bc on Tue, 26 Feb 2002 03:25:01 +0100 (CET) |
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[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Re: the development of a solar infrastructure |
Toby Barlow from solararmy.org replied: >I think your questions are good ones. I think there >are ideas worth studying here. But the question I have >is a fundamental one. Solar is a mature technology >with an immature manufacturing and marketing base, so >how do you change that? i do not know. many people have tried, though, as you are probably well aware of. politicians. scientists. and activists. economics has been the easiest dismissal of solar tech in the USA, as it would cost more when the statisticians were sporting numbers for various game plays. yet the 'cost', as has been argued, is not just that of the consumer. but production, transmission, conversion, distribution also. and this can lead to the issues of mining of raw materials that are questionable in their destructive qualities of habitat, and-or human health, as uranium mines are a few steps in the chain of events to making these computers work, along with everything else. so, if it is economics,well, energy bonds and the idea of investing in the future, now, is a solid approach, if communities can find the critical mass to realize it. yet, when a local power company is owned by another which resides across the country, as part of its power portfolio, well, again, as all know, powerful interests are at stake, and any local initiatives risk taking on the behemoth of the energy machine in its political-economic functioning. if it is evaluated in the vague terms of pure force, and friction, a small band or tribe of people who want to help bring in the change are rubbing against the very foundation of the local interest, if the status quo is the default action. whereas the deeply embedded and self-interested system of Operation that pre-exists and has superceded all of the prior attempts to change it for the better, is like a well- greased machine, ready to steamroll anything in its path to systematic growth and complete market control. thus, and this is only a guess, but if issues of energy are only discussed in economic terms, and debated and shared in these lingos, it can limit what is at stake, what can occur. that is why energy is so often a 'wonk' issue, it seems, as statistics, esoteric techniques, and verbage, and also the obfuscation of the issues in sheer public relations spinnage, can be an unbearable opponent when aiming for clarification. the anti-strategy, fight force with force, of ideas, of PR, of propaganda, can destroy legitimacy by walking into the trap of doing what the opponent is accused of, the bait and switch reversal of a monologic of staid energy ideologies. whereas, if the technical aspects of energy were, in an open and democratic and public way, understood as being of cultural significance, and consequence, and debated on these more fully realistic parameters (with subsequent but supportive not primary) statistics and scenarios, then this educated understanding might help build the critical mass needed to transform something that is more than about consumption (it is not as simple as buying a solar panel and plugging it in, it just does not work that way) but also about production, why, how, where, when, who. and the point being, not everyone is who (for solar, or even for alt.energy in some cases, given unique givens). thus, 'energy bonds' with energy as commodity is akin to the enronomics (political economics of enron as .biz) of the energy markets, and, in pragmatic circumstance, is seemingly unlikely to have critical mass (less, is the 'solar' bonds, as something like this is not universal in its application, as only a portion of a country or region can use solar for self-sufficiency, it is not plug-&-play). >While weather patterns may change, a sudden influx of >cloudy days, even if it's thirty percent more, would >still leave you with ten or so free years of energy. >If it's more than thirty percent, we're all screwed >anyway. my delay in responding was i was trying to locate an architectural chart of regional sun and cloudcover stat- istics to demonstrate that solar technology is a science, whereby like the old sliderule books of calculations, an area will have specific attributes that are necessary in making a judgement of whether or not solar will be a viable alternative, by weather statistics. meaning, the above '30% more cloudy days = 10 years free energy' is highly questionable given the subject. doesn't add up to the way the technology works, when it does work, or so it seems. (and there are solar 'off grid' people on the list, i gather, who might share their experience). the point being that if you took a geographic region, say california, and put solar panels over the entire area, in some places, it might be of great benefit, of others, it might be of wasted benefit but if optimized it might do what it can do efficiently, and in other areas, it may not be productive at all, as the climate is not right for the universal roll out of solar (or wind, or even coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear, hydro, wave, biomass, geo...) this is the reason that 'energy bonds' may bring more people into your initiative than solar alone. as it is a highly variable technology, given local circumstances. whereas energy, as energy, is a universal situation, people need it, it needs to change in many ways, and to change it requires people, and people who can find a way to do it on the scales necessary for society, beyond the economic-political boundaries of any set. >As for the solar panels adding to climate change - >first of all if solar permeated so many rooftops that >it was even an issue even within the next twenty five >years, I would be surprised. But more to the point, if >you are putting solar panels on rooftops that are >already black with tar, it's adds nothing. So I can't >imagine that is an issue either. well, think of a lake, then. reflection. humidity levels from water. or not. all things affect weather patterns, small bushes in a field, grass or no grass, waterways, forests, hills. to all of the sudden place a huge mirror on the built environment looking upward when the sun is shining, at whatever percentage it illuminates the world beow through the clouds, is coming back up into the atmosphere, even potentially heating it, global- warming like, possibly (have no idea, but as an e.g.). solar technolgy is certainly not without problems. but it is also better than a lot of things in place today, also. >I certainly respect and admire your long range >forecasting. But I think, fundamentally, we have to >get this thing going or else the massive climate >change you speak of is a foregone conclusion, at least >the way we're currently headed. agreed, we have to get things going. and they are very much stalled in rhetoric of political-economic constructs that keep the issues in the box of technique & technicality. community organizing, well, if successful enough, you might be greated by the national guard. or, as being in n.california, you might know you might get your legs lopped off by a train in trying to put yourself into the cogs and stop the machinery. sadly, bodies do not work that well against pure forces that have near total control. but we do have our free minds, as free as we can make them or let them be, if we can share our ideas, dreams, hopes, knowledge, and work within limits but boundless in imaginations and efforts and ingenuity and inventions. so to add a piece, if it is an issue of now, and of how to bring these issues forward, a public energy debate, and accurate assessment of energy's role in our common culture, and its impact and policy, here and all around the world, from mines and exploding pipelines, to pollution spewing out of the sockets of everyone of our electronic gadgets we use, and that in their dual-purpose give us this freedom and reach to bring global debates and issues into and around the globe, then it may be that by attempting to act, even if in a certain type of futility (of which the Public Energy Network can be taken or identified as), it is still in some common vision or maybe an agreement, at the most basic levels in this most complex and complicated of social civilizations of e-technologies that the amassing of the critique and the hope for change can build. bc public energy network democratic power systems http://www.electronetwork.org/works/pen/ >Thanks. Toby. >===== >-------------------------------------------------------- >Toby Barlow >250 Texas St. SF CA 94107 >(415) 385-6679 cell >(415) 863-4069 home >(415) 733-0783 work >tobybarlowny@yahoo.com > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games >http://sports.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold