sun's out

let the "hard-nosed realists" scoff at photovoltaics. "too expensive", "too energy-intensive a component production cycle", "can't compete with computer industry for raw materials". whine, whine, yada yada. I don't suppose they allow much prognostication to disturb their real-world pragmatism, but anyone with an eye toward the not-so-distant future recognizes the term peak oil and knows it means someone better start to come up with something to move our energy economy away from dinosaurs and toward something a wee bit more sustainable. And, oh, lookee there! all that free sunlight pouring down like manna from heaven! how about that!

plants been doin it for several billion years, and they seem to have been fairly successful. I'd say that's pragmatic, wouldn't you? maybe we should take a look, too, huh? and maybe--- just maybe--- if we invested, say, a millionth part of the subsidies that the fossil fuel industry enjoys to bring us our ludicrously lavish energy-spendthrift lifestyle, in the development of more efficient PV systems, we'd find that, in the bigger scheme of things, it wasn't so inefficient or pie-in-the-sky an idea after all. or we could just keep the status quo, digging and drilling and hummering our way toward a road warrior future because solar power is "impractical".

so laugh away, you status quo pundits. we idealist wackos will continue to tilt at energy windmills (ha ha) to usher in the new world energy paradigm.