Crazy Town18 Jun 2025

Blinded by the Light - Facing Reality with Renewable Energy

Solar panels and other modern energy technologies can be really useful, but the belief that we can technologize our way to a bigger and better society powered by clean energy is tragically flawed. Asher, Rob, and Jason dig into the up-and-down story of the Ivanpah concentrated solar power plant, review the Harry Potteresque thinking behind complex, centralized power plants, and expose the truth of the energy transition. After they finish making fun of concentrated solar/golf course/outlet mall complexes in the desert, they discuss how to make real progress on energy and sustainability. Originally recorded on 6/5/25.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

Sources/Links/Notes:

Michael R. Blood, “11 years after a celebrated opening, massive solar plant faces a bleak future in the Mojave Desert,” AP News, January 30, 2025.
Laura Paddison, "This alien-like field of mirrors in the desert was once the future of solar energy. It’s closing after just 11 years," CNN, February 13, 2025.
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy, January 1, 2024.
Rachel Donald, “The ‘Energy Transition’ is a Pipe Dream | Jean-Baptiste Fressoz,” Planet: Critical podcast, March 19, 2025.
Drax Power Station
U.S. Department of Energy, Facts about Ivanpah
Energy Monitor report on the opening of Ivanpah
Louis Sahagun, "This Mojave Desert solar plant kills 6,000 birds a year. Here’s why that won’t change any time soon," Los Angeles Times, September 2, 2016.
Annual carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions worldwide from 1940 to 2024

Resources for conservation and local solar power:

Solar United Neighbors
2,000-Watt Society
Peter Kalmus, Being the Change, New Society Publishers, July 10, 2017.
Kris De Decker, "How to Build a Low-Tech Solar Panel," Resilience, October 21, 2021.
Coop Power
Seeds for the Sol
The Institute for Local Self-Resilience has a community solar program.

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

Episode 45 on feedback loops
Episode 60 on air conditioning

Support the show

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(178)

Finding Crazy Town Part 5: Adapting to the Adaptive Cycle

What if collapse isn't the end of the story but part of a larger cycle?In Part 5 of our six-part summer series, Finding Crazy Town, producer Alex Leff continues his investigation into the mysterious d...

23 Sep 43min

Finding Crazy Town Part 4: The Myth of Progress - Are We There Yet?

What if the story we tell ourselves about progress is wrong?In Part 4 of our six-part summer series, Finding Crazy Town, producer Alex Leff continues his investigation into the mysterious disappearanc...

9 Sep 31min

Finding Crazy Town Part 3: Unlimited Limits to Growth

Can our economy keep growing forever on a finite planet?In this third installment of Finding Crazy Town, we explore the idea of exponential economic growth, why economists and politicians have become ...

26 Aug 47min

Finding Crazy Town Part 2: Simplifying Complexity

What if the greatest strength of modern civilization—its incredible complexity—is also its greatest weakness?In Part 2 of our six-part summer series, Finding Crazy Town, producer Alex Leff continues i...

12 Aug 44min

Remembering Richard Heinberg: The Power Podcast

The world has lost a voice of clear, truth-telling wisdom—a man whose work reached millions of people and fundamentally changed the lives of thousands.Richard Heinberg was regarded as one of the world...

6 Aug 41min

Finding Crazy Town Part 1: The Straight of Everything

What happens when the global economy depends on fish traveling 10,000 miles, oil flowing through a single strait, and enough cheap fossil fuel energy to build civilizations that previous generations c...

15 Jul 44min

Gaslit by the Four Horsemen: Maddening Signs of the Apocalypse

With the churn of daily news growing more apocalyptic by the headline, and with earth scientists competing ferociously for the title of “gloomiest doomer,” it’s time for some fun (or at least making f...

1 Jul 1h 10min

What Lies Beneath: AMOC, El Niño, & Climate Chaos with Emily Schoerning

It’d be easy, with the clusterf**k of crazy-making economic, geopolitical, and democracy-in-decline news dominating the scene, to forget that the unraveling of environmental systems waits for no perso...

17 Jun 58min