When I was a child we knew a family called the McMs and they were AWESOME! I was a "good" child, as were my siblings, but when we were combined with the McMs all hell would break loose (I'm pretty sure the McMs were "good" children too, but together we went loco). My sister would usually hang out with the older McM sister who seemed terribly sophisticated to us, and my brother and I would run around like demented lunatics. My parents reckoned it sounded like a pack of greater crested colobus monkeys on speed.
Probably the two families would have spent more time together, but my parents were genuinely afraid of mixing us with the McMs so visits usually only happened on a couple of days per year, usually after a substantial dose of tranquilisers which were administered via my mother's famous (and detested) "curry-in-a-hurry" (with raisins and dessicated coconut). I only found out last year that mother McM also specialised in this satanic dish, and I'm still trying to figure out which family had it first.
My mother was mighty impressed with the McM's musical ability which she would expound upon at some length. She didn't ever describe us as "grossly inferior children", but it was strongly implied. I was assigned to rectify the inadequate musicality situation, and spent the 7 years getting through 1.5 years of trombone lessons. After faking my way through numerous school pantomines (it's very easy to fake playing a trombone in an orchestra: just move the slide in an out, and drool down the mouthpiece), I finally managed to convince my mother during School Certificate year that I would be too busy studying to practice it.
Recently I caught up with the second oldest McM boy and the oldest McM via her awesome blog (http://theendisnaenae.blogspot.com/) which is well worth a read. It turns out that they're still awesome and still crack me up.
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Man from the Future Discovered!
My friend Sarah sent me this spoof article today about a man claiming to be from the future (http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/man-arrested-at-large-hadron-collider-claims-hes-from-the-future-49305387/#ixzz1McOQ6GFz) and I really thought I'd share it. Getting into the past isn't really a problem as there are good two options: a) locate and travel through a wormhole in the space-time continuum or b) go to Palmerston North. The first option is probably a better one.
It's easy to see into the distant past. Looking at the stars reveals event that happened years ago (even with the sun you're looking back 7 minutes, but you need to look closely preferably with some high powered binoculars), and to get there all you have to do is travel at the over the speed of light. This requires infinite energy, but Thor confidently predicts that shouldn't be a problem (just kidding Thor ;o) )
It's easy to see into the distant past. Looking at the stars reveals event that happened years ago (even with the sun you're looking back 7 minutes, but you need to look closely preferably with some high powered binoculars), and to get there all you have to do is travel at the over the speed of light. This requires infinite energy, but Thor confidently predicts that shouldn't be a problem (just kidding Thor ;o) )
Being a Nerd
I recently learned about an intriguing consequence of quantum theory called the Bremermann Limit which states "no data processing system, whether artificial or living, can process more than 2 x 10^47 bits per second per gram of its mass". In other words, a computer the size of the earth, working since the earth first existed, can have processed an absolute maximum of 2.56 x 20^92 bits.
If you haven’t fallen asleep already, bear with me here. The limit means there are problems involving large numbers which are simply beyond the ability of anything to solve. This fascinated me so much that I’ve spent the majority of my waking hours for the past week thinking about it, and I have at last come to a spectacular conclusion: I am a nerd.
I remember having a similar experience when I was maybe 11 years old after reading an article on very large numbers in a collection of works by Isaac Asimov. I still remember very clearly the feeling I got reading the article and spent many nerdy hours pondering its various factoids. Sometimes when I visit my parents, I re-read the article and it gives me a lot of pleasure and reminds me of a simpler time when the joy of knowing stuff was not dulled by adult life.
I’m pretty sure I’ve always been a nerd. Apparently shortly after acquiring the power of speech, I became fascinated by electricity pylons and spent hours asking my mother innumerable questions concerning their function and construction, quickly exhausting her limited knowledge on the subject. I was dubbed "the Professor" in my first year of primary school (although I still remember leaving the crayons on the heater and them all melting... how humiliating), and a nerd for every subsequent year of my schooling.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a human of extremely modest intellectual talents. During my PhD and post-doctoral study I met a number of people who left me dazzled in the magnificent glare of their brilliance. But a nerd I am, and a nerd I remain, for there is nothing I like doing better than sitting and thinking. In fact, I think one of the reasons I gave up my academic "career" was so I could have more time to think about the things I wanted to, without the clutter of Boltzmann’s equation, numerical viscosity and the constant sceptre of having one day to deal with simulating turbulent flow.
There are plenty of nerds out there: computer nerds, aviation nerds (of which I know an alarming number), tech-nerds, cross-stitch nerds, comic nerds, even eating whole roast chicken nerds… the list is pretty much endless. I’m a nerd’s nerd: the sitting on my arse and thinking nerd, the type of nerd with no purpose other than the addition of entropy to the universe.
I’ve been surprised to learn as I’ve grown older, that not only do a significant proportion of the population not engage in much thought, they don’t actually like thinking. (I almost succumbed to a temptation to rip into religion here, but I’d better not). I get an intense feeling of disquiet every time I come across someone who finds reading boring. Boring?! If I had the chance, I’d spend pretty much all my time reading and contemplating.
Being able to ponder stuff, any stuff, is what makes life worth living to me but it can be a burden and I suspect it can be tough on some of those closest to me. It occurs to me that having someone around with his nose constantly in a book or gazing apparently vacuously into space is not always the best company, and for those who put up with me: I thank you.
If you haven’t fallen asleep already, bear with me here. The limit means there are problems involving large numbers which are simply beyond the ability of anything to solve. This fascinated me so much that I’ve spent the majority of my waking hours for the past week thinking about it, and I have at last come to a spectacular conclusion: I am a nerd.
I remember having a similar experience when I was maybe 11 years old after reading an article on very large numbers in a collection of works by Isaac Asimov. I still remember very clearly the feeling I got reading the article and spent many nerdy hours pondering its various factoids. Sometimes when I visit my parents, I re-read the article and it gives me a lot of pleasure and reminds me of a simpler time when the joy of knowing stuff was not dulled by adult life.
I’m pretty sure I’ve always been a nerd. Apparently shortly after acquiring the power of speech, I became fascinated by electricity pylons and spent hours asking my mother innumerable questions concerning their function and construction, quickly exhausting her limited knowledge on the subject. I was dubbed "the Professor" in my first year of primary school (although I still remember leaving the crayons on the heater and them all melting... how humiliating), and a nerd for every subsequent year of my schooling.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a human of extremely modest intellectual talents. During my PhD and post-doctoral study I met a number of people who left me dazzled in the magnificent glare of their brilliance. But a nerd I am, and a nerd I remain, for there is nothing I like doing better than sitting and thinking. In fact, I think one of the reasons I gave up my academic "career" was so I could have more time to think about the things I wanted to, without the clutter of Boltzmann’s equation, numerical viscosity and the constant sceptre of having one day to deal with simulating turbulent flow.
There are plenty of nerds out there: computer nerds, aviation nerds (of which I know an alarming number), tech-nerds, cross-stitch nerds, comic nerds, even eating whole roast chicken nerds… the list is pretty much endless. I’m a nerd’s nerd: the sitting on my arse and thinking nerd, the type of nerd with no purpose other than the addition of entropy to the universe.
I’ve been surprised to learn as I’ve grown older, that not only do a significant proportion of the population not engage in much thought, they don’t actually like thinking. (I almost succumbed to a temptation to rip into religion here, but I’d better not). I get an intense feeling of disquiet every time I come across someone who finds reading boring. Boring?! If I had the chance, I’d spend pretty much all my time reading and contemplating.
Being able to ponder stuff, any stuff, is what makes life worth living to me but it can be a burden and I suspect it can be tough on some of those closest to me. It occurs to me that having someone around with his nose constantly in a book or gazing apparently vacuously into space is not always the best company, and for those who put up with me: I thank you.
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Palmerston North - Tenth Circle of Hell?
Palmerston North, which is quite close to where I live, gets a lot of stick. John Cleese, on visiting the city, was moved to say "If you ever do want to kill yourself, back lack the courage, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick". Like dirty old gay man's Gore, the city couldn't take a joke and the mayor got quite uppity about it.
I'd like to defend Palmerston North... but I'm not going to. It's truly NZ's crappiest city. Shortly after arriving in this part of the world, Lisa and I made our first visit to Palmy and within 20 minutes of arriving I'd been called a "race mixer" by some of the city's many charming young people (Lisa is of Taiwanese extraction and I am a European, so I'm sure you can understand their disgust at the idea we might spawn some sort of half human/half beast). I wish I'd been a bit sharper and pointed out I am only a potential race mixer as Lisa and I have no children yet, but I was too busy being incredulous.
I'm not one to judge a city solely on its skinheads - there is plenty more to hate about the city that brought us Judy Bailey and Fred Dagg (two of the three highlights of Palmy history, the other being the construction of "The Plaza" shopping mall). Just take a walk about the city center. There is just something about it that makes you want to gouge out your own eyes. I'm not sure if it is the total lack of character, the undercurrent of total despair or the more-slovenly-than-slovenly youth or something else. And the thing of which Palmy seems most proud? Yes, it's The Plaza. Why the hell would the majority of a city's tourist information direct you to a mall, a place that could be anywhere else in NZ? Actually, come to think of it, perhaps that's the point...
To try and make ourselves better about living within a 20 minute drive of NZ's ringpiece, Lisa and I headed up the road to Wanganui a.k.a Whanganui. Wanganui has a reputation of gang violence and general unpleasantness. We loved it. Wanga-vegas has charm, character, beautiful parks and no shopping mall to speak of.
Other than its mall, Palmy has a host of other delightful attractions and activities. You can take in the views of the mall from the mall's carpark, luncheon in a cafe overlooking the mall or perhaps wander the streets surrounding the mall which the mall has sucked the life out of. A night on the town in is a charming experience if you don't mind wading through ankle deep vomit, being sucked into the gravitational fields of numerous planetary-sized lycra-clad wobbling objects (the city's young ladies) and having the nagging sensation you might be set upon by skinheads (the city's young men).
You're probably going to hell after you die, and if you want a taste of what it's like before you depart this mortal coil, I highly reccommend a vist to Palmerston North.
I'd like to defend Palmerston North... but I'm not going to. It's truly NZ's crappiest city. Shortly after arriving in this part of the world, Lisa and I made our first visit to Palmy and within 20 minutes of arriving I'd been called a "race mixer" by some of the city's many charming young people (Lisa is of Taiwanese extraction and I am a European, so I'm sure you can understand their disgust at the idea we might spawn some sort of half human/half beast). I wish I'd been a bit sharper and pointed out I am only a potential race mixer as Lisa and I have no children yet, but I was too busy being incredulous.
I'm not one to judge a city solely on its skinheads - there is plenty more to hate about the city that brought us Judy Bailey and Fred Dagg (two of the three highlights of Palmy history, the other being the construction of "The Plaza" shopping mall). Just take a walk about the city center. There is just something about it that makes you want to gouge out your own eyes. I'm not sure if it is the total lack of character, the undercurrent of total despair or the more-slovenly-than-slovenly youth or something else. And the thing of which Palmy seems most proud? Yes, it's The Plaza. Why the hell would the majority of a city's tourist information direct you to a mall, a place that could be anywhere else in NZ? Actually, come to think of it, perhaps that's the point...
To try and make ourselves better about living within a 20 minute drive of NZ's ringpiece, Lisa and I headed up the road to Wanganui a.k.a Whanganui. Wanganui has a reputation of gang violence and general unpleasantness. We loved it. Wanga-vegas has charm, character, beautiful parks and no shopping mall to speak of.
Other than its mall, Palmy has a host of other delightful attractions and activities. You can take in the views of the mall from the mall's carpark, luncheon in a cafe overlooking the mall or perhaps wander the streets surrounding the mall which the mall has sucked the life out of. A night on the town in is a charming experience if you don't mind wading through ankle deep vomit, being sucked into the gravitational fields of numerous planetary-sized lycra-clad wobbling objects (the city's young ladies) and having the nagging sensation you might be set upon by skinheads (the city's young men).
You're probably going to hell after you die, and if you want a taste of what it's like before you depart this mortal coil, I highly reccommend a vist to Palmerston North.
Thursday, 5 May 2011
The next 20 years and your SUV Part II
Did you get the impression from my last post that I've got a bee in my bonnet about cars and oil and carbon dioxide and trains and planes etc etc etc. You'd be right, it does worry me. Global warming is nasty, but to be honest it's just a distraction from the real issue which is the reality that we're going to need to radically alter almost every aspect of the way we live to survive the end of cheap oil, but I'll get to that.
In my last post I gave the hydrogen economy a going over. Hydrogen doesn't work because the overall system doesn't work. In order to run cars on hydrogen we need to expend huge amounts of energy on producing and storing the hydrogen, when we could just use that energy more directly. This, along with various technical inconveniences, causes me to seriously doubt the feasibility of the whole concept.
Hang on a second, you might be thinking, oil isn't going to run out anytime soon, is it? Well, you'd be right. There is plenty of oil out there but there is a problem with it. The oil reserves which are easy to get at are rapidly depleting meaning the oil companies are having to scratch around looking for more oil in the most inconvenient of places. The classic example is the oil sands in Canada where relatively crappy oil is mixed in with huge amounts of... well... sand. Sure, they can get the oil out of the sand, but it only becomes economic to do so when the price at the pump is really high. You'll have noticed a particular Brazilian oil company is scouting around in NZ waters for oil. There is probably some there but I bet it ain't cheap to get it.
The other problem is that soaring demand (especially in Asia and the middle-East) is pushing prices up. Economists will try and reassure you that increasing demand will result in increased supply which will stabilise prices, but this theory assumes resources are unlimited which for oil is simply not the case (in my opinion, economists have a lot to answer for, but I'll attack them more rigorously at a later date). Increased demand and the inability to pump oil out of the ground at an increasing rate (something called 'peak oil' which you may have heard of), along with the rapid depletion of readily accessible oil reserves means one thing: continuously rising prices. And the consequence are beyond just the cost of filling up your gas tank because the world economy, and the paradigm of economic growth, relies entirely on cheap oil as I'll get around to explaining one of these days.
Let's take another example of propulsion touted to replace the oil-sucking internal combustion engine: the electric car. The biggest problem is exactly the same as for the hydrogen car: you've still go to get the energy to charge your battery from somewhere and, like it or not, most of the world's electricity is generated from burning hydrocarbons so you're unlikely to reduce carbon emissions. Even if we do find another source to charge up our batteries, we've still got to have batteries in the first place. Batteries are made from materials which themselves are limited in supply and the chances of replacing the world's car fleet with electric versions are very small indeed.
Biofuels are something I know less about, but to my knowledge they need to be heavily subsidised to make them even remotely economic. Growing feedstock for biofuel also displaces food crops and I, for one, will be none too happy if I have to go hungry so some tool can rumble around in his SUV (I use the masculine advisedly - only a male can feel insecure enough to drive one). Biofuels also have lower energy densities than conventional fuels, so that 5% ethanol/petrol mix is probably leaving you every so slightly short changed.
So, assuming there is no viable replacement for fossil fuels (and I happen to think that assumption is pretty good) then what will happen in the future to transportation? Being pessimistic, I used to think the Mad Max option would be the one humanity would "choose" but I've started to feel slightly more optimistic. I think a gradual reversion to the NZ lifestyle in the 1950s might be on the cards. People aren't going to give up their cars in a hurry, but gradually people will adjust their lifestyles to use them less*. Cars will also begin to look different. They'll get smaller and lighter for a start since most of the fuel we burn is spent carrying the car around, rather than its contents. It's possible that some of these will be electric or run on biofuels, but I'm picking this will be limited, and I don't give hydrogen much hope at all. You'll also fly a lot less (which is concerning for those of us in the aviation industry who think too much about these things, but just because you don't like the truth doesn't mean you can't accept it which a lot of people seem to have a problem with). Trains, buses and other forms of terrestrial public transport will become more widely used, which is why it would be sensible to start investing in public transport infrastructure now rather than chucking more money at roading (as an aside, and I like asides, why is it that people find it acceptable to chuck millions of dollars at roading which generates no direct revenue, yet it would be unacceptable for a state-owned rail company to run at a loss?). The lifestyle changes you'll have to make don't end at transport, but I'll talk about those another time.
I think I've rambled for too long and been less coherent than normal, so I'll leave it there, but I welcome your comments and abuse.
*With fuel at $2.20 per litre I've already started to do this. I probably use about 50 litres of fuel per month, at least in my car. This doesn't count the multitudinous litres I no doubt consume indirectly to support my hedonistic and opulent western lifestyle (incidentally the very lifestyle being coveted by the entire world population, give or take the membership of the Taliban and even they're keen on the Toyota Hilux apparently). It also doesn't count many hundreds of litres I'll burn on my way to Asia and back later this year. Let's say fuel hits $10 per litre ("Absurd" I hear you scoff? Well, in my late teens petrol was something like 70c per litre, so I wouldn't call an increase of five times over the next 10 years crazy): I'd be spending something like $6000 per year and most people would be spending a hell of a lot more. You'd think twice about driving too far.
In my last post I gave the hydrogen economy a going over. Hydrogen doesn't work because the overall system doesn't work. In order to run cars on hydrogen we need to expend huge amounts of energy on producing and storing the hydrogen, when we could just use that energy more directly. This, along with various technical inconveniences, causes me to seriously doubt the feasibility of the whole concept.
Hang on a second, you might be thinking, oil isn't going to run out anytime soon, is it? Well, you'd be right. There is plenty of oil out there but there is a problem with it. The oil reserves which are easy to get at are rapidly depleting meaning the oil companies are having to scratch around looking for more oil in the most inconvenient of places. The classic example is the oil sands in Canada where relatively crappy oil is mixed in with huge amounts of... well... sand. Sure, they can get the oil out of the sand, but it only becomes economic to do so when the price at the pump is really high. You'll have noticed a particular Brazilian oil company is scouting around in NZ waters for oil. There is probably some there but I bet it ain't cheap to get it.
The other problem is that soaring demand (especially in Asia and the middle-East) is pushing prices up. Economists will try and reassure you that increasing demand will result in increased supply which will stabilise prices, but this theory assumes resources are unlimited which for oil is simply not the case (in my opinion, economists have a lot to answer for, but I'll attack them more rigorously at a later date). Increased demand and the inability to pump oil out of the ground at an increasing rate (something called 'peak oil' which you may have heard of), along with the rapid depletion of readily accessible oil reserves means one thing: continuously rising prices. And the consequence are beyond just the cost of filling up your gas tank because the world economy, and the paradigm of economic growth, relies entirely on cheap oil as I'll get around to explaining one of these days.
Let's take another example of propulsion touted to replace the oil-sucking internal combustion engine: the electric car. The biggest problem is exactly the same as for the hydrogen car: you've still go to get the energy to charge your battery from somewhere and, like it or not, most of the world's electricity is generated from burning hydrocarbons so you're unlikely to reduce carbon emissions. Even if we do find another source to charge up our batteries, we've still got to have batteries in the first place. Batteries are made from materials which themselves are limited in supply and the chances of replacing the world's car fleet with electric versions are very small indeed.
Biofuels are something I know less about, but to my knowledge they need to be heavily subsidised to make them even remotely economic. Growing feedstock for biofuel also displaces food crops and I, for one, will be none too happy if I have to go hungry so some tool can rumble around in his SUV (I use the masculine advisedly - only a male can feel insecure enough to drive one). Biofuels also have lower energy densities than conventional fuels, so that 5% ethanol/petrol mix is probably leaving you every so slightly short changed.
So, assuming there is no viable replacement for fossil fuels (and I happen to think that assumption is pretty good) then what will happen in the future to transportation? Being pessimistic, I used to think the Mad Max option would be the one humanity would "choose" but I've started to feel slightly more optimistic. I think a gradual reversion to the NZ lifestyle in the 1950s might be on the cards. People aren't going to give up their cars in a hurry, but gradually people will adjust their lifestyles to use them less*. Cars will also begin to look different. They'll get smaller and lighter for a start since most of the fuel we burn is spent carrying the car around, rather than its contents. It's possible that some of these will be electric or run on biofuels, but I'm picking this will be limited, and I don't give hydrogen much hope at all. You'll also fly a lot less (which is concerning for those of us in the aviation industry who think too much about these things, but just because you don't like the truth doesn't mean you can't accept it which a lot of people seem to have a problem with). Trains, buses and other forms of terrestrial public transport will become more widely used, which is why it would be sensible to start investing in public transport infrastructure now rather than chucking more money at roading (as an aside, and I like asides, why is it that people find it acceptable to chuck millions of dollars at roading which generates no direct revenue, yet it would be unacceptable for a state-owned rail company to run at a loss?). The lifestyle changes you'll have to make don't end at transport, but I'll talk about those another time.
I think I've rambled for too long and been less coherent than normal, so I'll leave it there, but I welcome your comments and abuse.
*With fuel at $2.20 per litre I've already started to do this. I probably use about 50 litres of fuel per month, at least in my car. This doesn't count the multitudinous litres I no doubt consume indirectly to support my hedonistic and opulent western lifestyle (incidentally the very lifestyle being coveted by the entire world population, give or take the membership of the Taliban and even they're keen on the Toyota Hilux apparently). It also doesn't count many hundreds of litres I'll burn on my way to Asia and back later this year. Let's say fuel hits $10 per litre ("Absurd" I hear you scoff? Well, in my late teens petrol was something like 70c per litre, so I wouldn't call an increase of five times over the next 10 years crazy): I'd be spending something like $6000 per year and most people would be spending a hell of a lot more. You'd think twice about driving too far.
My introduction
My place of work is producing a booklet for the next trainee which includes a profile of each of the controllers. They made the mistake of asking us to write our own, which I did:
Paddles is (airport's name)'s is newest controller after rating early in 2011. He decided to become an ATC after receiving a dishonorable discharge from the elite Naval Seals Delta unit after “going rogue”. Paddles grew up in a remote “locality” in Southland famed for its inbreeding and goat wrestling tournaments. He lives in a small but bovine town in a delightful lime-green house resplendently clad in asbestos with his fiancée Lisa. He also invented the first loom for cut-pile carpets and was the first Homo sapiens sapiens to eat strawberries.
I'm sure they didn't want to hear I like walks on the beach and candlelit dinners. Why not make life interesting, and a little bit scary?
Lisa’s Hilarious Tomato Plant
Plants aren’t usually hilarious, but Lisa has a tomato plant which is at least mildly amusing. She was given a heritage tomato following a visit to the doctor and since then it would be fair to say that the tomato has struggled. Badly.
The plant consists of several woody sticks about 90cm high and derives its photosynthetic energy from seven leaves with a total surface area of 2.7 square millimetres. All of the leaves sprout from the same area of the plant and, remarkably, it has managed to produce a grand total of three tomatoes each at least three times the size of a proton.
Lisa dotes on the tomato although evidently her fingers are none too green. Despite my horticultural advice to the contrary, she potted the plant using soil that she dug up from behind our garden shed. I’m reasonably certain that the soil behind the shed has been liberally treated with herbicide since nothing will grow there except mutant slugs. There’s a fair chance our military landlords have employed some surplus supplies of defoliant from some ancient conflict for this purpose. DDT, Agent Orange or an emulsion of mercury and lead perhaps. Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure that eating the tomatoes will result in a pulpy liver, an inflamed spleen, the sprouting of extra digits or something of that nature. That’s alright, I don’t like tomatoes anyway.
The plant is extremely well fed with an assortment of foodstuffs which I’m not entirely convinced plants find nutritious. Crushed egg shells, whole roast chickens, walnut shells, copies of the Rangitikei Mail and coffee grinds representing Columbia’s entire annual output have been added at one time or another. Lisa’s grandmother has also advocated the liberal application of excrement and the generous (and daily) donations of our neighbour’s dog to our front lawn almost made it into the pot; however I was forced to put my foot down. And it wouldn't be the first time I'd used "excrement", "neighbour's dog" and "put my foot down" in the same sentence.
Always conscious of the dangers of dehydration, Lisa also ensures the tomato receives up to 2000 litres of fresh water daily. The plant is rotated at intervals of 27 minutes around the extensive grounds of our property to ensure its leaves are continuously washed in the pleasant breezes of the Manuwatu and bathed in its glorious sunlight.
That any tomatoes have grown at all is a testament to the tenacity of life under the most arduous of circumstances. I can only assume that the plant, realising (as far as a plant can "realise") that its life is ebbing away from it, has made a desperate bid to ensure its DNA’s continuity by devoting its meagre resources to fruiting.
To make matters worse, our neighbours also have a supremely neglected heritage tomato whose bountiful fruit are now rotting on their drive way. Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?
Lisa's tomato plant basking in the glorious Manuwatu sunshine
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
The next 20 years and your SUV Part I
Noticed how no one is talking about the hydrogen economy anymore? A couple of years ago we were told that within the next few decades we'd be topping up the SUV with environmentally loveable hydrogen without having to worry about destroying our planet or the rapacious foreign oil companies. Why is it that things have gone all quiet on the hydrogen front? I'll tell you why: because it was a damn stupid idea in the first place.
Let's start from the top. It is perfectly possible for an internal combustion engine to run on hydrogen. It'll combust just nicely with oxygen inside a cylinder producing the desired power output and (mostly) water vapour. No problems there. I'll tell you from experience that if you ask an engineer to do something (i.e. build a car that runs on hydrogen) he or she will go ahead and do it (assuming, of course, it doesn't violate any of the laws of physics). Ask an engineer to build a car that runs on human faeces and he'll churn something out given enough time and sufficient resources. This doesn't mean we should propose a shit-based economy though.
Hydrogen has basically killed itself off because the overall hydrogen economy system doesn't add up. The problem is that hydrogen isn't an energy source, it's just an energy storage medium (and, as we shall see, not a very good one). It's just like a battery - a way of holding energy. You can't dig hydrogen out of the ground, grow it in a field or otherwise make it magically materialise, you've got to produce it. There are two options here. The first is that you can separate it from a hydrocarbon (i.e. methane gas or coal which you CAN find in the ground), but why not just burn the hydrocarbon in the first place? The second option is to produce it by separating the hydrogen from the oxygen in good old fashioned water. That sounds promising! Water is readily available and pretty harmless, right? The problem is it takes energy to extract the hydrogen from the water and, thanks to the inconvenient (and immutable) laws of thermodynamics, it takes more energy to do this than you'll get out of the hydrogen when you burn it (in fact thermodynamics burns us twice here: internal combustion engines are only about 20% efficient so most of the energy in the hydrogen you produced at great energy expense gets lost anyway, and as much as you might try you'll never get an engine which is even close to 100% efficient - look up "Carnot efficiency" if you're curious). And where do we get this energy from? Chances are you'll be burning some coal.
The other inconvenient truth about hydrogen is that it remains a gas unless it is cooled to very low temperatures and held at very high pressures. Not only does cooling and pressurising stuff take a lot of energy, it also makes it something you don't really want to strap underneath your toddler and newborn on your way to plunket. Also, I beg of you to note hydrogen's position on the periodic table. You will observe that it is the smallest of the elements and thus, I think you'll find, it is rather difficult to contain. Try transporting your flour around in a sieve and you'll get an idea of what is going to happen. Note also a phenomenon one learns about in Materials Science 101 in any good engineering course: hydrogen embrittlement. Hydrogen has the nasty side-effect of causing steel to become brittle. Boom.
When all is said and done, the hydrogen-economy just doesn't make sense. You're not likely to be seeing hydrogen replace good old-fashioned oil any time soon. Or ever.
The thing is, before we jump on a particular future transportation bandwagon we have to actually look at the whole system to see if it works, not just whether a particular component is technically possible. The system is all important. In my next rant, I promise to talk about some of the other proposed alternatives to oil, why they don't work as systems and to introduce the rather disturbing concept that maybe, just maybe, we might have to abandon the idea that in 20 years time we'll be all whizzing around in cars running on a magical elixir other than oil-derivatives.
Let's start from the top. It is perfectly possible for an internal combustion engine to run on hydrogen. It'll combust just nicely with oxygen inside a cylinder producing the desired power output and (mostly) water vapour. No problems there. I'll tell you from experience that if you ask an engineer to do something (i.e. build a car that runs on hydrogen) he or she will go ahead and do it (assuming, of course, it doesn't violate any of the laws of physics). Ask an engineer to build a car that runs on human faeces and he'll churn something out given enough time and sufficient resources. This doesn't mean we should propose a shit-based economy though.
Hydrogen has basically killed itself off because the overall hydrogen economy system doesn't add up. The problem is that hydrogen isn't an energy source, it's just an energy storage medium (and, as we shall see, not a very good one). It's just like a battery - a way of holding energy. You can't dig hydrogen out of the ground, grow it in a field or otherwise make it magically materialise, you've got to produce it. There are two options here. The first is that you can separate it from a hydrocarbon (i.e. methane gas or coal which you CAN find in the ground), but why not just burn the hydrocarbon in the first place? The second option is to produce it by separating the hydrogen from the oxygen in good old fashioned water. That sounds promising! Water is readily available and pretty harmless, right? The problem is it takes energy to extract the hydrogen from the water and, thanks to the inconvenient (and immutable) laws of thermodynamics, it takes more energy to do this than you'll get out of the hydrogen when you burn it (in fact thermodynamics burns us twice here: internal combustion engines are only about 20% efficient so most of the energy in the hydrogen you produced at great energy expense gets lost anyway, and as much as you might try you'll never get an engine which is even close to 100% efficient - look up "Carnot efficiency" if you're curious). And where do we get this energy from? Chances are you'll be burning some coal.
The other inconvenient truth about hydrogen is that it remains a gas unless it is cooled to very low temperatures and held at very high pressures. Not only does cooling and pressurising stuff take a lot of energy, it also makes it something you don't really want to strap underneath your toddler and newborn on your way to plunket. Also, I beg of you to note hydrogen's position on the periodic table. You will observe that it is the smallest of the elements and thus, I think you'll find, it is rather difficult to contain. Try transporting your flour around in a sieve and you'll get an idea of what is going to happen. Note also a phenomenon one learns about in Materials Science 101 in any good engineering course: hydrogen embrittlement. Hydrogen has the nasty side-effect of causing steel to become brittle. Boom.
When all is said and done, the hydrogen-economy just doesn't make sense. You're not likely to be seeing hydrogen replace good old-fashioned oil any time soon. Or ever.
The thing is, before we jump on a particular future transportation bandwagon we have to actually look at the whole system to see if it works, not just whether a particular component is technically possible. The system is all important. In my next rant, I promise to talk about some of the other proposed alternatives to oil, why they don't work as systems and to introduce the rather disturbing concept that maybe, just maybe, we might have to abandon the idea that in 20 years time we'll be all whizzing around in cars running on a magical elixir other than oil-derivatives.
It begins...
For too long now you have languished in the oppressive state of not being able to hear my opinion on, well, all sorts of stuff. I felt inspired today reading my 18th favourite blog (theendisnaenae.blogspot.com) to create one of my own and here it is. There will be no set topic, but I'll rant and rave about the various bandwagons I've nimbly leapt upon. So, here goes...
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