Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [85]
The purple-blue of the photovoltaic panels was like another kind of spring color, popping out in the snowy flowerbeds. Phil made a little speech, after which he was to be driven to Norfolk naval station; he had already had the Secret Service swap out his transport fleet, so now instead of a line of black SUVs pulling through the security gate, it was a line of black bulletproof Priuses. These looked so small that everyone laughed; they resembled the miniature cars that Shriners drove in parades. Chase laughed hardest of all, jumping out and directing the traffic so that the little cars made a circle around him. As he waved good-bye to the crowd, Frank noticed that he wore two wedding bands, one on his left ring finger, the other on the little finger of his right hand.
The White House demonstration project was only a tiny part of the solar power debate raging through NSF, the Department of Energy, and, Frank supposed, the world at large. Sudden effort to find the holy grail. It looked like desperation, and to a certain extent it was. But it was also that volatile time that came early in the history of any new technology, when decisions about many of the basic structures and methods emerged from a general confusion.
The small scale of this test was not going to be fair to Stirling engines in competition with photovoltaic. PV panels could be scaled to any size, which made them best for home use, while the external heat engine required a group of mirrors big enough to heat the heating element fully and drive the pistons to maximum output. It was a system meant for power plants. So the test here was only a PR thing. Still, not a bad idea. To see the systems creating electricity, even on cloudy days, was suddenly to understand that they had the means for the world’s deliverance already at hand. Paradoxically, the units on the south lawn shifted the attention from technology to finance. Now Chase was talking about tax credits for home installations that were big enough that the cost of a system would be the equivalent of about three years of electricity bills. A subsidy like that would make a huge difference. The cost to the federal budget would be about a tenth the cost of the last war. The main problem then would be manufacturing enough silicon.
One of the workmen scaling the southwest corner of the White House was having trouble, even though belayed from the roof. Frank shook his head, thinking: I could do better than that. Cutter and his friends could do better than that.
Kayaking was fun. The ice had broken up, and Frank, Charlie, and Drepung had joined a program at the Georgetown boathouse which gave them a couple of lessons, and then renting privileges for Charlie and Drepung; Frank had an old blue kayak of his own. Now their routine was to try to meet every other weekend to paddle around, playing on the slight riffles in the Potomac upstream from the Key Bridge. These riffles, however small compared to the drops at Great Falls, nevertheless involved an immense flow of water, and were fun to struggle up and shoot down. They could practice on them until they were good enough for Great Falls, Frank would say. Great Falls had a variety of white-water runs on the Maryland side, spanning a wide range of difficulties. Charlie and Drepung would nod at this information while glancing at each other, in full solidarity to resist any such improvement.
Drepung, it seemed to Charlie, was doing well, despite all the bustle at the embassy; in