The EU is moving to reduce dependence on Chinese-made solar technology over concerns it poses security risks, including potential blackouts.

Well, the folks in Brussels have decided that Chinese solar panels might be listening to our conversations, or perhaps plotting to turn off the lights in Paris and Berlin, which I suppose makes sense if you don’t think about it too long, which is probably the idea. It is a curious thing, this modern anxiety. We spend billions building machines designed to catch the sun’s rays, only to worry that the glass and silicon might have developed a conscience, or worse, a political agenda.

I have always believed that if you want to keep a secret, you should not write it on a piece of paper, but certainly not on a solar panel that sits on your roof for thirty years, exposed to rain, hail, and the occasional bird dropping. The European Commission says these panels pose a security risk, specifically the threat of blackouts. Now, a blackout is a serious matter. It means the ice cream melts, the traffic lights go dark, and the politicians finally have to talk to each other without their teleprompters. But to suggest that a piece of hardware designed to convert photons into electrons is capable of orchestrating a continent-wide power failure is like worrying that your horse might decide to unionize. It is not impossible, I suppose, but it is hardly the most pressing concern when you are trying to keep the barn from burning down.

The trouble is, the Europeans are caught in a bind of their own making. They want the green energy, they want the low prices, and they want the security. But they have been buying the panels from China for years because, quite frankly, nobody else could make them as cheaply. It is the same as buying a suit in New York and then complaining that the tailor in London charges more. You cannot have the bargain and the boycott at the same time. The Chinese manufacturers are not doing this out of malice; they are doing it out of arithmetic. They have the supply chain, the scale, and the efficiency. The Europeans have the regulations, the committees, and the good intentions. And so we have a situation where the people who need the power are afraid of the people who can provide it, while the people who could provide it locally are still figuring out how to turn on the factory lights.

There is a certain irony in calling this a security risk. If the Chinese government wanted to cause a blackout, they would not need to hack a solar panel. They could simply stop shipping the replacement parts when the old ones break. Or they could raise the price. Or they could do nothing at all and let the market sort it out. The idea that a solar panel is a Trojan horse is charming in a literary sense, but in the practical sense, it is a bit like worrying that your toaster is spying on your breakfast. The real risk is not that the panels will talk to Beijing; the real risk is that Europe will spend so much time worrying about the panels talking that they forget to build their own.

I have seen this movie before. It is the same story as the cotton gin, the railroad, and the automobile. Every time we adopt a new technology, someone finds a reason to fear it. The railroad was going to ruin the horses, and the automobile was going to ruin the streets. Now the solar panel is going to ruin the grid. But the grid is not a fragile thing; it is a collection of wires and switches. It does not care where the electricity comes from, as long as it comes. The fear is not in the technology; it is in the dependency. And dependency is a habit, not a bug.

The Europeans are right to want energy independence. It is a noble goal. But you do not achieve independence by banning the thing you rely on. You achieve it by building something better, or at least something different. Until then, they are left with a choice: keep the lights on with Chinese panels, or turn them off and wait for the local industry to catch up. It is a bit like refusing to eat because you do not like the farmer who grew the corn. You can starve with dignity, or you can eat with a shrug. I have always preferred the shrug. It is less painful, and it leaves you with more energy to deal with the next problem.

In the end, this is not about security. It is about pride. The Europeans want to feel self-sufficient, and they are willing to pay a premium for that feeling. That is their right. But let us not pretend that the solar panels are the enemy. The enemy is the gap between what we want and what we can afford. And that gap is not going to be closed by a committee in Brussels. It is going to be closed by the sun, the wind, and the occasional bit of common sense. Until then, we can all sit in the dark and wonder if the silence is peaceful, or just expensive.