As I have written elsewhere, bureaucracies have a ponderous inertia that slows the commencement of any project and slows its cessation once the project proves to be ineffective or counterproductive. Take the drive by many politicians and their bureaucratic agents to change the energy structure of the United States, for example. The goal of agencies since the Clinton Administration (under Al Gore) has been to become carbon neutral in an effort to “save the planet” from a presumed ineluctable global warming. Set aside the assumption that “global warming” will be universally “bad” for a moment, and look instead at the assumptions regarding alternative energy as the path to a cooler Earth.
Think balloons. Think blimps. Think hydrogen. Clean fuel for a cooler planet. But is it? As with all bureaucratic endeavors, I ask, “What could go wrong?”
Take “blue” hydrogen as a model “alternative fuel.” Start with a molecule of methane (CH4) and an oxygen molecule (O2, the stuff you breathe). Get them to react, and walla! Two molecules of hydrogen (H2) and one molecule of carbon dioxide (CO2). Burn the hydrogen for energy and get only two byproducts, water and heat (I know, but where does the heat go?). And then there’s that nasty carbon dioxide stuff, that other byproduct that plants love. You can’t release it into the atmosphere, can you? After all, isn’t that what global warming is all about? Isn’t that the villain, the cause?
The race to acquire a “blue” hydrogen energy supply has already begun. The goal is a carbon-free alternative energy. But there’s a problem in running to that goal. Along the way every promising Achilles has to stop to account for the energy required to produce the alternative energy. There’s a cost to all human endeavors, and in forming “blue” hydrogen, the cost lies storing both the blue hydrogen and the carbon dioxide produced by that reaction between methane and oxygen. And there’s an addition cost in building a new or repurposing an old delivery system for the hydrogen. Use natural gas pipelines? Okay, but would leakage be a problem?
There’s also the cost of storing the hydrogen, which, in your experience poses two problems: The Hindenburg flammability and the party balloon leakage (hydrogen is, if you recall, a very light atom, the lightest, in fact, one capable of escaping the decorative mylar skin of the party balloon}. So, there are two storage problems: First, there’s that nasty carbon dioxide derived from the reaction that must be sequestered forever so it won’t enter the atmosphere, and second, there’s that escape-artist hydrogen that is tough to store, even in deep salt mines. And then, of course, there’s the question of transport: In pipes? In trucks or trains? Third, there’s that matter of converting vehicles into little Hindenbergs that in many of the six million car accidents per year in the US will result in “Oh! The humanity!”
What’s a politician to do? What’s a bureaucrat to do? They keep running after the tortoise of planetary change only to find that as they close the gap, a gap still remains. Zeno’s paradox: To beat a tortoise in a race when the tortoise has a head start, Achilles must run half the distance to the tortoise, and then as the tortoise moves, half again that distance, and so on, ad infinitum. And during the race Achilles must overcome not the ever-decreasing yer ever-present gaps, but he must also overcome the excess baggage of his tactics, using, for example, as much energy to produce the clean energy as the clean energy yields or constructing and maintaining a reservoir for an ever-increasing amount of byproduct carbon.
Let’s throw money, tax money, into making blue hydrogen. Lot’s of money. What could go wrong? Of course, when the count of true costs emerges somewhere along the race track, that is, when Achilles sees he can’t catch the tortoise regardless of his greater energy output, it will be too late to withdraw. Pride will be at stake. Achilles can’t give up. That would be an admission of failure. He’ll run a losing race just for the sake of pride. The slow, pondering tortoise of planetary change will continue, moving variably faster or slower, but always staying ahead by half, and then half of that, and then half of that…
So, the politicians and their bureaucratic agents keep running, and those of us on the side of the race track keep providing them with the food they need for the race. Along the course are those who cheer them on, oblivious to the futility of their favorite champion’s efforts and to the costs to themselves.
We’ve tried much, haven’t we? We have turned our food into fuel, for example, by making ethanol from corn to add to our gasoline. Note that we subsidize ethanol production. Note that it takes more than two and a half tons of corn to produce 320 gallons of ethanol. Note that it takes 131,000 Btus to make one gallon of ethanol that yields only 77,000 Btus (Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology, 2009). Note that subsidies continue to run because the inertia of bureaucracy under the direction of politicians can’t be stopped.
Achilles keeps gathering mass as he runs, also, much like a subatomic particle accelerated toward the speed of light. The faster he tries to run to overtake the tortoise, the more mass he accumulates, and the more the gap changes. Want to produce blue hydrogen with solar power? Sounds like a good idea. Ought to make catching the tortoise easier, but there are still those weighty byproducts. In about 20 years there will be over 700,000 tons of windmill blades in landfills. Right now only 5% of car electric batteries are recycled. Solar panels have only about a 30-year life. ** Then what? More landfill debris? Certainly, we couldn’t put it where we grow our corn though who cares whether or not corn for ethanol is polluted? (What about the purity of water supplies? No doubt there will be funds allotted for a cleanup)
Apparently, planetary changes are tortoises that win races against the best of our political and bureaucratic heroes. Apparently, too, inertia keeps them in the race. But they all had ample warning on the odds of winning the race. Zeno wrote his paradox about Achilles and the tortoise 2,500 years ago. Still, they keep on running…
*Cornel University. 12 Aug 2021. Touted as clean, ‘blue’ hydrogen may be worse than gas, goal. TechXplore. Online at https://techxplore.com/news/2021-08-touted-blue-hydrogen-worse-gas.html. Accessed September 10, 2021.
**Atasu, Atalay, Serasu Duran, and Luk N. Van Wassenhove. 18 Jun 2021. The Dark Side of Solar Power. Harvard Business Review. Online at https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power Accessed September 10, 2021.
Think balloons. Think blimps. Think hydrogen. Clean fuel for a cooler planet. But is it? As with all bureaucratic endeavors, I ask, “What could go wrong?”
Take “blue” hydrogen as a model “alternative fuel.” Start with a molecule of methane (CH4) and an oxygen molecule (O2, the stuff you breathe). Get them to react, and walla! Two molecules of hydrogen (H2) and one molecule of carbon dioxide (CO2). Burn the hydrogen for energy and get only two byproducts, water and heat (I know, but where does the heat go?). And then there’s that nasty carbon dioxide stuff, that other byproduct that plants love. You can’t release it into the atmosphere, can you? After all, isn’t that what global warming is all about? Isn’t that the villain, the cause?
The race to acquire a “blue” hydrogen energy supply has already begun. The goal is a carbon-free alternative energy. But there’s a problem in running to that goal. Along the way every promising Achilles has to stop to account for the energy required to produce the alternative energy. There’s a cost to all human endeavors, and in forming “blue” hydrogen, the cost lies storing both the blue hydrogen and the carbon dioxide produced by that reaction between methane and oxygen. And there’s an addition cost in building a new or repurposing an old delivery system for the hydrogen. Use natural gas pipelines? Okay, but would leakage be a problem?
There’s also the cost of storing the hydrogen, which, in your experience poses two problems: The Hindenburg flammability and the party balloon leakage (hydrogen is, if you recall, a very light atom, the lightest, in fact, one capable of escaping the decorative mylar skin of the party balloon}. So, there are two storage problems: First, there’s that nasty carbon dioxide derived from the reaction that must be sequestered forever so it won’t enter the atmosphere, and second, there’s that escape-artist hydrogen that is tough to store, even in deep salt mines. And then, of course, there’s the question of transport: In pipes? In trucks or trains? Third, there’s that matter of converting vehicles into little Hindenbergs that in many of the six million car accidents per year in the US will result in “Oh! The humanity!”
What’s a politician to do? What’s a bureaucrat to do? They keep running after the tortoise of planetary change only to find that as they close the gap, a gap still remains. Zeno’s paradox: To beat a tortoise in a race when the tortoise has a head start, Achilles must run half the distance to the tortoise, and then as the tortoise moves, half again that distance, and so on, ad infinitum. And during the race Achilles must overcome not the ever-decreasing yer ever-present gaps, but he must also overcome the excess baggage of his tactics, using, for example, as much energy to produce the clean energy as the clean energy yields or constructing and maintaining a reservoir for an ever-increasing amount of byproduct carbon.
Let’s throw money, tax money, into making blue hydrogen. Lot’s of money. What could go wrong? Of course, when the count of true costs emerges somewhere along the race track, that is, when Achilles sees he can’t catch the tortoise regardless of his greater energy output, it will be too late to withdraw. Pride will be at stake. Achilles can’t give up. That would be an admission of failure. He’ll run a losing race just for the sake of pride. The slow, pondering tortoise of planetary change will continue, moving variably faster or slower, but always staying ahead by half, and then half of that, and then half of that…
So, the politicians and their bureaucratic agents keep running, and those of us on the side of the race track keep providing them with the food they need for the race. Along the course are those who cheer them on, oblivious to the futility of their favorite champion’s efforts and to the costs to themselves.
We’ve tried much, haven’t we? We have turned our food into fuel, for example, by making ethanol from corn to add to our gasoline. Note that we subsidize ethanol production. Note that it takes more than two and a half tons of corn to produce 320 gallons of ethanol. Note that it takes 131,000 Btus to make one gallon of ethanol that yields only 77,000 Btus (Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology, 2009). Note that subsidies continue to run because the inertia of bureaucracy under the direction of politicians can’t be stopped.
Achilles keeps gathering mass as he runs, also, much like a subatomic particle accelerated toward the speed of light. The faster he tries to run to overtake the tortoise, the more mass he accumulates, and the more the gap changes. Want to produce blue hydrogen with solar power? Sounds like a good idea. Ought to make catching the tortoise easier, but there are still those weighty byproducts. In about 20 years there will be over 700,000 tons of windmill blades in landfills. Right now only 5% of car electric batteries are recycled. Solar panels have only about a 30-year life. ** Then what? More landfill debris? Certainly, we couldn’t put it where we grow our corn though who cares whether or not corn for ethanol is polluted? (What about the purity of water supplies? No doubt there will be funds allotted for a cleanup)
Apparently, planetary changes are tortoises that win races against the best of our political and bureaucratic heroes. Apparently, too, inertia keeps them in the race. But they all had ample warning on the odds of winning the race. Zeno wrote his paradox about Achilles and the tortoise 2,500 years ago. Still, they keep on running…
*Cornel University. 12 Aug 2021. Touted as clean, ‘blue’ hydrogen may be worse than gas, goal. TechXplore. Online at https://techxplore.com/news/2021-08-touted-blue-hydrogen-worse-gas.html. Accessed September 10, 2021.
**Atasu, Atalay, Serasu Duran, and Luk N. Van Wassenhove. 18 Jun 2021. The Dark Side of Solar Power. Harvard Business Review. Online at https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power Accessed September 10, 2021.
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