Most people think, and most analysis occurs, in a stove-piped fashion — thinking of issues in channels of problem and solution without consideration of second- and third-order effects. Difficult in conception and more costly in resources (whether brain cells, time or cash), narrow and constrained thinking often fosters (not just far from optimal but) simply bad decisions. This is true across virtually all of human existence. The energy arena is far from an exception to this problem. From not considering lifetime electricity use when buying Christmas lights to using the “commodity” price rather than delivered cost (“fully burdened cost of fuel“) in military procurement decisions to only discussing energy-savings returns off insulation or new windows without talking about comfort or health benefits in the house to ignoring the productivity benefits from greening workplaces (and schools), the limited nature of thinking when it comes to energy and environmental issues is hard to exaggerate. (And, of course, these are only benefits “within the decision maker” rather than all the externalities — both benefits and costs — that are left out of the economic transitions.) The all-too-often limited lens restricts us (all of us) to sub-optimal or simply wrong decisions.

Thinking about solar carports provides a window on this issue.

A recent email correspondence with a top-notch scientist provides a window on the challenge of thinking narrowly vs. the difficulty (but greater accuracy) of broader analysis. In discussions related to the solar-roadways concept, we had the following exchange about solar carports.