Britain and the Obsession with Solar Power
Posted: 30 Nov 2007, 19:18
BRITAIN AND THE OBSESSION WITH SOLAR POWER
Peter Goodchild
I?m still utterly PUZZLED about Britain?s obsession with solar power. The gist of the argument seems to be, ?It doesn?t matter if oil runs out, because by then everything will be run on solar power.? This is the basic idea behind about 99% of the posts at powerswitch.org and at groundswellcornwall.org.
I don?t know of any British Web sites (forums) on ?peak oil? etc. that do NOT display such faith in solar power. (Well, I know of one, http://wolf.readinglitho.co.uk, but as far as I know it?s not a forum.)
This obsession with solar power seems largely limited to Britain. At least, I rarely find it on American or Canadian sites, and I get a similar impression about other countries. North Americans tend to regard solar energy as a sort of youthful folly, like iridology and geodesic domes. Walter Youngquist, for example, did a fair dissection of solar energy back in the year 2000 (http://www.oilcrisis.com/youngquist/altenergy.htm).
I try to force myself not to look at ?pro-solar? Web sites, because all it does it get me in a bad mood, but I?m occasionally drawn back again. If I get sufficiently annoyed, I then write a long reply, comparing the mathematics of oil (30 billion barrels per year, globally) with the mathematics of solar power. (It?s like comparing a mountain to a pebble.) I might throw in a few comments about the logistical problems of a hypothetical solar-powered airplane, the ecological question of millions of garbage dumps filled with used photovoltaic parts, etc. etc.
All to no avail, as they say. I get a polite response, ?Thank you, Peter. A very nice post.? And the next day, a post from the same member of the forum, regarding a successful attempt to attach solar panels to a toothbrush or whatever.
My thoughts so far:
(1) I suspect some of it has to do with what Americans refer to as the WELFARE STATE. Beer and television guaranteed for life. So why worry about the future? The government will always support us, no matter what it takes. Therefore we can believe in solar power, lunar power, or any other power we prefer.
(2) I suspect, also, that a great deal of it has to do with what is referred to as DENIAL. In particular, I wonder if part of the problem is that Britain is so crowded that if anything goes wrong, most Britons might as well shoot themselves and save a lot of bother. ? Whereas Americans and Canadians always have at least the option of ?heading for the hills? in bad times. The bleakness of ?the suicide option? might tend to make people squeeze their eyes shut: ?see no evil,? etc.
Britain?s population problem is certainly remarkable. I?ve had discussions at Web forums with various people who have intimated that countries with low population density only have such a condition because they are basically uninhabitable countries. There is, of course, some validity to such a claim, but there are many cases where population density has little to do with habitability. The UK and the Republic of Ireland provide a good example of that fact. The two countries are geographically very similar, but other figures are quite different:
POPULATION DENSITY
UK ? 248.2/mm2
Ireland ? 58.5/km2
POPULATION PER SQUARE KM OF ARABLE LAND
UK ? 1,068.7/km2
Ireland ? 342.6/km2
In other words, the UK has 4 times the population density of Ireland, and 3 times the population/arable ratio. Not much common sense to it, just a sad accident of history and politics.
If I were living in Britain, I?d be hunting around in my family tree, trying to find some Irish ancestry that would make me welcome there. (Although I still wonder if Scotland or Wales have any potential as habitable post-petroleum land.)
(3) A lot of it has to do with what might be called CROWD MENTALITY. Powerswitch has about 700 members. Peter Goodchild from Canada, who sends us insulting messages, is only one person. Peter is therefore outnumbered by 700 to 1. Peter is therefore wrong.
I?m sure, also, that there is far more to the issue than the simple 1-2-3 explanation I?ve offered. Most Internet postings are characterized by an absence of quantified data, for example, and also by an absence of references to any printed material. (?If I can?t read it on the Internet, then the hell with it.?) A rejoinder that begins with, ?Well, I believe . . .? is not likely to have been written by someone with a postgraduate education. ? Although of course at this point I?m drifting into an ad hominem argument.
There?s also the ?British twit? syndrome, if I may shift the blame to Monty Python. Thorstein Veblen in 1899 wrote a tongue-in-cheek analysis of wealthy Americans, in which the main point was: (a) if you?re upper-class, you must be rich, and therefore you can afford to be utterly silly and useless; therefore (b) if you act utterly silly and useless, you must be rich, and therefore you must be upper-class. Silliness is, in other words, a form of thinly disguised snobbery. Americans have had to change since then, but the syndrome appears to be active on the other side of the ocean. One might even go further and say that silliness is a sort of insulation meant to prevent disruptions of the intense class divisions within British society. Grand conclusion, once again: ?I can believe in any kind of power I like.?
Well, I suppose at this point I should remove my left leg from this bottomless pit and get on with matters of a higher priority.
Peter Goodchild
I?m still utterly PUZZLED about Britain?s obsession with solar power. The gist of the argument seems to be, ?It doesn?t matter if oil runs out, because by then everything will be run on solar power.? This is the basic idea behind about 99% of the posts at powerswitch.org and at groundswellcornwall.org.
I don?t know of any British Web sites (forums) on ?peak oil? etc. that do NOT display such faith in solar power. (Well, I know of one, http://wolf.readinglitho.co.uk, but as far as I know it?s not a forum.)
This obsession with solar power seems largely limited to Britain. At least, I rarely find it on American or Canadian sites, and I get a similar impression about other countries. North Americans tend to regard solar energy as a sort of youthful folly, like iridology and geodesic domes. Walter Youngquist, for example, did a fair dissection of solar energy back in the year 2000 (http://www.oilcrisis.com/youngquist/altenergy.htm).
I try to force myself not to look at ?pro-solar? Web sites, because all it does it get me in a bad mood, but I?m occasionally drawn back again. If I get sufficiently annoyed, I then write a long reply, comparing the mathematics of oil (30 billion barrels per year, globally) with the mathematics of solar power. (It?s like comparing a mountain to a pebble.) I might throw in a few comments about the logistical problems of a hypothetical solar-powered airplane, the ecological question of millions of garbage dumps filled with used photovoltaic parts, etc. etc.
All to no avail, as they say. I get a polite response, ?Thank you, Peter. A very nice post.? And the next day, a post from the same member of the forum, regarding a successful attempt to attach solar panels to a toothbrush or whatever.
My thoughts so far:
(1) I suspect some of it has to do with what Americans refer to as the WELFARE STATE. Beer and television guaranteed for life. So why worry about the future? The government will always support us, no matter what it takes. Therefore we can believe in solar power, lunar power, or any other power we prefer.
(2) I suspect, also, that a great deal of it has to do with what is referred to as DENIAL. In particular, I wonder if part of the problem is that Britain is so crowded that if anything goes wrong, most Britons might as well shoot themselves and save a lot of bother. ? Whereas Americans and Canadians always have at least the option of ?heading for the hills? in bad times. The bleakness of ?the suicide option? might tend to make people squeeze their eyes shut: ?see no evil,? etc.
Britain?s population problem is certainly remarkable. I?ve had discussions at Web forums with various people who have intimated that countries with low population density only have such a condition because they are basically uninhabitable countries. There is, of course, some validity to such a claim, but there are many cases where population density has little to do with habitability. The UK and the Republic of Ireland provide a good example of that fact. The two countries are geographically very similar, but other figures are quite different:
POPULATION DENSITY
UK ? 248.2/mm2
Ireland ? 58.5/km2
POPULATION PER SQUARE KM OF ARABLE LAND
UK ? 1,068.7/km2
Ireland ? 342.6/km2
In other words, the UK has 4 times the population density of Ireland, and 3 times the population/arable ratio. Not much common sense to it, just a sad accident of history and politics.
If I were living in Britain, I?d be hunting around in my family tree, trying to find some Irish ancestry that would make me welcome there. (Although I still wonder if Scotland or Wales have any potential as habitable post-petroleum land.)
(3) A lot of it has to do with what might be called CROWD MENTALITY. Powerswitch has about 700 members. Peter Goodchild from Canada, who sends us insulting messages, is only one person. Peter is therefore outnumbered by 700 to 1. Peter is therefore wrong.
I?m sure, also, that there is far more to the issue than the simple 1-2-3 explanation I?ve offered. Most Internet postings are characterized by an absence of quantified data, for example, and also by an absence of references to any printed material. (?If I can?t read it on the Internet, then the hell with it.?) A rejoinder that begins with, ?Well, I believe . . .? is not likely to have been written by someone with a postgraduate education. ? Although of course at this point I?m drifting into an ad hominem argument.
There?s also the ?British twit? syndrome, if I may shift the blame to Monty Python. Thorstein Veblen in 1899 wrote a tongue-in-cheek analysis of wealthy Americans, in which the main point was: (a) if you?re upper-class, you must be rich, and therefore you can afford to be utterly silly and useless; therefore (b) if you act utterly silly and useless, you must be rich, and therefore you must be upper-class. Silliness is, in other words, a form of thinly disguised snobbery. Americans have had to change since then, but the syndrome appears to be active on the other side of the ocean. One might even go further and say that silliness is a sort of insulation meant to prevent disruptions of the intense class divisions within British society. Grand conclusion, once again: ?I can believe in any kind of power I like.?
Well, I suppose at this point I should remove my left leg from this bottomless pit and get on with matters of a higher priority.
