It appears that is has finally happened, there are no longer any people doing any work. Not quite that, but getting closer every day. It has finally gotten to the point where it is almost impossible to contact a person in an office, all you can do is surf through the computer automated menu systems in the hopes of stumbling upon whatever it is that you are attempting to do. For example, once upon a time it was possible to call the County building department to ask a question – no longer. Now it is all about menu upon menu upon menu, but no people involved. I just spent an hour attempting to find out how to talk to a person that could help me figure out what permits might be needed for some repairs that I want to make. All I really wanted to know at first is where I could do that – you know, simple things like the right department, right organization, and who knows – maybe an address out of the dozens of possibilities.
After almost an hour of searching through their long and extremely slow menus I found a place to contact a person – but of course there was no person there, only a voice message to leave my permit number and they will call back. Of course I have no permit number, that is what I want to get. I did stumble upon an on-line way to stand in line at the office to talk to a person. However, there is no indication of which office I could stand in line at, where that might be located, and if that office might be one where I could find information that I need.
This menu system is simple to navigate because it only has a few dozen paths to check out. What happens with the medical menu systems is truly awful because there are very few clues about which path to follow and it is exceedingly difficult to find even a place where they promise to call back (but usually don’t).
All of these menus have turned what is normally a 3 minute phone call into several hours at a time. If you need to do anything at all complex, it is easy to spend five to six hours a day listening to God-awful voice menu messages, almost all of which are not useful at all. Rather than being able to find about a specific service you have to wait through menus to get to menus to get to other menus – which often lead to nowhere. Is this the grand new future of AI? Is this where we get when the machines “assist” us instead of allowing people to help people?
Business and government are doing all that they can to get rid of as many “non-essential” services as possible. This means as many as can be eliminated by machines, moving the costs of using these cost savings to the customer/citizen. Instead of hiring people, they are making horrible automated systems whose main purpose is to shield people from being bothered by the people who use and pay for the services. And what happens to all of those “non-essential” people? They lose their jobs, their income and their security. They learn to live under bridges with their broken down shopping carts.
Why are we allowing this to happen? I understand the reason for businesses and governments to do this – they want to reduce costs and increase profits. That is simple. However, I doubt if it actually reduces any costs once you look at the entire system (homelessness, need for support from government agencies, lack of access to essential services such as health care, lack of feeling important, etc). The cost for putting people out of work has to land somewhere – usually with the individuals, their social network, and government.
It isn’t as if all of these people can just go to a different job – in most cases (or on the overall point of view) there are no “different” jobs. It seems to me that we need to be adding slots for people to provide important services as we rapidly automate our entire economic system, not just continue to put people out of work when a new machine or AI invention makes the person non-essential. We need to find important things for people to do regardless of whether a machine is less expensive or not. Do we really want to just have machines because they cost less? Don’t we know that it is more important to have a society that works together than to just make a lot of cheap things and cheap services that don’t actually work?
I am confused about where we are headed, and what is cause us to make the decisions that we make with regard to the relationship between people and machines. Machines (including computers) keep getting more cleaver about filling our (humanity’s) slots. Everywhere you look jobs and opportunities for people are being eliminated by machines, but no alternate opportunities are provided. The people are just discarded. We can discard machines, but what does it mean to discard people? How can this possibly be a good thing? What can, or should, we do about this? It isn’t like the substitution of machines for people reduce costs to the end user – those stay the same. However, they DO increase profits for corporations.
I find it interesting to watch the progression of the development of my understanding and points of view. I seem to jump around in a lifetime of education, touching on a topic that makes very little sense, only to find it popping up in another totally unexpected context that brings me back to the start with a very different point of view and insight into the original topic. That just happened to me, once again.
My deepening understanding of the concept of “consilience” as suggested by Edward O. Wilson began with a chance encounter with an old guy in a funky little bar-and-grill in the town of Davis, California. I like this particular venue because it draws from an extremely diverse group of people. Being in a major university town, there are students of various flavors – from the arts to the sciences, from freshmen to post doctorate fellows – there are professors, politicians, and a range of “working class” folks including carpenters, electricians, plumbers, arborists, building contractors, ranches, farmers, etc. The conversations are varied and always interesting.
One day about five years ago I sat next to a guy named Dr. Gerald A Cory, Jr. Dr. Cory’s varied and interesting background of being an author, senior military intelligence officer, a high tech corporate CEO “Legend of Silicon Valley”, a Rock-and-Roll impresario, a university professor and president, and others really caught my attention. He is just the kind of guy I really enjoy talking to.
We started our conversation around the topic of economics – one that I am interested in, but one that I am best described as an interested amateur. Dr. Cory has written many books on the topic, priced far outside of my budget. Being interested in hearing more of what he has to say on the topic, I purchased one of his books out of curiosity, “Delusions of Economics and The Way Forward.” The discussion of economics theory quickly turned to a new topic for me that he called “consilience,” referencing Edward O. Wilson’s book “Consilience and the Unity of Knowledge.” The general idea is that decisions should be made that are in consilience (alignment) with the total environment that they are related to. For example, when considering the creation of new shopping center the design needs to align with the needs of not only the owners and investors – it needs to also in alignment with the needs of the customers, the local community, the environment, the global economic situation, safety, law enforcement, community planning, etc. This use of the term seems reasonable, and partially implemented. However, there are obviously situations where ALL interested parties are satisfied with the results. In the case of the shopping center, it seems that the decisions made based upon the desires of a few – ignoring the collateral damage to most in the name of “progress.” The small critters (frogs, bugs, insects, etc) and generally left out of the picture, as are the community members whose town will be transformed into something very different. I found it all an interesting idea, but one that seems pretty utopian and unworkable – so I set the idea aside to perhaps be revisited in the future.
A couple of weeks ago my local librarian handed me a book that she thought I might be interested in. The author described a biologist whose specialty was the study of ants, Edward O. Wilson! That caught my attention, what is the connection between ants and the economics with regard to consilience? So, I found myself re-reading Wilson’s book on consilience.
While the book is only a little over 300 pages long, it was a very slow read as I attempted to follow the author’s arguments. I probably missed most of the nuances, but found myself asking new questions that have been churning in the back of my mind, but never clearly articulated.
Part of Wilson’s argument hinges on the idea of evolution being a means for modifying organisms to fit within the environment that they find themselves (sometimes called survival of the fittest). The basic idea is that there are many environmental niches that have been filled by organisms evolving over millions of years. The niches range in scale from tiny spaces with unique characteristics, to communities, to large land masses, to the entire world. At any moment in time, all of the organisms have evolved to the point of being “fit” for their environment. I don’t wish to fill in all of the details of his arguments here because of a lack of time and space, so I am just making the statement that organisms have evolved to “fit” in their environment. Some of their behavioral adoptions can perhaps be termed “instincts.” They make decisions based upon instincts and built-in biological processes.
Depending upon instincts worked fine until along came man. Man is different because man thinks in an entirely different way than other organisms. Man has evolved a brain that sets him aside from other animals by being able to think, abstract, and plan. (There is some evidence that Man isn’t totally unique in the ability to “think,” plan, and execute based upon thinking – but the differences between humans and other creatures are overwhelming and striking.)
I wonder if this is the result of having a complex language. My thought is that when “human nature” included the overwhelming use of language to communicate the nature of man changed. I think the use of language to communicate to others and ourselves allows us to do the things that are so very different from every other species. It is like the Bible says, “in the beginning there was the word..” The beginning of humanity was when we learned to talk (to ourselves and others).
I think that Wilson’s overall thesis is that if we want to “get it right” with regard to how we treat the world we will have do so in ways that are “consilient” with human nature. He says (and I agree) that if we keep doing things the way we are we will destroy the very world environment that we have evolved to fit into. We got to be the way that we are because we evolved to be successful in the environment that was present at that time. It took hundreds of thousands (actually millions) of years for us to be who we are, as is the case for every other living organism on the earth. It takes a similar amount of time to change to be adapted to a new environment. We are changing the global environment so quickly that millions of organisms (perhaps including ourselves) can’t change fast enough to cope with the change. He says (and once again, I agree) that the only solution is to stop changing the environment in ways that are lethal and unsustainable. We need to settle down and align our ways with who we (and nature) really are.
That brings up the question of, “what is human nature?” How can we know when we are in consilience with our inherited nature, or when we are in violation of that nature. We are learning a lot of this through science. For example, it appears that it is “human nature” to crave sweet foods. However, what we do with our mind is create “super sweet” foods such as high fructose corn sugar that are incompatible with our biochemistry, but “hit” the sweet spot of our craving for a high energy food. Another example is our apparently craving to accumulate “things” as a hedge against the future. We store tools, food, money, and other things during good times so we can ride out the bad. That seems to be “human nature” similar to squirrels storing nuts for the future – however, it gets out of hand and become destructive when we do that too much. Accumulating billions of dollars clearly has no survival value for the individual, and it does great harm to society. The urge to accumulate has gotten out of hand by a few, or perhaps by most. The urge results We can go down the list of things that we associate with “greed” at the business or corporate level, these are many of the things that are destroying our planet. The point is that our most destructive tendencies seem to be involve with an out-of-control fulfilling desires based upon “human nature.”
This line of reasoning brings Wilson to the following position: “Where are our deepest roots? We are, it seems, Old World, catarrhine primates, brilliant emergent animals, defined genetically by our unique origins, blessed by our newfound biological genius, and secure in our homeland if we wish to make it so. What does it all mean? This is what it all means. To the extent that we depend on prosthetic devices to keep ourselves and the biosphere alive, we will render everything fragile. To the extent that we banish the rest of life, we will impoverish our own species for all time.” (Note: Examples of a “prosthetic device” are depending upon fertilizer made from ancient oil to “fix” our depleted agricultural soils or draining the ancient non-renewable aquifers. There are many, many instances were we are using short term un-sustainable solutions for long term problems.)
Other than once again scaring the daylights out of me, the idea of my achieving consilience with my “human nature” is an interesting topic. One example that I have been attempting to practice involves my eating habits. Many years ago I decided to “control” my weight by paying attention to my cravings, rather than following a “diet” plan. My goal is to become sensitive enough to my inner cravings to select the right things and quantities to eat, For example, I used to be in the “clean plate” club where I ate whatever was on my plate. This resulted in my consistently overeating, especially at restaurants. Instead, I now try eat a little slower so I have time to pay attention to my craving to continue eating, instead I just stop when I have had enough. I don’t know if it helps my weight, but I feel better after dinner with this approach and it has never felt like I was missing anything. That approach extends to selecting what “feels” right off of the menu instead of what “looks” good.
This idea of watching for when the cravings die away extends to many aspects of our lives. Instead of continually striving to store more money away, I try to watch what it “feels like” with my income/spending. When it felt that I had enough to be safe in the future, I stopped accumulating wealth. I could have continued to do so through continued contracts for my work, or through paying more attention to my investments – but that comes at the cost of not doing other things I want to do (fulfilling different cravings). So I just stopped making money. If I want to work on a project to help someone I elect to do it for free. That is more fun, doesn’t feel so desperate, and doesn’t feel like I am trapped. In a previous blog I mentioned the importance of performing something like a potlatch. A potlatch involves giving away or destroying wealth or valuable items in order to reaffirm family, clan, and international connections, and the human connection with the supernatural world. As a child, I did a small scale potlatch when I emptied my bag of marbles onto the playground once I had accumulated too many. That action returned the marbles to others so that we could continue to play the game. I had no need for a bag full of marbles if there was nobody to play the game with.
I wonder what aspects of “human nature” (evolution created “drives” or “urges”) influence our behaviors, and what could be done to honor them without destroying ourselves or our biosphere. Can we envision a world where those basic cravings are met, but not over achieved. Is there a way that we can relax into being happy and comfortable with “enough” instead of becoming fixated on getting more of it, whatever “it” might be? Is there a way to understand that being “rich” means having enough? It seems that the “primitive” human knows when more is needed and when there is “enough” – but the “modern” human (the one with a language) always wants more. Can we find a solution that satisfies both? That would be the consilient solution, otherwise we seem to be marching toward a very bad future – is the present situation worth the cost of the inevitable future if we don’t change our ways?
A few days ago my local librarian handed me an interesting book called “The Blue Machine – How the Ocean Works” by Helen Czerski. (My librarian knows I am interested in many of those “other” books that often sit for years unread.) Czerski wrote an amazing book, full of interesting and critically important information about the oceans of the world – and did it in a way that is easily accessible and fun to read. At over 400 pages it isn’t a “short” book, and being a serious book about science isn’t necessarily simple to read and comprehend, but the author is nice enough to throw in fascinating, and often humorous, bits of detail that goes a long way toward avoiding the “snooze factor.”
The book is organized to bring the necessary information to the reader as it is needed to build up the entire story promised by the title. The book is broken into three major parts, “What is the Blue Machine?”, “Traveling the Blue Machine,” and “The Blue Machine and Us”. She presents a detailed description of an amazing “machine” – the oceans of the world. After a fascinating discussion of these important aspcects of the ocean, she finally brings the whole back around to the question of what does that all mean to us, and what might the future be like should we continue treating it as we have in the past (and present), or hopefully when we wake up and take actions to protect OUR future. The book has a very definite “environmental” agenda aimed at “saving the oceans” – but not in a demanding or angry way, Czerski merely describes what is there, how it is changing, and what is likely to happen should we continue treating it as a dumping ground for our wastes and an infinite resource for what we would like to take from it. Great book!
For me, there were some really eye opening discussions about things that should be obvious, but that I had not paid attention to. I found one paragraph particularly enlightening, and rather sobering at the same time. I normally don’t add long quotes to my blogs, but in this case I think the message is important enough to make an exception. This comes from a section discussing how “global warming” is impacting the oceans, and therefore the Earth.
“Tracking the total amount of heat in the ocean is one way to create a planetary thermometer, and it’s showing a steady rise.
But this extra heat isn’t just sitting in storage, parked on a shelf in the back of the ocean equivalent of a cupboard. The extra energy enters the ocean at the top as heat, so the surface waters – the warm mixed layer – are heating up faster than the layers further down. We have seen that a critical feature of the ocean is the set of systems that bring nutrients up from the cold depths towards the sunlight, so that phytoplankton can turn them into the materials of life. But a warmer surface layer makes it much harder for deep nutrients held in cold water to be mixed upwards into the sunlight, because the layering is stronger and harder to overcome. This reduces the raw material for life up in the sunlight, so the whole ecosystem is put under stress. Stronger stratification means that there’s less exchange within the ocean engine for everything: heat, gases, nutrients and more, starving the ocean’s internal interactions for material. The addition of extra heat at the surface is reinforcing the layered structure and therefore acting as a brake on the vertical turning over of the blue machine. A warmer ocean can also feed more energy into the atmosphere, changing weather patterns and making storms more intense. The impact can be particularly sever in the tropic, whee hurricanes and typhoons often hit poor communities that lack resilient infrastructure.”
This is yet one more description of why the problems with global warming aren’t just things getting hotter, it is that the mechanisms keeping the earth’s balances stable are getting undermined. It appears that many parts of “the system” are balanced a bit like a pencil standing on its point, rather than a pendulum hanging from a string. The pendulum is in dynamic equilibrium, push it to one side and it automatically returns to the center. A pencil standing on it point is a very different situation. Push it to one side and it falls. It seems like there might be some really important aspects of the ecosystem that behave more like the pencil and less like a pendulum. We should be VERY careful with how we change things.
Last year the California Public Utilities Commission (CAPUC) ruled that the current rate structure for residential solar is “unfair” for those that don’t have solar. Apparently, those who are too “poor” to afford solar have been subsidizing the cost of electricity for those who are “rich” enough to install solar. Their argument didn’t include things like the ongoing California subsidy program that provides lower income folks with free solar installations, or consider the fact that the “poor” folks are exactly those that could have benefited the most from lower utility bills associated with installing solar. Lower income homeowners can get solar for free. Perhaps the concern is that renters can’t easily reap the economic benefits of solar because landlords aren’t likely to invest in solar and pass the savings along to them. Actually, I don’t think there is actually a concern about “fairness for the poor” – rather it is about increased profits for the utilities. Solar installations are finally becoming numerous enough that it is impacting the economic model for the utilities, it is no longer just a nuisance, it is changing their business model. Luckily for them, the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is packed with commissioners coming directly from the utilities who agree that big utility businesses really should get a larger share of the reduced costs for solar power.
The new rate structure reduces the value of “extra” power produced by residential solar installations during periods of excess production – a reduction of approximately 75% from previous rate schedules. An important feature of the old (NEM 2.0) rate schedule was that extra power was delivered to the utility by running the meter backward. Thus a kilowatt delivered to the utility in the middle of the day could be “used” to offset a kilowatt of power used at night (or at a different time of the year). The idea was to “loan” the utility some power until you needed it later. This is known as “net metering.” This approach caused all sorts of complications because of the different rate schedules between day and night use, the utilities “bought” high valued day time power and sold it as low valued night time power, giving them a substantial (letting them make about 24% on the cost of the “loan”) profit from the transaction but apparently this was not sufficient. [For example. A common Time of Use rate is $0.63/kWhr during the day when extra solar is produced and $0.51/kWhr off peak during the night, giving them a 124% markup on power provided by residential customer owned systems.]
The new rate structure reduces the financial advantage of solar power, extending the “pay back” period for solar installations, therefore resulted in a huge reduction in the number of new solar installations. What was a “good deal” for the utilities and the homeowners has now become a great deal for the utilities and not such a good investment for homeowners. Too many people were enjoying the benefits of locally produced solar electricity. The impact can be seen in the graph showing residential solar applications over time (the new law come into effect in April 2023). The reduction from an average of about 20,000 installations per month to perhaps 1,000 per month represents a major loss of jobs for installers, a huge loss of sales for equipment providers, and a potential loss in renewable energy (supposedly an important goal for California).
The “problem” that they were trying to “fix” is that since the cost of the utility infrastructure (the cost for things related to transmitting the power) is embedded in the cost of purchasing a kW of power, those that don’t use kWs because they zero out their annual usage through solar net metering don’t pay for the cost of the infrastructure. This is a real consideration that demands a solution as the percentage of renewable solar increases. I don’t deny the problem, but I disagree with their solution. The cost of maintaining the electrical grid infrastructure needs to be paid for.
The cost of a kW of electricity includes much more than just the cost of power, there are other costs such as the cost of transmission, distribution, cost of public purposes (free energy conservation classes for example), nuclear decommissioning, and others. In California it is illegal for utilities to markup the cost of power, the utilities purchase power on the wholesale market, selling it for the wholesale price plus the additional costs of transmission, distribution, maintenance and others (plus a profit on these additional items) in order to determine the retail value. I consider some of the extra costs to be highly questionable. One example of this is the bill to pay for the future decommissioning of defunct nuclear power plants. It seems to me those costs should have be included in the cost of power from them. Removing the cost of decommissioning those plants from the “cost” of operations biases the determination of whether or not nuclear power plants are economically viable. The cost for “power” is a small percentage of the overall cost of power to the customer.
So yes, there is an inequality embedded in their rate structure because net metering customers might not directly pay for the services that they enjoy. Perhaps the price differential between peak power rates and off-peak power rates isn’t sufficient to pay for all of the services. That would be an interesting thing to find out, but as far as I have been able to ascertain the CaPUC made no attempt to determine if there is an actual inequality or not because they didn’t investigate the impact of the differential between electricity’s value when produced at peak periods but used at off-peak periods.
It seems to me that a better solution than embedding the costs of delivery into the cost of a kW of power is to bill for the cost of the infrastructure separately from the cost of kW. For example, the infrastructure to support a 100 amp service costs x amount per month, while the infrastructure to support a 200 amp service costs 2x. The bill should reflect the actual cost of power plus the actual cost of providing the necessary infrastructure to deliver that power. However, determining how to partition the infrastructure costs isn’t obvious. Transmission, distribution and maintenance costs seem to be fairly fixed across the entire utility grid. Poles, wires and crews cost about the same regardless of how much an individual house uses. Maybe the solution would be a load based fee for everyone that hooks up. If a large industrial user requires special upgraded service, then they should pay for that as an “extra” cost. It seems fair for every customer pay a uniform basic “hook up fee” that covers the cost of the shared infrastructure. Costs for the power should be a separate fee on top of that.
The approach of changing from the infrastructure separate from the cost of power would result in everyone paying for the infrastructure. This approach is already used by many customers such as agriculture and many commercial users. For example, for agricultural users there is a monthly bill for hooking up to the service and a separate bill for the energy. The more capacity (kilowatts) they need the more the infrastructure costs to deliver that peak capacity – large users pay a higher amount to cover the\t additional infrastructure cost. Separating the cost of infrastructure from the cost of power is already being done in many power sectors, and it has been shown to work as a means of ensuring that users pay for their fair share of the cost of delivering power.
The fixed infrastructure costs (those not tied directly to the cost of power) are on the order of 50% of the total power bill. Perhaps everyone should pay that amount equally. For example, right now the average residential electric bill for PG&E in California is $276 per month. That means that the flat fee infrastructure cost should be about $138 per month. Perhaps all residential users should pay that flat fee plus the cost of the power that they use. I believe a “fair” system would change everyone for the infrastructure separate from the cost of power. Solar generated electricity should be evaluated as a “net metered” average so that the bill is for the amount of power that is needed beyond what the solar produces.
My suggestion of billing each customer for the cost of their share of the infrastructure raises the question of how to evaluate that share. I think a customer with a 100amp service should pay less than a customer with a 200 amp service. The larger the service the greater the cost of the physical part of the infrastructure (wires, support structures, switching stations, etc). An added bonus to charging for infrastructure based upon maximum load this is that it automatically creates a bonus for people to store their solar energy (perhaps in batteries), thereby reducing the size of the service they need (or their maximum load). It would also incentivize them to reduce their use through various modes of conservation. Limiting the size of the service to the maximum projected use would dramatically reduce the size requirements for infrastructure – putting us on the road to a renewable future. The current “fix” goes exactly in the opposite direction.
However, while this approach is “equitable” in terms of people actually paying for what they use, it shifts even more infrastructure cost from those with solar to those without because solar uses would need a much smaller service and therefore pay less for their fair share of the infrastructure costs. It would be “fairer” but would also increase the cost of electricity for those without solar. I suppose this problem of “unfair” costs will remain until such time that all residential users have solar. In cases where it is not possible to effectively install solar perhaps there is a means for local community sharing of solar arrays.
A similar problem is getting ready to bite us with road taxes being embedded into gasoline prices. The road tax is supposed to pay for the cost of the infrastructure (the roads). But those that don’t buy gasoline because they have electric cars don’t pay for the infrastructure (the roads) – a very bad situation. The cost of infrastructure needs to be put on the use of the infrastructure – miles driven (and weight), not gallons of gasoline used. The solution is to charge (tax) per mile driven (adjusted for vehicle weight). It would be a nuisance to have to report the mileage driven on tax forms, but it really would only have to be done once a year with taxes. Perhaps this could be done automatically with the new internet connected vehicles. Then everyone pays for what they get – roads.
Recently I was involved in a discussion between “environmentally aware” adults and pre-teen age boys. The topic had turned to the great outdoor sport of catch-and-release fishing as a fun sport. One of the young men mentioned that he had a strong love of animals, even fish that were returned to the water safely after being caught for sport. “Sounds like fun” was the consensus response from the other kids and the adults. It was expressed as the same kind of fun as playing “fetch” with a pet dog. My first reaction was, “I wonder how much the fish enjoys this fun sport?” Not much is my guess.
Back in the “bad old days” when I was a young man the survival rate for fish released because they were not wanted, were illegal to keep because of size, or just “got loose” was pretty low (reports by the fish and game organizations reported numbers of about 40% mortality rate). A quick browser search found a wide range of estimates, from 0% to as high as 25% mortality – indicating that there is a shortage of actual data. I assume that it all depends upon the fish, the tackle, the environment, the fisherman and more. I read a lot of suggestions of what sounds like “old wives tales” concerning ways to decrease mortality, but I didn’t read anything about impacts other than death. If the fish doesn’t actually die from the encounter it is considered “safe and fun.” Injuries such as loss of vision or burst swim bladders don’t seem to count.
I wonder about the appropriateness of teaching young people that using, abusing and killing wild animals is “fun” in any sense of the word. Perhaps killing them for food could be a necessity. I can almost go along with catching and eating fish, that seems to be in general alignment with the way nature works. But purposefully hurting or killing animals for “fun” is rather odd – I wonder how deeply this impacts a person’s ability to honor and appreciate nature and other people. To me, it has a strong flavor of claiming our “right” to do whatever we want to whoever or whatever we want.
I totally agree with the benefits of spending time in nature, walking along streams, hanging out in lakes, etc. However, I don’t agree that it is necessary to be a hunter or a “bully” of wildlife to do so. There are many things to do in nature that create the experience without the damage. Nature photography springs to mind, as well as many “science based” things such as learning the geology, biology, etc. of an area. It can just be the fun of experiencing the environment – I spent many hours enjoying exploring, hiking, walking in and along creeks, camping, etc. without ever finding a need to injure or kill anything to enjoy the experience. I didn’t take photographs, didn’t learn much about any science, or do much of anything that could be considered difficult or beneficial. I just enjoyed the experience of being there.
As far as I know from my experiences, there is absolutely no reason that killing and hurting are somehow necessary to achieve the goals of enjoying nature. In fact, I find it vastly more enjoyable to just observe, doing everything that I can to “leave no trace” of my ever having been there. I enjoy the challenge of being as “invisible” to nature as possible, honoring the spirit of the place by my not having any impact, including “playing” with the fish.
I met Lee Polanco more than a dozen years ago when he “stopped” by my house one Sunday evening while I was watching “60 Minutes” with my wife. I had recently returned from a trip to visit a friend in a very remote “aborigine” town in northeastern Australia. During that brief trip I made friends with many people who actively practice “the old ways” – and fell into a deep friendship (love?) with many aboriginal people. I found that they interacted in ways that were missing from my experience in California. They were interacting and experiencing each other in ways that appeared to be much closer and meaningful than I was used to. We quickly developed friendships and “sharing” that felt open and somehow more real. However, when I went back to Cairns on the way home I noticed that their culture disappeared from sight, even though I knew it was all around me – but invisible from the outside.
When I got home I realized that a similar situation must exist right here in Northern California. It became obvious that my “white” community exists in the same time and place as an Indian community which was also invisible from the outside. Enter Mr. Polanco. On that Sunday night when I answered the door to a very stern looking young man my world changed in many ways. The young man stood there for a few seconds and then said something like, “my chief wants to talk to you.” I was totally surprised by this, but out of great curiosity I followed him to the pickup where I was introduced to Lee. We exchanged pleasantries until Lee asked that I take him for a walk around my five acre property in a Eucalyptus grove. Along the way we chatted a bit, but mostly Lee was silent – contemplating something. Once we finished the tour he said he would send “the boys” down to get the wood next weekend. “The Boys”??? Who in the heck were these boys and what kind of wood were they looking for? Lee said it (without defining “it”) was “good” and gave me general specifications for the wood – straight, about five feet long, between 2.5 to 4 inches in diameter. He wanted a pickup load of it by next weekend.
Totally intrigued by this odd encounter, and his proclamation that my wood was “good enough,” I diligently prepared a pickup load of wood meeting his specifications. Sure enough, bright and early on the next Saturday a truck load of “the boys” showed up for the wood – and my life took a new, and beautiful, path. On that morning I met Irvine, Freddy, Smiley and Frankenstein plus a couple of young men. A week later Lee showed up unexpectedly with a middle-aged couple dressed in very formal, bright blue and white clothes! Apparently they were the “sponsors” for something having to do with the wood. (I later learned that is was for a Native American Church peyote ceremony). They were there to ensure that the wood, the property and myself were satisfactory for their ceremony. It was obvious that the right “spirit” was required – apparently “we” passed.
Just like that I had a new friend in Lee. Over the next dozen or so years we spent time together building a sweat lodge in my backyard, traveled around through the neighboring hills telling stories and getting to know each other, attending various types of ceremonies together and finding a deep, unexpected, connection. He sang songs, told me many stories of his life; I shared experiences from my life many of which I assumed were just “weird.” I assumed I made things up, or possibly was having dreams or hallucinations. He felt they were important at a much deeper level than I had understood. He told me many stories of his life, from his childhood in Texas, his time doing service in the Marine Corps, his 34 years as a Sun dancer, to his years driving a Greyhound bus, his years being a spiritual leader at the prison in Vacaville, and much more.
The thing about Lee is that he donated his entire mind, body and soul to help others. No matter how hard it was, or how difficult it was for him, he was there as a spiritual force. He was forever dancing, singing, making “instruments” (gourd rattles, drums, leather goods, etc.), leading ceremonies, and just being there when needed. I was never certain why he seemed so happy to see me, but he always made me feel like I was really “special” to him. I suspect he did that to everyone he knew. Everyone was a special person to him.
I am forever indebted to him for introducing me to a new group of “Indian” friends. Friends that have helped me change many of my views of life, changing my understanding and appreciation of nature and true praying, and just added fun and pleasure to my life. He will be greatly missed by all of his “special” friends, meaning everyone that had the honor of knowing him.
I continue to be perplexed about how difficult it is for people to see the magnitude of the problems that our continued release of CO2 (carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere are having, and will continue to have, on the global environment. I don’t blame the difficulty of comprehending the magnitude of the problem on “the public,” but I certainly blame it on “the media.” The media primarily focus on the topic of greenhouse gases creating “global warming” resulting in slightly (one or two degrees) warmer weather, brief periods of extreme weather and a slow increase in sea levels. Most people now believe that we are experiencing a period of increased variability in global weather, and they agree that is probably results in more extreme weather. But they don’t seem to comprehend the severity of the situation and don’t want to believe that people are contributing to the changes.
Many people think we are experiencing a natural, temporary, increase in temperature – something that happens all the time. They don’t believe that we (mankind) can cause problems sufficient to drive such as big system. They take the position that while there probably is global warming, and that warming is probably making the weather worse and perhaps causing a small rise of sea levels, they believe that none of this has anything to do with us. It is a “natural” occurrence and therefore there is nothing we can do about it.
The thing is, there are additional potentially catastrophic outcomes from releasing huge quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere than bigger storms, more uncomfortable temperatures and slightly higher sea levels. While the media sometimes hint at these issues, they don’t get the full throated messaging that they deserve. I find it astounding that given the potential severity of the problems created by the release of these gases we continue with the status quo. Dramatically limiting the release of greenhouse gases (most notably CO2 and CH4 (methane)) can be accomplished inexpensively with very little disruption to our lifestyle, and will result in many other positive health and economic outcomes. Doing so will result in an enhanced, healthier and less expensive lifestyle. Even if it turns out that all of the dire predictions turn out to be false, it is still worth our while to stop polluting the atmosphere with by releasing vast quantities of these chemicals. I don’t understand why we (Society and Government) are so timid about making the necessary changes.
For now I am going to leave discussion of exactly how these gases can be economically reduced to a later time. Right now I just want to point out that changing our carbon footprint has many positive outcomes, including improving our health, while saving money and resources. Vastly reducing our carbon footprint has enough positive results to make it worthwhile even if doing so has no impact on global warming, wild weather or a rise in sea levels.
It is important that the public and our leaders better understand the full range of potentially negative impacts of continuing the current practices of releasing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. It isn’t just about warming the air, melting ice, changing weather or creating slightly deeper oceans. I am writing this article in the hope of illustrating a few of the other problems. However, my choice of topics is by no means exhaustive, there are MANY other problems associated with our current practices, including potential health impacts from air pollution.
Ocean Acidification:
One of the potentially devastating outcomes of increased CO2 levels has to do with impacts on the ocean food-chain caused by the acidification of the oceans. When CO2 is absorbed by seawater, a series of chemical reactions occur resulting in the seawater becoming more acidic. Approximately 30% of the CO2 released to the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans. Increased acidity causes carbonate (CO3) ions to be relatively less abundant. Carbonate ions are an important building block of structures such as sea shells and coral skeletons. Decreases in carbonate ions can make building and maintaining shells and other calcium carbonate structures difficult for calcifying organisms such as oysters, clams, sea urchins, shallow water corals, deep sea corals, and calcareous plankton.
The problem with difficulties for species such as clams and oysters is just the tip of the iceberg. Many of the calcareous plankton form the bottom of the ocean food-chain web that other species of ocean creatures depend upon, and which we also depend upon. For example, calcareous plankton are extremely sensitive to ocean acid levels and the availability of carbonate ions to form their shells. There appears to be a sharp range of pH below which these creatures can no longer effectively reproduce and live. Studies find that is happening in many locations, and appears to be worsening as the pH of the oceans continues to fall due to the absorption of carbon dioxide by the water. Losing a large part of the bottom of the food web does not bode well for the ocean ecology.
Many larval fish are also quite sensitive to acid levels, failing to mature when the pH is too low (the water is too acidic). Low pH levels not only interfere with shell growth not only interferes with maintaining shell mass, it can dissolve existing shells on living organisms. An example of the kind of problems expected, in a recent study when pteropod shells were placed in sea water with pH and carbonate levels projected for the year 2100, the shells dissolved after 45 days. Researchers have already discovered severe levels of pteropod shell dissolution in the Southern Ocean, which encircles Antarctica. Pteropods are an important part of many food webs and eaten by organisms ranging in size from tiny krill to whales. A NOAA-funded study has documented that ocean acidification along the U.S. Pacific Northwest coast is impacting the shells and sensory organs of some young Dungeness crab, a prized crustacean that supports the most valuable fishery on the West Coast.
However, the problem of reducing the bottom of the food chain is not the end of the story. In addition to the obvious potential impacts on the diversity and abundance of marine plants and animals, there are also many known, and unknown, physical changes brought about by acidification of oceans. One change that is important to the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels is caused by the reduced calcification affecting the ocean’s biologically driven sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere to the ocean interior and seafloor sediment. A surprising impact of decreased pH in the oceans is that it changes the acoustic properties of seawater, allowing sound to propagate further, and increasing ocean noise. This impacts all animals that use sound for echolocation or communication.
Loss of Ice Shelves:
The recent rapid melting and breakup of giant ice shelves in the Antarctic have been well publicized, but without clear descriptions of the potential impacts of these vast areas of floating ice. The concern of rise in ocean levels resulting from the melting of floating ice has been correctly debunked because melting of floating ice does not change water levels. When the ice melts, the water level remains the same. However, entrance of grounded (ice supported by the ground) ice into the oceans can have dramatic impacts on sea levels. The issue isn’t sea level rise from melting floating ice making up vast ice shelves; it is that the ice shelves are blocking huge grounded glaciers from sliding into the sea. These glaciers are large enough to cause dramatic sea level rises. For example, the Thwaites Glacier alone holds enough ice to raise global sea levels two feet. It’s also a bottleneck protecting the larger West Antarctic ice sheet (grounded ice), which would raise sea level 10 feet if it were slide into the ocean. The sliding could be caused by the melting and/or breakup of a single ice shelf; which is already happening with the disintegration of the Thwaites ice shelf expected within the decade. We don’t know how rapidly the West Antarctic ice sheet could move once freed – but we know there is the potential for catastrophic flooding should it occur. Similar changes are happening throughout the Antarctic and arctic regions. Ice is melting rapidly, and unpredictably – creating unpredictable risks from sea level induced flooding around the world. (Since I wrote this I found out that the Thwaites Ice Sheet appears to be moving over “rippled” ground that might slow the slide of the glacier into the sea – but that is just one threat among others so while I might be over exaggerating the current threat from that particular glacier, the concept is still of concern.)
Current projections of sea level rise above the 2020 average range from about 2 feet to 10 feet by the end of the century (which is about my current lifetime). These projections are based upon many assumptions concerning future rates of rise of global temperature. Perhaps more importantly, the projections assume that glaciers melt in place rather than by movement (sliding) of blocks of ice into the sea. As long as most of the glaciers stay where they are and just melt, then those rather alarming projections are likely to be accurate. However, there is a great deal of uncertainty in projections of future sea levels. The conservative projection of approximately 2 feet within 75 years is based upon a linear projection of historical data. The estimate of up to 10 feet of rise by the turn of the century assumes an increasing rate of global warming. However, neither of these takes into consideration the potential for the physical movement of large amounts of ice that could far overshadow the rate of melting. I believe the amount of rise by the end of the century will be closer to 15 feet (or more) in a period of time about the same as from when the Beatles were popular and now, and will continue at the elevated rate for many years beyond that. But who knows? Perhaps we will be lucky.
Surprisingly, the threat of huge increases in sea levels may not be the worst outcome of the melting of the ice sheets.
Ice sheets (floating sea ice) are decreasing in size and breaking up because they are melting from the bottom. The warming of the oceans is resulting in warmer sea water that is rapidly melting the floating ice, preventing new ice from forming each winter. This in turn results in the release of large quantities of fresh water, making the adjacent ocean much less salty, and therefore less dense.
Under “normal” conditions, Southern Polar Region experience the formation of large ice shelves when the oceans freeze in winter, forming large quantities of frozen fresh water ice. Converting ocean water to salt free ice “squeezes” salt out of the newly formed ice, increase the salt concentration and density of the adjacent ocean water. The cold, heavier salty water then falls toward the ocean floor forming the extra-salty Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) that moves slowly toward the subtropics as part of the driving force for what is known as thermohaline circulation. The thermohaline circulation weaves around and through the oceans of the world, upwelling in some regions and descending in others – injecting much needed nutrients into ocean waters, and transporting large quantities of heat from one region to another.
This creates a massive current of sea water moving energy and nutrients in a giant watery conveyor belt. These currents moderate global temperatures and mix nutrients resulting in the marvelous diversity and productivity of the oceans. If those conveyor belts stop functioning they will have immediate and dramatic impacts on all aspects of the world. There is already a dramatic slowdown of the deep ocean currents caused by the melting of ice shelves. We can only that there is not a “tipping point” after which the currents cease to flow.
The global conveyor belt, shown in part here, circulates cool subsurface water and warm surface water throughout the world. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is part of this complex system of global ocean currents. This illustration is captured from a short video produced by NOAA Science on a Sphere.
The Thermohaline Circulation influences the climate all over the world. The impacts of the decline and potential shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could include losses in agricultural output, ecosystem changes, and the triggering of other climate tipping points. Other likely impacts of AMOC decline include reduced precipitation in mid-latitudes, changing patterns of strong precipitation in the tropics and Europe, and strengthening storms that follow the North Atlantic track. Finally, a decline would also be accompanied by strong sea level rise along the eastern North American coast.
Methane Hydrates:
And then there are the methane hydrates waiting patiently on the ocean floors around the world. Methane hydrates (more specifically clathrate hydrate) is a solid material in which a large amount of methane is trapped within an ice-like crystal structure of methane and water. It mainly forms in water and sediment depths below 300 – 500m. While it is unknown how much of this material is susceptible to disassociation due to increased global temperatures, it is potentially a very large quantity. The current research indicates that it is unlikely for a massive turn-over event that suddenly releases vast quantities of methane to occur. It is more likely to be a gradual release as the temperature increases at the depth of the upper levels of hydrates as the ocean temperature increased due to global warming. Apparently very little of this methane will make it to the atmosphere. Instead it will be converted to CO2 that then increases the acidity of the ocean and eventually gets released into the atmosphere while decreasing the ability of the ocean to act as a carbon dioxide “sink” – adding to the global warming problem.
Conclusion:
These are just a few issues that are caused by increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Many potentially devastating outcomes are either independent of global warming, or amount to additional feed-back loops that increase the greenhouse effect even though they are not “primarily” caused by the release of burning fossil fuels. They are potent sources of greenhouse gas that are sequestered by nature, but will be released as global temperatures increase. I just mentioned a couple of these naturally occurring carbon sinks that we be (and are) impacted by warming that is man-made. The release of vast quantities of methane from tundra as it thaws due to global warming is another well known “natural” source that is released from sequestration as temperatures increase.
Whether or not the increased levels of methane and carbon dioxide are responsible for the observed increase in global temperatures is not important for determining whether or not it is necessary to reduce (or eliminate) human created sources of carbon dioxide. There are so many other negative impacts from the burning of fossil fuels and the release of carbon dioxide that the question of whether it is a significant driver of global warming is a moot point. The global ecosystem can’t survive as we know it with the continued increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels regardless of it causing global warming. We are facing multifaceted existential threats, any of which can (and probably will) destroy civilization as we know it and lead to the extinction of thousands of species (perhaps including ours). The magnitudes of the threats are such that in order to survive, we MUST take immediate and dramatic action.
An interesting point about taking the necessary actions is that they are inexpensive, easily implemented and result in enhanced health and quality of life for everyone. They aren’t draconian changes tending to destroy our life styles or cause health problems. They are changes that make life better, cleaner and more affordable. In the process, they create millions of good quality, high paying jobs. As far as I can determine, there are few (or no) downsides to taking action right now. We know what has to be done, we have the technologies to do it, and it will improve our lives in many important ways – not the least is to clean up the air and water.
The real question is what will it take to convince people to take the necessary actions? That might be a great topic for a follow on blog – “why don’t we take action to save the environment?”
Hello to whoever might be reading this. It has been a long time since I have updated my blog. Everything is fine with me – but it just seems that there are not enough hours in a day to do all of the thing that keep coming along and sitting down to write too. I keep having many thoughts that I would like to express in my blog, even writing many of the ideas down so I don’t forget. However, by the time I get around to them either they lost their compelling “energy,” I lost the list yet again or my notes are so sparse that I can’t recall the topic. I keep promising myself that I’ll make time on a regular basis to write. Of course, every single day that comes along is filled to the brim with “things” that have a higher priority. An example is my taking the time to make this sketch:
It is a sketch of my little barn viewed from my back yard. My family had a family Christmas gathering at my place a week before Christmas, with one of the requirements being that everyone was tasked to make a gift to share. I decided that a sketch of our barn would be enjoyed since my kids and grandkids grew up with this as a backdrop to much of their lives. During 4-H years we kept animals in it, now it contains my wood shop and a pottery studio. It was always a place to play and do things. The drawing was a hit! I am pleased that they liked it. The grandson that selected it (“stole” it from his father – my son) promised to make prints for others. This is an example of the sort of important things that keep getting in the way.
Another major time sink has been my year long attempt to purchase a new home in my home town of Sonoma (California). My current home near Sacramento is very nice, beautiful and comfortable (and paid for!!) – but with a five acre back yard it is more than I will be able to maintain in the future. I am looking for an alternate place to stay that is closer to town. However, I am finding this to be a daunting task because my needs/desires are somehow very squishy – I make a list of what I need and don’t need, want and don’t want – thinking it will help find the “right” place. But once there, walking through a potential new home, I find new things I want or don’t want, or find that the priorities are different from what I thought they were, or it just “doesn’t feel right.” Of course there is also the matter of money (affordability), but I don’t seem to be able to settle down enough on my priorities to even worry about that.
I get bogged down in crazy sorts of concerns. It turns out I like “funky” (but not too funky, and not too time consuming to create and maintain), I also like simple and plain (but not too simple and not too plain), I like a nice yard (but easy to maintain and not too small), I like upscale fancy stuff (but too much shine and glitz is too sterile for my taste). Some need a LOT of help because of years of neglected maintenance – and I get excited about doing all of that as a fun project, until I remember how much work and expense that will be. I am being Goldilocks. Each new opportunity ends up taking another day to visit, view, discuss and eventually turn down. It is frustrating, so much so that I often just give up and resign myself to staying where I am – until another potential opportunity pops up and I am back into search.
I have been so busy that I haven’t even had time (or the inclination) to keep up with politics for the first time in fifty years or so. I hear snippets of news, such as Trump being rejected in some States because of his involvement in the insurrection – but don’t follow up because I am certain that will all be overturned once it hits the Republican dominated Supreme Court. I hear great things like California’s plan to install up to 200 new hydrogen fueling stations by 2025. Good news, maybe. It all depends upon where the hydrogen is coming from. There are many other topics that get my interest – but I still don’t seem to settle down to writing about them.
My proposed new year’s resolution is to become more consistent in my writing – writing everyday or perhaps every other day. I also resolve to make more time in my life to talk to great friends and interesting strangers – sort of a continuation of my experiences while traveling across the country. Of course I don’t have much confidence in those resolutions making any difference – I already make the promise to myself to write every morning before I crawl out of bed. I mentally set aside time to be with friends and meet new people — and then the world happens.
I had an interesting, and fun, encounter with a couple of strangers last evening that left me feeling happy and a little more optimistic than I have been for a long time. My new girlfriend (Cathy) and I decided to spend a few days at my cabin on Lake Almanor in the Northern California mountains. Lake Almanor is located very near the foot of Mount Lassen, in the location of the 2021 Dixie Fire that devastated almost a million acres of the Sierra Nevada forest. A few years ago my late wife and myself I moved furniture from her family cabin that had been condemned by the Forest Service. That cabin, near South Lake Tahoe, had been built by her father and grand-father in the early 1920’s and been her family’s “mountain getaway” until a change to the freeway drainage washed a nearby cliff away, endangering the cabin. We needed someplace to put all of the old things imbued with family sentimental value – so we purchased another cabin in a country club located on a peninsula in the middle of Lake Almanor.
Cathy and I decided to go to the country club “pub” for a happy hour wine (or two). It was a bustling place, luckily there were two empty bar stools at the end of the bar for us. The lady bartender seemed happy to see me after a year absence. She was full of stories, including funny pantomimes to illustrate some of them. A second lady bartender soon started a conversation with Cathy about a lot of things, eventually talking about her art and many other things. Cathy is an accomplished artist (her website is Catherinelee.com), meaning that when the discussion turned to art she was all in. By this time the couple sitting next to us began to join in to what had become a fun and rather free-wheeling discussion group.
I ended up in an engaging conversation with this couple on a wide range of interesting topics, including life with their new “blended” family where they all of a sudden have five young children, three dogs and a gold fish to manage. I talked about my problems with moving cabins, we talked about all sorts of personal and not so perfect topics. While I only know my side of the conversation, I believe all of us had a really nice time chatting and getting to know each other. At some point in the conversation one of us (perhaps me since I am often rather “politically incorrect”) pointed out that we were enjoying each other in a very free and open way, even though it was pretty obvious that we are widely separated in our political views. I think they are pretty conservative, and I know I am pretty liberal. We all stopped at that point and took stock of my comment, agreed that I was almost certainly correct, and decided that we didn’t even want to explore just how different our views might be. We all just smiled, noted that while that might be true it didn’t matter in the least, decided to ignore all of that – and dove right back into our conversation.
This morning I remembered that conversation with renewed optimism that perhaps the contentious red-blue, right-left, us-them mindset might be abating. Perhaps all of us are getting fed up with the anger, perhaps all of us are releasing that we are all hoping for improving things and just perhaps there are many parts to the answers that can be formed by joining our thoughts and ideas. Maybe it is more fun liking each other and working together to identify the problems, searching for solutions together.
In any case, this encounter with “conservatives” (at least I assume they are, we never really discussed that enough for me to know for sure) was fun, interesting, fruitful and just plain felt friendly and good. I recalled that I had many similar encounters with people with many different points of view on my trip across America. There is MUCH more that we have in common as people than we have differences, and in fact, most of those differences aren’t actually even different – we just think they are until we explore with an open mind and heart.
Last evening’s happy hour chat(s) was (were) really great. On the one hand they were fun, but more importantly they reminded me how wonderful it can feel to just relax and enjoy each other (including our differences).
Currently the two best candidates for chemical energy storage are the two lightest metals – sort of. Lithium, a light highly reactive metal, it is the main component of the lithium batteries used to power many portable electronic devices and electric cars. Hydrogen is also a metal that at normal conditions is nonmetallic, but becomes a metal at high pressures (very high pressures). Both of these elements can be used to create efficient, light weight, high energy density electrical storage systems. However, from the safety and environmental (and cost) point of view they are very different.
I recently got into a discussion with a young engineer concerning the suitability of these two energy storage options and found that while this engineer is quite bright and interested in all things “environmental,” he had a lot of incorrect perceptions and information on the subjects. While I was attempting to “set him straight” on a few of the important topics it dawned on me that perhaps his lack of information and understanding is shared by some of the readers of my blog offerings. Therefore, I am going to take a few minutes to try to fill in some of the major holes.
Perhaps the first myth that needs to be dispelled is the popular idea that hydrogen is “extremely dangerous” as evidenced by the Hindenburg fire. Granted, the burning of the Hindenburg was a great tragedy and very spectacular, but it was not “just” a hydrogen fire as is widely reported. The fire resulted from a combination of factors, not the least of which was the use of highly flammable coatings on the fabric of the dirigible. There is a lot of debate concerning the details of the Hindenburg disaster, so many that a “true” story may never be told. However, it seems clear that the magnitude of the fire and speed of spread was a combination of the presence of very large quantities (over 7 million cubic feet) of highly flammable hydrogen gas and the highly flammable covering.
When hydrogen burns the flame is almost invisible. The photographs of the fire clearly show very large colored flames. This means that something besides hydrogen was burning, and that “something” contributed greatly to the intensity and spread of the fire. The bulk of the hydrogen wasn’t burning, and probably never did, because it consisted of 100% hydrogen gas which requires mixing with oxygen in order to burn. It is my guess that most of the released hydrogen escaped into the atmosphere and mixed with air and diluted below the flammable range before it ignited. Some of the hydrogen burned, but probably not all of it did. The burning hydrogen may well have ignited the structural elements of the craft but it wasn’t just a “hydrogen fire” – it was a fire that resulted from a complex interaction of many features of the design of the entire system. The Hindenburg was designed and built as a helium filled set of balloons. Switching to using hydrogen instead of inflammable helium resulted in an extremely dangerous situation. Hydrogen can be used safely, but only if done so properly – just as with any other energetic material.
One feature of hydrogen fires is that they don’t radiate much infrared thermal energy, in fact they emit so little visible light and “heat” that workers in hydrogen facilities sometimes walk holding brooms in from of them so they can detect a large hydrogen fire before walking into the invisible flame. Hydrogen fires don’t emit infrared energy that can cause flammable materials to catch on fire from radiation. The Hindenburg fire probably spread as fast as it did because the glowing particles from the burning structure emitted large amounts of infrared (“heat”) energy that ignited unburned fabric well in advance of the flame front. My guess is that it spread so rapidly that the ignition was spread by thermal radiation reaching far in advance of the flame front. It was not just an advancing flame front the surface of the burning structure.
While hydrogen gas can undoubtedly be quite dangerous, that does not mean that it is unacceptably dangerous, or as dangerous as other sources of high density energy. For example, the Space Shuttle burned the equivalent of over 34 billion cubic feet of hydrogen (5,000 times the volume of the Hindenburg) during a launch. The risk isn’t because of the use of hydrogen, it is HOW it is used. The Hindenburg had many serious design flaws with respect to the use of large quantities of hydrogen that almost guaranteed a disaster such as the Hindenburg fire. Gasoline is considered “acceptable” only because systems have been designed to effectively control the risks. Now and then a large, highly destructive gasoline fire occurs, but this is amazingly rare. It is my engineering judgement (as a System Safety Engineer) that hydrogen gas can be made much safer than gasoline, while they both clearly have significant risks. My point isn’t that there are no risks, it is that the risks are comparable to, and often much less, than risks that we accept as a matter of course.
Hydrogen gas comes from many sources, some of which could be called “green” sources, and others not so green. Today, most hydrogen is made from “black” sources of hydrocarbons such as oil, coal or natural gas. There are also largely untapped sources of “white” hydrogen in underground naturally occurring, pockets of geological hydrogen. The most promising source of “green” hydrogen comes from the decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen using power from non-polluting sources such as solar, wind, wave, hydroelectric or geothermal electrical generation systems. This approach uses hydrogen as a type of chemical battery where the energy can be stored in pressurized containers indefinitely until it is needed, at which point it is re-combined with oxygen to release energy in the form of heat or electricity.
High capacity storage batteries (such as lithium batteries) are certainly not “safe” or “environmentally friendly.” They are highly dangerous both from the potential for them to explode, and from the point of view of containing very large quantities of stored electricity. A major hazard with using in high voltage, high capacity batteries in vehicles is related to what happens following an accident that damages the batteries and/or electrical system. The stored energy doesn’t just “dissipate” it remains until it either causes an explosion or fire, or presents a high power electrical hazard to first responders and the accident victims. Many interesting, and horrifying, scenarios are possible when these systems become damaged in unpredictable ways.
Perhaps the largest problems with the use of lithium batteries are related to the highly negative impact on the environment associated with mining, refining and disposing of the lithium and various other materials (including graphite, cobalt, manganese and nickel) used in the batteries. With the possible exception of cobalt, there are sufficient amounts of these materials to supply the short term future market, but mining and refining these materials come with substantial negative environmental impacts in terms of size of mining sites, potential for pollution and the use of large quantities of water. Lithium production is particularly problematic because it is found in low concentration surface deposits in arid regions necessitating the destruction of vast areas of environmentally sensitive desert. In addition, large amounts of water are required in the extraction/refining process that can damage already limited sources of surface and ground water.
The most likely use of energy storage in the near future will be to meet the demand for powering electric vehicles. Currently, the two most “market ready” approaches are using rechargeable lithium batteries or lightweight PEM (Polymer Electrolyte Membrane) Hydrogen Fuel Cells. Hydrogen can also be used directly to produce heat, very similar to using natural gas for heating applications. The airlines are currently doing a lot of research to design jet engines that can use hydrogen fuel in place of jet fuel. Internal combustion engines have made to work quite nicely using hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen is an extremely flexible fuel source that can fill many, if not most, of our current uses for gaseous and liquid fuels, and as a medium for electrical storage without the hazardous voltages inherent in the storage device presented by batteries.
I think most people have a grasp of how rechargeable batteries work, so I won’t go into much detail here. The one thing that people might not be aware of is their tendency to catch fire and burn, or explode. These problems have been minimized, but not eliminated, with the current designs used in electric cars. PEM hydrogen fuel cells are generally unknown to the public. I want to briefly describe how they work.
My first encounter with a PEM fuel cell was in a small research laboratory at Humboldt State University (now Cal Poly Humboldt). The fuel cell was in the form of a cube about four inches on a side. It consisted of layers of graphite and a thin membrane resembling “plastic wrap.” The graphite layers had been machined to form a serpentine grove allowing air or hydrogen to flow to the surfaces of the graphite layer. The thin membrane (the PEM membrane) was sandwiched between the graphite. It was impervious to relatively large hydrogen molecules, but the tiny amount of catalyst embedded into the membranes allowed the nucleus of hydrogen atoms (protons) to flow through to the other side of the membrane where it combined with the oxygen in air flowing through the other side, creating an electrical charge and thus an electrical current. The hydrogen was just “dead headed” into the groves at a pressure of around 1 psi. It didn’t need to flow through the stack, it just needed to get to the surfaces. A small fan directed room air through the groves on the “oxygen side” of the stack. The air flowed through the stack to maintain a steady source of oxygen and to exhaust the byproducts of this process (pure water vapor). During operation, the cell felt mildly warm. The striking part was the pair of 1/2 inch thick copper electrodes connected to each side of the fuel cell stack. They had to be that size because of the very large amount of power and electrical current delivered by the cell.
All of the large automobile manufacturers have PEM fuel cell cars ready to manufacture if, or when, the market turns to them. I have seen several of these vehicles by various manufacturers and they are beautiful. The fuel cell modules are around one cubic foot, taking up little of the space “under the hood” of the car. High pressure hydrogen storage tanks are located under the floor of the passenger compartment, similar to the location of batteries in electric cars. I have a friend that had the job of testing many of these cars on the roads of California’s highways, byways, deserts and mountains. He said they are wonderful to drive. I suppose just about the same as a modern electric vehicle, which they are.
One of the major advantages of PEM fuel cells for this application is that they are quickly scalable with respect to available sources of fuel. Very large quantities of hydrogen are created from various sources, including fossil fuels. At first this sounds bad, but it provides an easy means of transitioning to hydrogen while green sources of hydrogen are being created. We don’t have to wait until enough electrical power it available on the grid. In fact, electric cars change from the grid, they are not using “green” sources of power, they are just using whatever is there from whatever sources are available.
One of the best features of hydrogen as a fuel is that it can easily be made using solar, wind and other sources of “green” energy by the electrolysis of water. For example, solar electricity can be used to make hydrogen, which can then be stored for future use, or shipped via pipeline or tanker to where it is needed (such as filling stations). Not only can it be easily created, stored and transported, but it can be used for a variety of additional purposes to replace the use of hydrocarbons. If produced locally (such as at the site of a home solar system), the hydrogen can be stored for months until needed, or could be used to fuel an automobile during night time hours. Commercial airlines don’t think they can use batteries because of weight restrictions, but they can store enough hydrogen – so they can join the “green” energy revolution by converting to hydrogen fuel.
The materials used in the construction of a PEM Hydrogen Fuel Cell system are mostly “normal” construction materials (iron, aluminum, copper) with a very small amount of catalyst similar in quantity to a catalytic converter in a car. All of these materials can easily be recycled and pose no new environmental threats.
The point of this is that we are at a point where hydrogen presents a very flexible and robust solution to moving toward a truly “green” energy economy, while batteries are just taking us down the normal path to excessive environmental damage.
