Winning Our Energy Independence

"This book is not about solar specifically, but David Freeman has been in his time – and still is – a very active solar proponent. He’s a very, very interesting man. He’s been around forever and is now 83. I met him a couple of years ago in Los Angeles. He’s from Tennessee, although his folks are Lithuanian; his father was an umbrella repairman. He trained as a lawyer, and claims to have been the first energy policy person working in Washington – he goes back to the Johnson administration. When Carter was putting together his energy policy, it was based on Freeman’s work. What’s interesting is that after he left Washington, Freeman became a manager of utilities. At one stage, he was known as ‘the utility repairman’, because he was the guy who was called when something went wrong. One of the places he went to was SMUD – the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. They were having terrible trouble because their nuclear reactor was breaking down left, right and center. It was a twin of the Three Mile Island nuke, and eventually it was shut down. He’s still active. When I saw him, he was running the Los Angeles Water and Power Department, the local utility, and ordering large quantities of solar power. The reason I love this book is that he’s really good with one-liners, like ‘Many professionals in the utility industry resist change as much as little boy resists a bath.’ And he really calls a spade a spade. For example, he writes, ‘The phrase clean coal is an insult to human intelligence. There is no such thing. Coal is inherently dirty.’ There’s no messing about with Dave Freeman. It’s about what needs to happen to the utility industry in order for us to get out of this mess that we’re in. The solution, of course, involves large amounts of renewables in general, and solar in particular. This book is beautifully done. It’s formatted in a really accessible way. It’s got little boxes in which he puts anecdotes, and, although the intent is serious, they’re almost always funny, or have a joke in them. He is, in California. He’s been tremendously influential and continues to be. My theory, which I hope will be correct, is that what California does today, the rest of the U.S. will do tomorrow – or the day after, in some cases. Yes. Although renewables in general, and solar in particular, are perceived to be Democrat/liberal issues, the whole energy independence bit plays well to a Republican audience as well. So solar tends to be supported across the board. It’s very popular with everybody except our friends in the oil and coal industry. The thing about Freeman is, he really knows what he’s talking about – he’s got more experience with running electric utilities than anybody else; he knows more about the energy business than anybody else. And he expresses it in such an entertaining way. So many books about serious subjects are insufferably dull, but this one is really enjoyable. It’s also quite an unknown book. I don’t imagine a lot of people have come across it, but it deserves to be widely read."