By the Light of the Sun
Current Dilemma
by Duncan Sprattmoran
Life is flux and one can never step in the same river twice said Zeno
or Hericlitus. And their truths certainly still apply to most things
in these turbulent times; I still find change to be the only constant,
and I have learned that the best way to navigate change is to go with
the flow. As we face the fin de siecle atmosphere of these last years
of the twentieth century, the only constant we have is our lives are
predicated upon the incessant consumption of energy, and that in order
to survive we must be assured of reliable sources of power.
Currently, as I write, warriors again stalk the hills of the Middle
East, and we, in the relative safety of our homes, continue to demand
that steady river of Arabian crude. Each time I fill my car, I think
of weapons massed outside my door, the weapons my countrymen
manufacture and sell upon the assumption that they are buying
security. As I watched energy prices climbing over these past cold
months, I've felt like a piece of flotsam on a rising flood, floating
without direction, driven by the wind and the whims of the tides.
Only at home do I feel somewhat secure. The constant bombardment of
photons on the photovoltaic cells creates a constant current which
trickles into my house, which flows into the lights which allow my
daughters to read, which flows through the resistors and transistors
and chips of the computer on which I write. The solar cells vibrate
on a sub atomic level and that flux, channelled down the lengths of
copper, energizes my life.
I read last week in The Atlantic Monthly (probably an older issue
which a friend had passed on to me) about the coming oil shortage and
how ill equipped America is to deal with the domestic and
international tensions such shortage will unleash. Over the past
twenty years, though the worldwide production of alternative energy
sources has increased manyfold, America's share in this production
decreased as our corporations pursued the quick and easy dollar. Now
Japanese and German companies own the majority of solar companies and
they will profit from the burgeoning market. American
shortsightedness does not surprise me; rather, I am saddened that this
country which spouts the rhetoric of independence and individualism,
actually abdicated these ideals in the name of profit. Our energy
companies have sold the American people a one way ticket in a leaky
canoe up a river we all know now to be nothing but petrified shit.
And most of my compatriots buy this baloney because it seems so easy.
After all, what could be easier than flipping a switch and getting
juice to the air-conditioner, television, refrigerator, microwave
oven, water heater, heating pad, electric shaver, toothbrush, carving
knife. This promise of convenience drives the American id much as
falling water turns a turbine. The problem is, rarely do we factor in
the cost of this psuedo convenience. We don't equate our own comfort
with extinction, pollution, deforestation, the gradual and
imperceptible degradation of our live. No, it is too damn easy
just to flip the switch and pay the bill when it comes in the mail.
I never thought about electricity as current until I lived with
alternative sources of power. If I thought of it at all I thought of
it as some mysterious force people like Edison and Fermi brought to
us, something so potent it would kill you if you talked on the phone
while taking a bath. However, over the past eight years I have come
to appreciate the ebb and flow of electricity, the rush of amps from
the panels into the batteries when the sun shines brightly, the
correlating pulse of amps from the batteries to the instruments which
make my life brighter. Electricity becomes in this model simply
another manifestation of the life force energy that eddies in
marvelous currents all around us.
I know there is no way to step out of the river, nor would I want to
at this point in my life where home and kids and wife and work and
play all meet at the rich confluence of the moment; I appreciate what
is current all the more knowing my life is powered directly by the
sun.
nmj@leelanau.com
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