The Clothesline Paradox

                  APPENDIX


   THE CLOTHESLINE PARADOX

A few years ago Peter Van Dresser mentioned the
Clothesline Paradox.

Solar Energy advocates are continuously humiliated by
being show "energy Pies".  Slices are assigned to coal,
gas, oil, hydroelectric and even nuclear, but solar
energy is evidently too small to appear.  I have a
typical energy pie from the Ford Foundation whose
source is the U.S. Bureau of Mines.  The large pie is
split into 5 pieces.  Petroleum - 46%, coal - 18%,
natural gas - 31%,  hydro power - 4%, and nuclear -
15%.  (An asterisk notes that wood has been
omitted-why?) We are frequently reminded that the
energy we advocate - solar energy - must, after the
proper technical efforts, appear alongside coal, oil,
natural gas and nuclear before it will make an "impact".
 ERDA in its different energy consumption predictions
assigns only a thin wedge of the pie to solar energy and
then only as a faint hope 15 to 25 years from now.  The
demoralized reader is then ripe to be persuaded of the
necessity of nuclear power plants or offshore drilling.  
The accounting system shows that he has done
absolutely nothing with solar energy.  He lacks even a
trace of a useful habit or activity that he could build on.
 As Peter and I discussed - if you examine these figures
you find the cards are stacked against solar energy.


If you take down your clothesline and buy an electric
clothes dryer the electric consumption of the nation
rises slightly.  If you go in the other direction and
remove the electric clothes dryer and install a
clothesline the consumption of electricity drops slightly,
but there is no credit given anywhere on the charts and
graphs to solar energy which is now drying the clothes.

The poor old sun is badly mistreated by such graphs.  
In the first place the obvious should be pointed out; that
coal, oil and natural gas are all solar energy products
stored ages ago by photosynthesis, and hydroelectric
power is solar energy no older than the weather patterns
which dropped the precipitation flowing through the
turbines.

The graphs which demonstrate a huge dependence on
fossil fuels are fine in one respect.  They are alarming.  
But they are very bad in another respect.  They are
misleading.  Misleading to such an extent that they blind
people to obvious answers and prime them to a frenzy
of effort in poor directions.  Attention given to such
graphs and charts trains people to attempt to deliver
what is shown in these accounting systems rather than
what is needed.

If you drive a motorcycle, the gasoline you consume
appears in the nation's energy budget.  If you get a
horse to ride and graze the horse on range nearby, the
horse's energy which you use does not appear in
anyone's energy accounting.

If you install interior greenhouse lights the electricity
you use is faithfully recorded.  If you grow the plants
outside no attempt is made at an accounting.

If you drive your car to the corner to buy a newspaper
the gasoline consumption appears.  If you walk - using
food energy - the event has disappeared from sight, for
the budget of solar energy consumed by people in food
is seldom mentioned.

The Ford Foundation's energy study shows the U.S.'s
energy consumption in 1968 at about 62 quadrillion Btu
or, 310,000,000 Btu/person/year or, 310/365 = 850,000
Btu/day.  If the average daily caloric intake is 2500
Kcal., this is approximately 10,000 Btu/day/person -
about 1.2% of the total consumption listed by the
Bureau of Mines.  But this 1.2% doesn't appear
anywhere on the graphs.  Nuclear energy with 1% does
appear.  The food is obviously solar energy Why is it
not included?

What about the question of the energy used in growing
th food?  Can't we treat this in the same way as the coal
burned to generate electricity?  If we use the figure of
.5% efficiency (Ayres and Scarlott) this means we have
consumed approximately 2,000,000 Btu/person/day of
sunlight in producing the 10,000 Btu/peron consumed.  
Solar energy then immediately fills over 2/3 of the new
energy pie.  If we aren't allowed to show the actual
sunlight required for our 10,000 Btu/person, then what
about power plants?  Why is it that when they burn 4
Btu of fuel for every Btu delivered as electricity all the
consumption appears in the energy accounts rather than
the 1 Btu?