Something that has bugged me for years is the nearly complete dependency of the modern food system on fossil fuels. So much needs to change to wean ourselves from hydrocarbons, and I have written a lot on the topic, especially The Future is Rural (2019) (www.postcarbon.org/publicatio.... In this vein, one small part of the farming system I am working on uses a small electric motor and batteries as the power for a farm tractor. We call this COMET, for Corvallis Mini Electric Tractor. (We used to call it the Pedal Tractor, but as explained in the video we don't pedal much and so the new name is more precise.)
If you look at the videos on this channel you can find many that use the first version of COMET, aka COMET Yellow. This video introduces COMET Blue and shows us putting it to work for the very first time! I immediately was able to do things I couldn't before, given it is 2-3 times more powerful than COMET Yellow.
Anyhow, we are looking forward to tinkering with it further and showing it off when the 2022 main farming season comes around. COMET Yellow was instrumental in allowing me to weed and perform other tasks for about 4 acres of cultivated ground this year. With COMET Blue this will be an even more complete tool. We have a lot of nifty ideas to make this a nearly complete package for several farm tasks and so will be busy this Winter getting that equipment together.
Thanks to Bountiful Backyard for co-developing the COMET with us! www.bountifulbackyard.org/
#electrictractor
17 окт 2021
