E lon Musk, Silicon Valley’s poster-boy genius replacement for the late
Steve Jobs, rolled out his PowerWall battery last week with Star Wars style
fanfare, doing his bit to promote and support the delusional thinking that
grips a nation unable to escape the toils of techno-grandiosity. The main
delusion: that we can “solve” the problems of techno-industrial society with
more and better technology.
The South African born-and-raised Musk is surely better known for founding
Tesla Motors, maker of the snazzy all-electric car. The denizens of Silicon
Valley are crazy about the Tesla. There is no greater status trinket in
Northern California, where the fog of delusion cloaks the road to the future.
They believe, as Musk himself often avers, that Tesla cars “don’t burn
hydrocarbons.” That statement is absurd, of course, and Musk, who holds a
degree in physics from Penn, must blush when he says that. After all, you
have to plug it in and charge somewhere from the US electric grid.
Only 6 percent of US electric power comes from “clean” hydro generation.
Another 20 percent is nuclear. The rest is coal (48 percent) and natural gas
(21 percent) with the remaining sliver coming from “renewables” and oil. (The
quote marks on “renewables” are there to remind you that they probably can’t
be manufactured without the support of a fossil fuel economy). Anyway, my
point is that the bulk of US electricity comes from burning hydrocarbons, and
then there is the nuclear part which is glossed over because the
techno-geniuses and politicians of America have no idea how they are going to
de-commission our aging plants, and no idea how to safely dispose of the
spent fuel rod inventory simply lying around in collection pools. This stuff
is capable of poisoning the entire planet and we know it.
The PowerWall roll out highlighted the “affordability” of the sleek
lithium battery at $3,500 per unit. The average cluck watching Musk’s
TED-like performance on the web was supposed to think he could power his home
with it. Musk left out a few things. Such as: you need the rooftop solar
array to feed the battery. Figure another $25,000 to $40,000 for that,
depending on whether they are made in China (poor quality) or Germany, or in
the USA (and installation is both laborious and expensive). Also consider
that you need a charge controller and inverter to manage the electric flow
and convert direct current (DC) from the sun into usable alternating current
(AC) for your house — another $3,500. So, the cost of hanging a solar
electric system on your house with all its parts is more like fifty grand.
What happens when the solar panels, battery, etc., reach the end of their
useful lives, say 25 years or so, when there is no more fossil fuel (or an
industry capable of providing it economically). How will you fabricate the
replacement parts? By then the techno-wizards will have supposedly “come up
with” a magic energy rescue remedy. Stand by on that, and consider the
possibility that you will be disappointed with how it works out.
What gets me about Tesla’s various products and activities is that, when
all is said and done, they are meant to extend the fatal rackets of
contemporary life, especially car dependency and the suburban development
pattern. Car dependency can and probably will fail on the financial basis,
not on the question of how you run the car. The main economic problem we face
is the end of growth of the kind we’re used to, the kind that generates real
capital and enables bank lending. It is already happening and has led to
fewer loans for fewer qualified borrowers. It will also lead to the end of
government’s ability to pay for fixing the elaborate hierarchy of paved
highways, roads, and streets that the cars have to run on. Imagine the
psychic pain of the Silicon Valley billionaire driving his $87,000 Tesla P85D
down a freeway that the State of California hasn’t been able to repair in
five years.
Note: JHK’s 2014 Garden Report is
finally up
