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Generating clean energy is only part of the solution, with broader changes needed for a full transition

IF ONLY we could get reliable, cheap, clean energy without annoying anyone, anywhere.

South Korea and France think they have the solution. Don’t get too excited about it.

The idea is to put our new power generation infrastructure in places that we already dislike. Car parks seem the perfect solution.

The government of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is promising to make erecting solar panels on parking lots a central plank of his plan to reduce the country’s dependence on imported fossil fuels — a troubling vulnerability after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Since November, all but the smallest public parking lots have been ordered to install canopies to provide shade for vehicles, plus generation for the grid. That’s a key part of his proposal to build 44.2 gigawatts (GW) of solar on urban land, plus another 12GW on utility-scale sites, by 2030.

France’s policy is even more ambitious. By the end of this month, both public and private large lots are being required to cover at least 50% of their parking area with panels.

Mid-sized sites will follow in the next two years. That will ultimately provide an estimated 11GW of generation, equivalent at midday to the output of 10 nuclear reactors.

It’s a model that could be exported worldwide, with huge benefits. With America’s surface parking lots covering about 14,000 sq m (36,000 sq km), a French-style mandate could generate as much electricity as is consumed in the US, and then some.

What’s not to like about that? The problem is the same as the benefit: Solar parking lots are so superficially appealing that they can blind people to how inadequate they are to the scale of the challenge. While they can help at the margin, a wholesale switch to cleaner energy is going to involve tough trade-offs, now and in the future. Pretending that’s not the case will only entrench existing, polluting fuels. In dropping its plans for a similar programme last month, the UK government made the right decision.

Consider South Korea’s 44.2GW target.

That’s about 10 times more rooftop solar than it has installed at present and would represent a remarkably high share of its crowded urban area — almost double the density of panels seen in the Netherlands, currently the world leader. Getting there by 2030 would also mean connecting new solar at almost three times 2025’s record pace.

All that is plausible — just. The problem comes when you start looking beyond 2030. The rise of electric vehicles (EV), data centres, heat pumps and chip fabs means that Seoul now expects power demand in 2040 to be about 70 terawatt-hours (TWh) higher than its previous forecasts. That’s enough on its own to suck up all the generation from the current urban solar plans. If South Korea wants to actually start reducing its fossil fuel demand rather than holding it steady, it’s going to need to find yet more sites — but with the population already in decline, its cities aren’t getting any bigger.

The obvious candidate is farmland. And there is the nub of the problem. It’s notable that the two countries where solar car-park policies are most advanced are ones that attach an almost spiritual value to the sanctity of their rural land. Promising to put modules on parking lots can be a way of avoiding the thornier question of whether you should be putting more of them on farmers’ fields, as well. Social media posts typically stress the same dichotomy, of pristine pastures contrasted with soulless ranks of silicon panels.

That ignores the fact that the countryside has never been an unchanging landscape. As a child growing up in southern England in the 1980s and 1990s, my image of pastoral idyll was a bright-yellow expanse of oilseed rape, or canola. But that crop was rarely seen until the 1970s, when Canada developed a strain that could be used for cooking oil, and parasites and warm winters mean it has all but disappeared over the past decade.

Owners of farmland typically would like the freedom to harvest whatever commodity is most profitable — whether rice, wheat, soybeans, or solar electricity. Planning roadblocks to photovoltaic projects, for all that they’re framed as being in the interests of agriculture, typically come from neighbours, activists and politicians who aren’t farmers themselves.

It would be great if urban solar could fix these dilemmas on its own. But there’s not enough suitable land to make such generation more than a small slice of the total, given the problems of shading, small sites, existing infrastructure and maintenance challenges.

Rooftop solar also typically costs 50% more than the utility-scale variety, taking away the advantage that makes switching to renewables attractive in the first place.

Solar parking lots, like the current vogue for plug-in balcony solar, suggest that an energy transition can be achieved in a modern industrial society simply by plastering our existing built-up areas with generators.

That’s a false promise. By all means, slap a solar canopy on your car park. Just don’t let it distract you from the far bigger task of decarbonisation that lies ahead. — Bloomberg

• This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

• This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition 

The post Solar car parks won’t clean up the grid appeared first on The Malaysian Reserve.

SATURDAYS in Greenwich Village require contending with the lines. Starting at 9am, you see blocks-long queues of people waiting for all sorts of things: Bagels, pastries, pizza, soggy sandwiches, premium frozen yogurt with candy on it. Even if you don’t want to, you will get swept up in a line, because they take over the sidewalks.

To be honest, I don’t mind. The lines are the visible representation of capitalism at work. Commerce, meritocracy, the fruits of technological innovation — all are on display, thanks to the rise of the influencer economy.

I’m also aware that all these people aren’t waiting for the food, exactly. The lines exist because someone posted a short video saying this French dip will change your life or this dotcake is the best in the city. The line-waiter wants to get that sandwich or cake so they can share their experience and grow their audience, or maybe just gain the approval of their network. According to one survey, 60% of Generation Z (Gen Z) — and 48% of millennials — say they waited in line for more than 30 minutes to eat a specific food in the last year. Most say they’d do it again, and that at least part of the motivation was to post on social media.

All of which is revealing about the economy. Inequality has become more obvious to everyone.

There’s an hours-long line for one pizza place, while the struggling shop around the corner (whose pizza is just as good) has few customers. Getting the influencers’ approval is a matter of luck and knowing who to target. The influencer economy itself also has a winner-takes-all element, with some influencers earning high six figures while most earn nothing.

That said, it’s worth noting that the influencer economy is an improvement on what came before. I recently reread a decades-old cover story in New York Magazine about the young women, dubbed “Power Girls,” who controlled “much of Manhattan’s trendiest nightlife” in the late 1990s. They were the original influencers.

High-heeled, attached to their flip phones, and with bleached and straightened hair, they owned public relation (PR) firms that could make or break a business. They could draw up a guest list for a launch party (and see that it got covered in the New York Post), get a celebrity to go to a restaurant or club and then make sure it had a line out of the door.

These women all shared two characteristics: They were young and extremely well-connected. It was a rare and powerful combination. There are a lot of young people in the workforce, but few are also born into the kind of wealthy New York family that confers access to and even power over A-listers at an early age.

Back then, the Internet was still young and there was no social media. People learned about new products or hot places by reading reviews or stories in newspapers or magazines — or better yet, about a rich or famous person enjoying them in the gossip columns.

Now the world is different. Social media has democratised information and influencers have largely replaced PR people.

Getting into the papers is less important. If you want to build hype and make a brand, you hire or engage an influencer. Today’s power influencers are also young, but they might come from anywhere. They don’t need wealth or connections. They don’t even have to live in New York.

All they need is a phone, a little charisma, a loud voice, and a willingness to document 90% of their waking hours. About 75% of Gen Z/Millennials say being a “content creator” is a viable career, and 45% say they are creators, most as a hobby.

It is a much more democratic way to wield power. Audience size is critical; you must court an economically diverse population.

Whereas those “Power Girls” had to know how to please only a relatively small subset of the right people.

The displacement of nepo PR people by influencers offers a preview of how the economy is changing. Public relations jobs still exist, but tech has made the narrow skills of the “Power Girls” less valuable.

The influencer economy is more accessible and employs more people but is also more chaotic and uncertain. If a brand works with influencers, it is not cheap or guaranteed to work, but it is still cheaper than hiring a PR firm used to be.

What influencers sell is also more accessible.

Only a limited number of people ever had the means or ability to go to a party at Moomba. All anyone needs to precure the crispiest sourdough bagel in Manhattan is time and an alarm clock.

Hawking somewhat affordable goods also helps an influencer build an audience. In a New York where more people wait in line for food than at nightclubs, that matters.

Influencing is still a winner-take-all market, like much else in the US economy.

But who the winners are, and who they need to please, has become more democratic. Such is the nature of technological change: Almost everyone laments the jobs it destroys, but few appreciate the ones it creates. — Bloomberg

• This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

• This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition 

The post The influencer economy has crossed the line appeared first on The Malaysian Reserve.