WHY DOGS DON'T PLAY THE PIANO

"Eclipse of Solar Power Leaves a Burning Need" was an interesting article by C.K. Ebinger, a Georgetown Univ. political scientist, in the Wall St. J. (10/29/84). In 1978, Denis Hayes, then roi soleil, forecast a world photovoltaic capacity of 1.2 billion kW (the equivalent of 1,200 nuclear plants) by the year 2,000, but by 1983 it was only 22,000 kW (not quite enough power for a US community of 10,000). By 2,000, promised President Carter, 20% of the nation's energy balance would come from solar power. (To arrive at this fantastic figure, his cronies used such "solar" sources as hydropower; the National Academy of Science, even assuming government regimentation of unprecedented severity, could come up with no more than 0.5% -- see The Resourceful Earth, Blackwell, 1984).

The price of photovoltaics (PVs), dreamers dreamt, and some still dream, could come down to below $1 per peak watt, but they still cost at least $12 per peak watt; adding $300 for installation and electronic inverters (to raise the voltage), it now costs $1,500 to fight a single 100 W bulb. Even Worldwatch Institute, a non-think tank for softheaded energy sources, admits that a PV system for the typical American home would cost $50,000.

Actually it would cost you only $15,000, because the federal and state tax credits usually amount to 70% that less fortunate taxpayers are made to pay for you.

You don't have the $15,000? Then pay up for the better people, you rabble. Amory Lovins' dream house of renewable sources cost $500,000; but an estimated $150,000 of it will be paid in taxes by you and other riff-raff. Go solar! The rich man's toy is the ideal way of income redistribution: few other devices let you pick your neighbor's pocket with a halo round your head.

Wind power has been advancing much faster: 3,000 windmills with a peak power of 10 kW for the average mill were in operation in the US in 1983, reaching a capacity (if the wind blows, simultaneously through each mill at the maximum it can handle) of almost 1/3 of a single coal-fired or nuclear unit. They do not produce as much power, of course, but neither are they meant to: their purpose is to act as tax shelters, for under Carter legislation (PURPA Act) the utilities must buy whatever the tax shelters produce, while the "investors" write off costs and get juicy tax credits. The method is legal and was enacted by the partisans of the "politics of compassion:" as the ads say [see facsimile in AtE Feb 84], only those with incomes over $65,000 and net worth over $500,000 (exclusive of home, car and other petty trifles) need apply.

Similar points are made, in more civilized fashion, by Mr. Ebinger, and they are true as far as they go, but he does not appear to realize that solar power has an inherent limitation by diluteness (about 1 kW/m^2 for perpendicular incidence of unobstructed sunlight). He believes that solar power, a burning need, "now stands at a vital crossroads in its development."

To miss this physical basis of the broken promises in solar power and to fist only the economic and institutional consequences is to give very weak reasons for the right conclusion. You know why dogs don't play the piano? Their paws are unsuited for turning the pages of the music.