Ian McEwan’s Solar

by philg

I recently finished Ian McEwan’s latest novel, Solar,which would make a great Christmas gift for anyone in academia or science. The protagonist is a Nobel laureate physicist with a surfeit of ex-wives and a dearth of recent research. The novel accurately captures the selfish pursuit of academic fame and priority and will also serve as a good chronicle of a peculiar time in history when governments were using tax dollars to enrich solar energy charlatans.

I would say more, but I don’t want to spoil the book.

2 thoughts on “Ian McEwan’s Solar”

  1. Phil,

    Could you elaborate somewhat on “solar energy charlatans”, without spoiling the book? I did a quick search on “solar” in your past blog postings and you have stated a couple times that China is ahead of the US in solar technology. It doesn’t seem like you object to solar energy development in general.

    I’m generally becoming more and more skeptical of government intervention in the marketplace, but it’s hard to give up on the idea that using an increased gasoline tax or carbon tax to fund tax credits for solar energy panels on houses isn’t a good idea. However, I am not aware of other ways in which governments may or may not be supporting solar energy.

  2. Alex: China, of course, is the world leader in practical solar technologies that make economic sense, such as rooftop water heaters, as well as in photovoltaics, that can make sense for a lot of applications (I’d love to have them on top of a car and running a fan to keep a dog cool inside!). The elaborate and complex web of U.S. government subsidies and grants opens the doors to a lot of clever fraud and ideas that aren’t likely to work and McEwan’s book explores some of those.

    Think about the clever Armenians who recently fleeced the indifferent Medicare check-writers who never bothered to drive by and see if any of the clinics existed or why eye doctors were doing bladder exams ( http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/44-charged-in-huge-medicare-fraud-scheme/ and http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2010/1014/Medicare-fraud-Dozens-charged-in-record-scam ).

Comments are closed.