MEANWHILE...

But then there is wind and sun to make up for the thousands of megawatts of nuclear capacity. The latest monster windmill to go up (once again "largest in the world") is the 350-ton, $6-million, 200-ft propeller windmill built for the DoE by NASA near Boone, N.C. What all these largest-in-the-world windmills have in common is that they give very little power: The N.C. monster gives the usual 2 MW, not enough to supply a small community of 500 homes when the wind blows, and not enough for a single electric backscratcher when it doesn't. All at 4 times the cost per kW of conventional power.

But now take a look at the photo at the top right, which demonstrates the societal awareness of Southern Railway's PR men. The photo (from a newspaper clipping) didn't reproduce too well, but we believe it to be a worthy addition to the historical records of the era when America's crazies were on the rampage. Not only did children sue their parents for malpractice in bringing them up, or lesbians demand the right to be ordained as priests, but Southern Railway mounted these photovoltaic cells on the roof of a caboose to power its tail lights.

The first puzzle is why the caboose needs tail lights when the sun is out. But deeper thoughts are provoked in the mind of the beholder as he contemplates this image of technology gone berserk. In the old, unenlightened days before the world enjoyed the benefit of sages such as Commoner and Nader, the electricity in a caboose (or other railroad carriage) came from a generator geared to an axle via a transmission belt (with modest battery storage for periods when the train stood still). But behold what the likes of Lovins have now wrought: An estimated 12 square feet with 5% efficiency times the cosine of the angle of incidence of sunlight will yield about 50 W, just enough to run two tail lights (in the dark), and we estimate the entire gadget including supports to weigh some 50 lbs. Now take a pocket calculator and remember that 1 ft-lb/sec = 1.356 W. Never mind the wasted energy to build the thing, never mind the increased aerodynamic drag: Whenever the train travels along an uphill grade so "steep" that its elevation increases by more than 9 inches per second (corresponding roughly to an incline of 1 degree traveled at 30 m.p.h.), it uses up more energy in lifting the weight of this godforsaken contraption than the soft-headed technology returns even if it is basking in the sun.

You are looking at the typical Lovinsian energy sink.