One could argue that abundant and free energy is the foundational aspiration of our civilisation; there is nothing more important.

A recent exchange of heated emails has again seen me at the centre of a raging debate about the efficacy of solar energy (at least with respect to grid-scale generation). One would have thought that this issue had long been put to bed, but it hasn't. Numerous furious objections still pop up like whack-a-moles, not helped by the US administration's contempt for the whole enterprise.

Unfortunately, the debate about the technology of solar is very difficult to separate from the roiling seas of climate change politics. But they are very different matters.

On 28 April, the Spanish energy grid collapsed, taking Portugal out with it. Within hours of the event, as the authorities were struggling to bring systems up again, theories started circulating about the cause -- from terrorists to human error to sunspots. Now it is widely accepted that Spain's grid solar ecosystem, one of the largest in the world at 25% of installed capacity, was most probably responsible.

How so? Ignoring the gnarly details, suffice it to say that traditional energy generation and distribution ecosystems are designed to...