Submitted by Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com
,
Elon 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.
