When You Can't Go Forward And You Can't Go Back

The Power Of The Sun

I have never, in all my life, seen an advert for solar panels. 

Uncountable millions of adverts for petrol vehicles have bombarded my retinas from billboards, from televisions, between online videos and from the corners of screens. Enticing me, seducing me with their gleaming chrome, their smoothness and their speed. 

On television, I see warm and glowing adverts about gas; as if it gives off a special kind of heat that is more cosy and more comfortable, makes your food taste better, that better arms and fortifies you against the growling wolves of winter. Man in his castle protecting his family, breadwinner and payer of bills, arch-duke of the thermostat; woman, wife and mother tending the blue and flickering flame.

About 60 years ago, the newly arrived television sets beamed optimistic messages about nuclear power and the age of prosperity and cheap energy it would bring. There was a large-scale propaganda campaign to bring the light of a million suns into a billion homes. What was rolled out was a series of mega-stations which were poorly understood; no-one knew when or how they were going to fail, or what would happen if they did. 

The first working nuclear power plant was built in 1954 in the USSR and the first accident occurred in 1957 in Sellafield, England. In those 61 years there have been 99 nuclear accidents, ranging from partial meltdowns and steam explosions, to full scale nuclear meltdowns such as in Chernobyl and Fukushima. 

As if to spite man in his arrogance, many of these accidents took place in the most technologically advanced nations; 57% took place in the USA. It was as if to say, 'see this technological excellence you claim to possess, see this intelligence and rationality you hold so highly? You know nothing. Your predictions are in error, your safety mechanisms prone to failure, you are a stupid ape playing with the light of a million suns.'

That's the thing, we've been the beneficiaries of nuclear power since the very beginning, since the first bacteria consumed the first algae. The sun, at its core, is a nuclear reaction. It is the breaking apart of matter at the atomic level that produces the intensity that can light us and heat us even through the depths of space and at such great distance. It works well at a distance, too much and we fry, too little and we freeze. We have always worshipped the power of the sun. 

When we discovered fire, for the first time we could bring the power of the sun to the night, into the home, onto the hearth. We were able to bring the summer to the winter, to infuse our food and drink with it. 

Sun, that's all a fire is. The sun's rays bind together hydrocarbons during photosynthesis, which we break apart in the night to keep warm.

When we burn coal or oil or natural gas, its the same. The light of a million years ago, unlocked and unleashed from its concentrated form. We've used this concentrated sun-power to reach into space, to look the sun itself in the face, to land on the moon and to race off into the depths. 

But the fossil fuels are just middle men, it is not the carbon and hydrogen atoms which power us, it is the bonds between them powered by the sun. Then the intense pressure of the earth squeezes that into a concentrated form.  

Humanity has been borne along by Prometheus, the man who stole the fire from heaven. We steal it from the ground, or we try to place it in a power plant, to make our own sun on Earth. But, why bother?

Why continue the madness? The sun shines on half the world, while the other rests in darkness. If our original intent was to bring the sun into the night, to bring the summer into the winter, to bring the light and heat into our homes, then we can do that. We do not need to plough up the earth, or create expensive and hazardous power plants. 

The sun is right there, and for the last 40 years we've had the technology to capture it, directly, and convert it into electricity, the most versatile and therefore powerful form of energy we have. It can be stored, it can be converted, it can be transmitted large distances and it can carry us large distances by train, monorail or electric car.

Solar panels are a simple technology, and perhaps thats why there are no adverts for them. They do not steal the fire from heaven, they do not attest to man's Promethean brilliance, they simply use what is already there. They do nothing for man's ego, for his hubris. They are too wise, too sensible, too humble.

In a way, using solar panels means admitting we have made a mistake. It means consciously making a change. Like giving up smoking, or drinking, giving up our fast cars and gas stoves means thinking a bit more about tomorrow. It means thinking about our children.

In short, it means growing up.