Renewables and the Madness of Crowds: Part I

I have just passed through a most interesting episode in my personal life. An attractive, well educated, and very accomplished woman, half my age, made a play for me. I kid you not. She actually "put a rush on me." As it turned out, this was strictly a fantasy play, since she had many constraints in her life, that would prevent her from having a relationship with me. But I must confess that it is difficult for me to be objective, when I am being seduced. But I could not avoid the evidence hat things were not working out between us, and her constraints provided an explanation for why that was the case.

The EEStory provides an object lesson in the effect of desire of human credulity on human Judgement. ZENN Motors, in January 2007 indicated that it expected a prototype EESU from EEStor during 2007. The Austin Business Journal in 2007 reported that ZENN had an agreement with to pay EEStor $5 million once an EESU was tested by a third party. That prototype has not yet arrived in Toronto, and unless and until it does EEStor and ZENN are under a cloud of suspicion. The EEStory would be an obscure business story of passing interest in Austin and Toronto, except that a successful outcome could easily be one of the top 10 stories of the 21st century. If the claims EEStor makes about itself are true, then the crisis in transportation caused by Peak Oil and Global Warming will be to a significant extent resolved.

I have been looking at comments on the blog titled, "EESTOR ULTRACAPACITORS: BATTERY REVOLUTION BEGINS WITH ELECTRIC CARS" that something resembling a speculative frenzy has been triggered by the EEStoy. If you wish to see more evidence of that, just look at the comments on my latest observations on the EEStory.

Now speculative frenzies are not new. Everyone who wishes to claim and education should be familiar with Charles Mackay's 19th century classic, "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds". Mackey's purpose in writing his famous book was to describe "moral epidemics which have been excited, sometimes by one cause and sometimes by another, and to show how easily the masses have been led astray, and how imitative and gregarious men are, even in their infatuations and crimes. . . . Popular delusions began so early, spread so widely, and have lasted so long, that instead of two or three volumes, fifty would scarcely suffice to detail their history".

It is impossible for me to know whether or not the EEStory is true, but there are certainly some warning signs. What concerns me is the willingness of people to overlook those signs, in a a desperate hope that the EEStory is true.

Now we come to the punch line. Is not the current popular adulation of renewables, and the wide spread fear of nuclear power, the EEStory writ large? This renewables speculative frenzy has yaken a hold in the European Commission in which vast plans are currently being plotted. The EC is at least considering a scheme to build 100 GW of Solar facilities in the Sahara Desert of Northern Africa by 2050. Electricity generated "would be fed into a 5,000-mile electricity supergrid, stretching from Siberia to Morocco and Egypt to Iceland," according to a report from Laura Clout of the Telegraph. The scheme would cost €450 Billion without the grid attachment, and the Telegraph report made no mention of electrical storage.

The Guardian reports that the EU renewables directive draft would order, "Member states shall also provide for priority access to the grid system of electricity produced from renewable energy sources". Priority would include priority over nuclear generated power no doubt. According to the Guardian, "Britain wants to change 'shall' to 'may'".

The Guardian further reports that the British rational for the change is: "The use of 'shall' could have substantial implications on network balancing and security of energy supply." It said "thermal sources" of electricity were needed as back-up, and "over time this essential back-up generation might not be available if new renewable generation projects must be given access to the grid". It said the UK wanted the "discretion to prioritise renewable generation".

The Guardian report concludes with a very revealing statement by John Sauven, of Greenpeace,: "We've always said there was a danger that going for nuclear power would squeeze out renewables. The government has been caught red handed undermining clean energy, and all because of Brown's ideological obsession with atomic power."

There is a point to the European argument between "may" and "shall". It is the difference between reason and the madness of crowds.