Letter to the Daily Mail (UK newspaper).

[dave_spart]

Hi folks,

Here's an email I wrote recently to the Daily Mail, one of the UKs most popular newspapers. In it I try to provoke the reader to think about why things we can do without are so brilliantly distributed and marketed and yet why things like solar and wind aren't. Think about it.


Dear Sir,

Given that energy and oil prices have surged so much recently, can anyone explain why there is no concerted attempt by either the public or private sector to make clean domestic energy production viable and as common place as the domestic refridgerator?

To put things into context here's a little quiz:

Name your favourite brand of car.
Name your favourite brand of mobile phone.
Name your favourite brand of TV.

Easy right? Now name your favourite brand of domestic solar panels or favourite brand of wind turbines?

If you had difficulty, I wouldn't be surprised. You only have to look at the way the those markets are organized to see why. And this is precisely why I'm writing to you.

Doesn't it strike you as odd that given the record oil prices and concerns over global warming you can't simply walk into say a supermarket, electrical retailer or DIY store and buy solar and wind energy generating products to take home and plug and play? Why aren't these products as easily available as bread, milk or petrol and as commonplace as iPods, Blackberrys or BMWs? Why can't you walk in to, say, IKEA and buy standard solar panels to take home and start using out of the box? Why can't you walk into Tesco and buy a wind turbine just the same? If we are to have any genuine hope of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels then we need to make solar and wind as cheap and easily available to the widest possible pool of consumers.

If the brands you thought up have already perfected this aim into an art, why haven't solar and wind energy achieved the same success?

With regards to the production of domestic solar and wind power generation units, the market is characterised by a large number of small manufacturers. This keeps costs high. The reason micro-chips are so cheap is because they produced in huge volumes in just a handful of factories around the world.
With regards to distribution, have you ever walked down a High Street or driven to an out-of-town shopping centre and found a shop of any kind carrying these products? These products are currently only available through websites from small scale suppliers usually in the US. Yet without any difficulty I am sure you can think of half a dozen TV dealers within five miles of your home.
With regards to those domestic energy products that are available, they are sold almost exclusively over the internet instead of through actual showrooms, the consumer is confronted by an bewildering overload of choice, the products are often unsuitable for the home and marketed using technical, unfriendly jargon. Can you imagine IKEA selling its furniture that way?
With regards to delivery, installation and after-sales service, would you feel confident ordering expensive kit from a mom-and-pop supplier that may be out of business in a few years? And its for this reason, among others, that German and Japanese car companies are so successful.
If domestic energy production is to be the next big thing the market needs to be organized the same way as the most popular and successful consumer product markets are today. If consumers are to embrace solar and wind energy the whole experience must feel exactly the same as it would were they shopping for any other domestic good. A dishwasher. A laptop PC. A widescreen TV.

OK then, if an average Joe like me can spot the problems and propose the solutions so easily, why has neither the public nor the private sector come in to solve the problem?

It's not as though government is powerless to act. There was a report recently that the UK government is considering banning the branding of cigarettes. If the government can act in such a heavy-handed manner towards itobacco, why not help organize the clean domestic energy production market? If it can spend £100bn bailing out Northern Rock why can't it assist in popularizing clean domestic energy production? And what about the likes of Branson and Gates? Where are they with their billions and their marketing genius?

The reasons for acting could not be more compelling. If we can increase the amount of clean domestic energy production, the less oil we need to burn, meaning less land is taken up for biofuel production, meaning more land is freed for growing food which means the price of food falls.

I have my own suspicions on this subject, which I'll keep to myself. The real reasons are for your investigative journalists to uncover.

Regards,

Dave Spart