Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

Chapter Thirteen: Designing for Resilience 205like…: their standard of conduct must differ markedly from historical normsfor the general population.” 85The constraints on the social context which permits and encourages peopleto behave in this way, and which prevents others from interfering with thehighly engineered systems, may imply an unwelcome degree of homogeneityenforced by strict controls. There is a substantial and compelling literature ofcivil liberties concerns which arise from this root. 86 This literature suggeststhat the price of some particularly demanding and vulnerable energy technologiesmay be the very liberties in pursuit of which the United States wasfounded. Indeed, “after having spent billions of dollars for our [military]nuclear deterrent, our civilian nuclear industry might well accomplish that[political transformation] which our defense system is trying to prevent.” 87Many of the vulnerabilities of non-nuclear energy systems surveyed in thepreceding four chapters raise similar concerns. But this makes such systemsinferior to “socially stable” energy systems—those which requirea minimum of social control. It should not be necessary to deploy force to protect[an energy technology. It]…should be able to survive and recover from periods ofpolitical breakdown, civil unrest, war and acts of terrorism. The system should beunlikely to become a target of protest; should enhance, not threaten social stability. 88Accessibility The demands which a technology places upon the society thatdepends on it are only one of many interactions between people and machinesthat must be considered in designing for resilience. Another is that the technologybe capable of being understood, at least in basic outline, by ordinary people,so that they form political judgments about it and use it intelligently even ifthey cannot necessarily design and build it themselves. This property is a keyto social compatibility. It is among the main reasons why, “if the United Statesselected its energy supply systems by a popular vote, there seems no doubt thatsolar energy would win easily.” 89 Understandability helps technologies to bedeveloped, dispersed, and accepted rapidly. An energy technology whoseimpacts are directly perceivable, patently benign and controllable, and describablein everyday language is more likely to be socially acceptable than one thatis mysterious, invisibly threatening, and arcane. Likewise, a technology whichequitably allocates its costs and benefits to the same people at the same time,so they can see for themselves how much is enough, is less likely to becomeembroiled in “energy wars” than a centralized, inequitable system. This too issomething which any citizen can understand and act upon.Understandability is a signal feature of small renewable energy sources(Chapter Sixteen)—so much so that many of the best renewable energy ideas todayare coming from people with little or no technical background. A letter recently