Renewable power not the only solution to energy poverty

A recent story about a solar power project at a Syrian refugee camp made me cringe a bit. There are good reasons to use solar power in this instance: The camp is isolated and (hopefully) temporary, so that connecting it to the grid is unlikely to be cost-effective. And refugees are much more tolerant of intermittent power than homeowners, although the idea that it reliably powers refrigerators might be a stretch. Charging a cell phone, on the other hand, is the perfect use for unreliable, intermittent power.

According to forbes.com, the crucial part of the story is not ‘refugees get solar’ but ‘refugees get power’.

Their carbon footprint is probably not a priority for a war refugee, although many pundits in the West will no doubt feel that they are being ‘empowered’ by renewables. It reminds me of the story about the Californian who wanted to provide ¿tness classes for the homeless, or the tattoo artist raising money for the same to get tattoos.

The energy impoverished are often told that renewables is the answer for them, even when it’s not. Solar power stations can be the solution to an isolated village’s lack of power if it isn’t near the grid, but the high-cost and intermittency will afàict the just and unjust alike. And when solar is more expensive, and governments have limited budgets, telling the poor that they cannot have power until the government has money for solar is rather like Marie Antoinette’s ‘let them eat cake’.

Activists reply that solar power is actually superior in many ways, but as Rachel Pritzker, coauthor of ‘The Ecomodernist Manifesto’ put it: “If we knew how to power a modern life on a small amount of intermittent energy we’d be doing it in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) already. Why expect the poorest to do something we haven’t ¿gured out yet, and thereby slow their ability to escape poverty? Poverty is not my favorite climate solution.”