The Carwarp power plant is run by RayGen. The site uses triple-junction GaAs solar modules with almost 38% efficiency paired with water-based thermal energy storage. Each tower (there is four of them) has just over 4 m² of photoactive area producing 1 MW of electricity and 2 MW of heat (ΔT=90℃).
• 10 GW of solar power in Australia for Singapore.
• The largest PV plant in New Zealand sits atop a wastewater pond.
• The Nauru Solar Power Development Project - Battery Energy Storage System is a 6 MW solar plant and a 2.5 MWh battery storage system that will increase the share of renewable electricity in Nauru from 3% to 47% (like many other Pacific islands, Nauru relies almost entirely on diesel generators for power), which is expected to fully cover the island nation's current daytime electricity needs.

In related news

• A look at the major floating solar energy farms across the world, NS Energy Business magazine (2019).
• https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150232/solar-takes-a-swim

• The UK has designated a project to build a 3800 km undersea cable from Morocco as having "national significance". The project is owned by Xlinks. (2023-10-01)
• The government of Egypt is set on building a subsea cable to Greece to sell solar and wind power to Europe. The GREGY interconnector would be 1400 km long and able to transmit 3000 MW. I wonder if power transmission would be strictly uni-directional or if it is meant to also allow power export to Egypt? (2023-09-30)

• Due to rules severely limiting the allowed sulfur content in fossil fuels for (see, acid rain) over 80% of all sulfur produced globally is a side-product of fossil oil and fossil gas refinement. Unless we find another way to produce sulfur (sulfuric acid is a critical industrial feedstock), the change to renewables could seriously hamper our access to sulfur. Maslin & Day, The Conversation (2022).
• Shell got a lot of good PR a few years ago on the back of news that they would install hydrogen filling stations across California in cooperation with Toyota. Now they have announced their complete withdrawal from light-duty (read: private cars) hydrogen filling stations in the state.

Road vehicles

• The Hague is the first Dutch city with a taxi fleet running on H₂ (Toyota Mirai, specifically) (2020-04).
• As part of the European Commission's JIVE project, a dozen H₂ buses for Bolzano, Italy. The buses are manufactured by Solaris and have a range of 350 km on a single tank of LH2 (2019-07).
• FlixMobility (parent company of Flixbus) plans to operate fuel cell coaches on long-distance routes (2019-11). This as part of the research project HyFleet together with its partners Freudenberg Fuel Cell e-Power Systems and ZF Friedrichshafen AG, overseen by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, with start of commercial operation slated for 2024. More sources: 1.
• The first H₂-powered double decker buses have started operation in Aberdeen, UK (2021-02). The project was funded by the city, the EU, and the Scottish government, for 15 buses costing about 0.5 million GBP apiece.
• Gross-Gerau district in Germany plans for 80 H₂-powered buses in its fleet by 2028. I wonder how many buses the city operates in total.
• Hyundai plans to sell 1600 heavy trucks in Europe, and cooperates with Hydrospider for the H₂ supply.

Trains

• San Bernardino county in California awarded a contract for a H₂-powered train in 2019 to Stadler to run by 2024. I thought southern California was densely populated - why not electrify the tracks? Fuel cells are better than dirty and loud diesel locomotives, I suppose. This is the first H₂ fuel cell train in the US, and many other places in the US are quite sparsely populated, so let's hope it is followed by more.

Ships

• The Norwegian Public Roads Administration is to operate the world's first H₂-powered ferry connecting its fjords. The ship is built by Norled and has a carrying capacity 299 passengers and 80 cars. Details on its power train have not been forthcoming.
• A river vessel on the Rhone river with a powertrain built by ABB, supported by the European Commission's Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) and in cooperation with other parties.
• The first H₂-powered ferry in the US has started serving San Franscisco Bay. It takes 75 passengers, has three fuel cell stacks, and a top speed of 20 knots. The project was awarded a $3 million grant by the California Air Resources Board. For reference, there are about 1000 passenger ferrys operating in the United States.
• The world's first LH2 carrier has been put into service ferrying grey H₂ (meaning H₂ produced from fossil sources) from Australia to markets in Japan. The vessel was built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries and comes equipped with a tank able to hold 1250 m³ of liquified H₂ at a temperature of -253℃ (20 K).

Just heard about it. Adding this note to check back later and research who is backing it, etc. Looks worthwhile.

• https://github.com/dpgalliance
• https://exchange.dial.global/products (supported by Gates Foundation, SIDA, UKAID, et al.)

Digital public goods (DPG) that caught my eye:

• https://www.govdirectory.org

Will add more as I learn about them. I only care about FOSS projects.

LXD

See my Ansible role that installs and configures LXD and provisions LXC containers.

Docker

I have some experience with Docker containers. Prefer LXC if I have the choice.
I have written an Ansible playbook to setup containers with docker-compose as part of a as-yet not-public project for InvenioRDM.

Podman

No hands-on experience yet.

Singularity

Hm, interesting. Could it be better than Docker for sharing something like a thesis with "all batteries included", I wonder?

Singularity can convert Docker containers to Singularity, or can run containers directly from Docker Hub
https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/learningbydoing/2022/01/04/docker-and-singularity-containers-which-one-is-better/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_(software)
• https://github.com/sylabs/singularity
• https://pmitev.github.io/UPPMAX-Singularity-workshop/