It will never take off

(Payerne, Switzerland)

On the morning of the 8th July a solar plane piloted by André Borschberg and financed by billionaire Doctor Bertrand Piccard landed after a 26-hour flight. Through its 12,000 solar cells it had collected enough solar energy to fly all night, becoming the first plane to do so.

To quote directly from the website:

But we succeed! Not only in staying airborne right through the night, but in making our discourse credible.

At the sun came up, there were still several hours of energy reserves in the batteries. Yes, renewable energies and cleantechs can do the impossible! We were right to bet on our conviction.

It is no surprise that this plane has been designed, built and tested entirely with private money. Governments do not have that sort of money; nor can they justify such supposed extravagance at a time when people are losing their jobs and banks are putting people out of their homes. Not only that: billionaires can be entrepreneurs who develop systems like this and then make phenomenal amounts of money selling the idea to governments, but from the other angle it can be said that governments wait around for people with enough money to do what they can’t afford to do and then take the expertise off them. It is yet another form of taxation.

Neither will it be a surprise that this idea will never become commercial. Solar power, tidal power and wind power can all be harnessed in many more places than fossil fuels, simply to different degrees of efficiency depending on the geographical location, and even though coastal areas do belong to governments wind and sun belong to no-one. They do not exist in limited quantities under the land of states with smaller armies than the USA or the UK and will therefore not be coveted by greedy Western governments.

In short, without the incentive of making profitable wars Western governments will never allow this scheme to take off.