Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/11/2015 11:23 -0400http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-11/muskular-magic-or-smoke-mirrorsSubmitted 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.
