That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. (Luther and the Church both insisted, for years, that whatever else happened, no one was talking about a schism.) Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify.And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.
There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.
Archive for March, 2009
Journalism and The Revolution
Monday, March 16th, 2009I *heart* Haruki Murakami
Monday, March 16th, 2009Please do allow me to deliver one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?
What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them.
This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: it is “the System.” The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others — coldly, efficiently, systematically.
I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories — stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.
Solar Sunday
Sunday, March 8th, 2009Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.
Though a fraction of Chicago’s size, this industrial city in southeast Sweden has plenty of similarities with it, including a long, snowy winter and a football team the town’s crazy about.One thing is dramatically different about Kalmar, however: It is on the verge of eliminating the use of fossil fuels, for good, and with minimal effect on its standard of living.
The city of 60,000 – and its surrounding 12-town region, with a quarter-million people – has traded in most of its oil, gas and electric furnaces for community “district heat,” produced at plants that burn sawdust and wood waste left by timber companies. Hydropower, nuclear power and windmills now provide more than 90 percent of the region’s electricity.
New Developments in Solar Roofing
Sharp Corp. said Tuesday it will release a home-use solar power generation system in April that can be installed on a wide range of roof shapes with various roof surface areas.The system has adopted a “Roofit Design” system that enables efficient installation of photovoltaic modules even on small roofs and on roofs with complex shapes, where installation has been difficult with conventional systems, Sharp said.
Among its features, the new device boosts installed system output by an average 24 percent in comparison with Sharp’s predecessor model, it said.
It might seem strange to have a group of creative types clamoring to learn from the city dump, but there are numerous good reasons why their thinking is important to the waste management process. As we’ve often pointed out here on Worldchanging, getting to zero waste isn’t simply a question of how we deal with the garbage we’ve got. Much more important is how we handle things upstream, at the point where we design the stuff and systems that fill our lives. If we can design waste out of the picture, we save not only the final product that gets tossed in the trash, but also the materials, time and energy required to get it there.
Solar Growth Expected to Continue
Photovoltaics (PV) is a solar power technology that converts light from the sun directly into electricity. Photovoltaic production worldwide has been doubling every two years, increasing by an average of 48% each year since 2002, making it the world’s fastest-growing energy technology. 90% of this generating capacity consists of grid-tied electrical systems, in which PV panels generate electricity and interconnect with a utility’s power line.According to a recent report by GlobalData, a business information company providing global business information reports and services, the US is the fourth largest solar PV market in the world. The market has grown from 168 megawatts (MW) in 2001 to around 1,111 MW by the end of 2008. Grid-connected solar PV grew to 61% of all solar PV installations, accounting for 677 MW in 2008.
One reason for the rapid growth in solar power can be found in a recent report by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, entitled Tracking the Sun: The Installed Cost of Photovoltaics in the US from 1998-2007. According to the report, average installed costs prior to receipt of any direct financial incentives or tax credits declined from $10.50/Watt in 1998 to $7.60/Watt in 2007. This equates to an average annual reduction of $0.30/Watt, or 3.5% per year in real dollars.
The GlobalData report, entitled “The US Solar PV Market Analysis and Forecasts to 2013,” finds additional reasons for the growth of solar power. The report credits growth in the solar market to supportive policy frameworks by federal and state governments for solar PV technology, as well as high-end investments by major solar companies.
Solar Sunday
Sunday, March 1st, 2009Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.
Two Berkeley homeowners received checks for their new solar panels on Friday, becoming the first to flip the switch on the city’s much-ballyhooed, closely watched solar financing program.“I’m a guinea pig, but there’s no way I could have afforded solar otherwise,” said Jeanne Pimentel, an editor who has 11 solar panels on her Allston Way home. “Because of this, I can help solve our energy problem without putting any money up front.”
Berkeley’s program allows property owners to pay for solar panels through a 20-year assessment on their property taxes. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. rebates and new tax breaks guaranteed in the federal stimulus package reduce the cost further, so most homeowners begin saving on electric bills immediately.
Twelve states, including New York, Washington and Colorado, and 50 California cities, including San Francisco and San Diego, are following Berkeley’s model and are closely watching how the program unfolds.
Should you ever find yourself being pursued by the NYPD, now you can rest assured that the carbon footprint of your chase around the city will be just a little bit greener. As part of New York’s efforts to go green, the NYPD is rolling out 40 2009 Nissan Altima Hybrids for use during regular patrol. The vehicles get around 35 miles per gallon, which is about twice of the range of the current fleet of Chevy Impalas and Ford Crown Victorias.
Just last week we brought you news of the Blue-Earth, Samsung’s new solar powered touch phone. Well, it turns out that they are not the only company with solar dreams. Chinese mobile manufacturer ZTE recently revealed the Coral-200, a solar-powered handset with one very unique characteristic that sets it apart from its competitor: it will only cost 40 dollars!
Largescale Wind Power Proven Viable
Research by TU Delft proves that Dutch power stations are able to cope at any time in the future with variations in demand for electricity and supply of wind power, as long as use is made of up-to-date wind forecasts. PhD candidate Bart Ummels also demonstrates that there is no need for energy storage facilities. Ummels will receive his PhD on this topic on Thursday 26 February.Wind is variable and can only partially be predicted. The large-scale use of wind power in the electricity system is therefore tricky. PhD candidate Bart Ummels MSc. investigated the consequences of using a substantial amount of wind power within the Dutch electricity system. He used simulation models, such as those developed by Dutch transmission system operator TenneT, to pinpoint potential problems (and solutions).
His results indicate that wind power requires greater flexibility from existing power stations. Sometimes larger reserves are needed, but more frequently power stations will have to decrease production in order to make room for wind-generated power. It is therefore essential to continually recalculate the commitment of power stations using the latest wind forecasts. This reduces potential forecast errors and enables wind power to be integrated more efficiently.
