The author is relentlessly positive about all this disruption, as well as the uses to which all this looming technological advance will be put. Human nature being what it is, there will be quite a few nasty surprises. Prepare yourselves, fasten your seatbelt and return your tray tables to the full, upright and locked position. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Me, personally, I’m all for autonomy and some technology holds great promise for increasing personal autonomy. I don’t hate solar power, I see great possibilities, even to the point of not resenting subsidization to the extent that many FReepers do.
Of course I hate the cronyism that’s always present whenever Uncle Sugar is showering anything with money. That’s always been there. It was there with the construction of the interstate highway system, the millionaires that were made with the location of key interchanges in former agricultural areas alone would be astounding, if we were ever allowed to know the extent of the insider corruption.
There is just so much solar energy impinging on the entire area of the map of a nation, and so far less than 50% of that amount can be converted to channelable electricity, Whatever is under the impinging rays must remain in darkness. Totally, there is not enough energy reliable and available by solar means to fuel the needs of a population.
In an agrarian society, sunshine could supply photons for food, but not in our industrialize society where we expect so much more, and for so greatly a concentration of humanity.
Stored sunshine in the form of coal, oil, and gas are now needed, with nuclear energy promising an illimitable supply. I don't think we should consider solarity as an alternative except for some special preferred purposes. It certainly will not provide heat for the Inuit population in Alaska, Siberia, or Greenland. And I don't think I want to relocate to regions like that. I don't like eating seal fat as a staple all that much.