My Take: The fantasy of a worldwide electrical grid and the end of fossil fuels
With interest, I began reading Paul F. deLespinasse’s column, “Technology still way ahead of political capacity,” but regrettably I soon found it to be a bit disjointed to say the least.
He wrote of his early thoughts of a career in technology, with references to the atomic bomb and Armageddon, asking himself "why devote a career to improving technology?" Later, after beginning studies in political science with a desire to join the Foreign Service, he ended up as a college teacher and journalist, while continuing to have a strong interest in technology.
Leaning to his strong interest in technology, he writes of spending six months preparing a lecture on "wiring up the world" into a single electrical grid, combining technological and political considerations.
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He claims that “a supergrid could run the world entirely on solar energy without much need to store electricity for bad weather, nighttime, or winter’s low-sunlight periods, since the sun is always shining somewhere and a worldwide grid could move electricity wherever it is needed.”
This is pure fantasy. “Simple arithmetic shows that without massive energy storage no amount of building of wind and solar generators can make much difference in fossil fuel use for electricity production,” writes Francis Menton, who, I believe, has a knowledge unmatched in this area. “Adequate energy storage devices to fill the gap do not even exist as a technical matter, let alone at a remotely reasonable cost.”
Columnist deLespinasse believes that “Solar energy could replace carbon fuels, continued use of which threatens the world’s climate,” and while viewing that a worldwide grid is technologically and economically feasible, he reveals that he concluded his lecture “pessimistically,” referring to the lack of a political will that is preventing technological advances.
How does he align that with President Biden’s first day in office, as he signed orders directing a whole-of-government approach to eliminate fossil fuels and accelerate development of renewables, wind and solar? At the same time, he has provided auto manufacturers incentives to produce electric vehicles.
He writes about the advances in air travel, space, computers, and cell phones, but is critical of the progress made in political institutions, calling attention to ethnic animosities, racism and religious fanaticism, believing that technological progress has left our political capability further behind. That’s absurd.
Columnist deLespinasse’s expressed pessimism in the political process is misplaced. He should have addressed his pessimism to technology. He writes of the technological progress in solar energy since 1955, “making it possible to stop burning carbon fuels,” while ignoring the fact that in those 67 years, solar today provides less than 3 percent of our energy generation.
In addition, some 90 percent of our solar panels are produced in China, or in another Southeast Asian country for China.
While I see little progress in solar, I do see optimism in a recent statement from the U.S. Energy Information Administration regarding President Biden’s net zero emissions goal by 2050, projecting that fully electric vehicles will not have achieved 10 percent of the market, and fully gasoline-powered vehicles will still have a market share then of around 75 percent.
When I read an opinion piece, I like to be left with an understanding of the writer’s view of the topic. Arriving at the conclusion of deLespinasse’s piece, however, I was even more confused in what point he was trying to make, closing with lyrics from a Kingston Trio song … “they’re rioting in Africa … there’s strife in Iran … what nature doesn’t do to us, will be done by our fellow man,” suggesting it was “timelier than ever!”
Simply, my view is that there have been technological advances in solar and there is a political will to see it develop as a viable generator of electricity, but not at the expense of giving up fossil fuels today or in the foreseeable future.
— Eldon R. Kramer was born and raised in Holland, and currently resides in Scottdale, Arizona, where he authors a political blog, Kramerontheright.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: The fantasy of a worldwide electrical grid and the end of fossil fuels
