the good old days

Every time I get a little confident about all these science and engineering experts (myself included) with bright shining dreams about new technologies which will save the world, I read something like this…

“We know how to get electrical energy from sunlight by means of silicon converters,” said the Chrysler engineering expert. “If we continue to increase the efficiency of these converters, and if we are able to develop small, efficient energy storage cells solar powered cars will be feasible.” — Closer Than We Think, via Paleo-Future

1958 — fifty-one years — and we still haven’t gotten beyond knowing how, but just not quite there yet…

Our local farmer’s market re-opened yesterday and we got local, organic fresh eggs and vegetables again. I absolutely love it, especially the chicken farmer who has really delicious eggs (and, well, chicken) and always comments on how big the kids are getting. I tried to get Almost-Two-Year-Old Son to say “chicken” but he was too busy hiding behind me.

In honor of springtime, and in the hopes that the eggplants I planted this year will grow, let’s watch Gardening, an educational film from 1940, shows the adventures of Betsy and Bill as they plant their family garden.

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Once you get over the disturbingly adult voice that has been dubbed in for young Betty, be amazed by the vast stretch of soil the two kids are turning into farmland. And then, be shock be the anti-organic pesticides of the day…

Bill sprays arsenate of lead on the potato leaves. When the beetles eat the poisoned leaves, they die.

This was one of the few educational film scenes I’ve watched that really, really freaked me out. Not only is this pesticide an ideal way to have long-term contamination of your soil with lead AND arsenic, Bill is cheerfully spraying it only a few feet away from his face. Lead arsenate was known to be problematic as far back as 1919, and it wasn’t banned as a pesticide until 1988. Even though it was legal, though, there’s still plenty of very good reasons to not use it as a pesticide. Especially a pesticide in aerosol form, being used by growing children. And you thought paint on toys made in China was dangerous…

So my second day at the NHA conference was about the same as the first — some impressive, some underwhelming. I got to take a tour of “Innovista”, the “fuel cell district” in downtown Columbia (located in part on the USC campus) which is extremely interested in attracting investors and research companies. More interesting, I got to see the new hydrogen fueling station in Columbia (and watch a bus get fueled — COOL), and also visit nearby Fort Jackson and see a fuel cell they’ve installed as a backup power system for their emergency response stations. The fueling station was particularly interesting, because the level of attention required to make sure your hydrogen car is correctly connected is marginally higher than for a regular car — meaning the “hydrogen economy” is likely to see a resurgence of the full-service fueling station, with trained attendants making sure everything goes well.

I’d also like to have $12 million dollars to buy my own hydrogen-fueled bus. (The CEO of Proterra gets to drive his company’s bus around and show it off. I want his job.) It’s going to be on loan to USC and the city of Columbia for the next year, and I need to figure out which campus route it’s slated for and then go on that route a lot.

Based on a discussion session about home-fueling infrastructure development, I’d like to take the chance to ask a couple extremely informal survey questions. (I’m highly biased, due to my personal obsession with getting a hydrogen car as soon as possible; therefore, my “HELL YES” answer is neither scientific nor useful.)

If you could buy a home refueling station for around $2500, would you do it?

We’re talking about a little unit (maybe the size of a mini-fridge) that hooks up to your home water and electricity supply, creating hydrogen overnight and filling up your car while you sleep. The cost to make 1 kg of hydrogen, which could take the car about 65 miles, is ROUGHLY the same as half a gallon of gasoline which takes your car 20 miles (or so), so the cost-per-mile remains the same.

Of course, you’d need a hydrogen car for this — so, a follow-up question: If you could refuel your car in your own garage, would that make you more likely to buy that kind of car? It would presumably be a commuting-only car, because your trip range is limited by where fuel is available (and, if you’re the only fueling station for thousands of miles…)

I’m spending the first few days of the week at the National Hydrogen Association Conference. The National Hydrogen Association is, unsurprisingly, very pro-hydrogen; regardless, it’s an interesting set of concepts for a sustainability engineer to see. (So it was pretty nice that it was (a) within a mile of school, and (b) fully subsidized.)

I was reminded that I really don’t like industry conferences, as opposed to (what I know by hearsay about) academic conferences — if you don’t have any money, they aren’t very interested in talking to you. I was always cheerfully engaged by exhibitors when I was employed and could potentially buy their intriguing innovation with my company’s resources; a grad student, however, is highly unlikely to have funding and will therefore get attention only after any “real” engineers ask questions.

One thing that really struck me was the fact that they picked a strongly-opinionated “keynote” speaker — and keynote is in quotes there because he was one of many keynote speakers — for Tuesday morning. He was madly in love with nuclear power (which admittedly does have a lot of merits compared to alternative methods of hydrogen production) and was quite harsh towards other options. He threw out numbers like “for every 1 green job created, 2 traditional jobs are lost,” a figure which reminded me of the adage extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs; evidence for this and other statements was absent, whereas shocking buzzwords and sound bites were sprinkled throughout. My favorite part was when he used his “house in Baja” as an example of economics; said house has solar panels to provide power, which cost $10,000 (plus cost of batteries), a price which is “unrealistic” for his neighbors who must instead buy $600 diesel generators. Who the hell takes pride in building an expensive (second? third? nth?) home in an economically depressed area, without bothering to spend a bit of cash and improve the circumstances in the neighborhood? It’s the dumbest example I’ve ever seen of trying to inspire an audience who’s interested in “the hydrogen economy,” which is not a hugely profitable industry (yet) and therefore is partly stimulated by altruism and an interest in improving the world.

But after he finally got off the stage, a very coherent speaker from the Office of Naval Research started talking about real-world examples of technological research and development. Then in the breakout sessions, I saw two good series of talks about hydrogen infrastructure developments and analysis of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles’ timeline to reasonable market price. (For some reason, all the breakout sessions I’m interested in are the ones in the tiniest room which seats 40 people. And at least 80 other attendees are interested… so it gets crowded.)

The big highlight was that I got to ride in a hydrogen-powered Chevy pickup truck. It wasn’t quite as cool as the Honda FCX or even the Chevy Equinox, both of which had VERY VERY impressive acceleration. My goal in life (well, since 2002) was to have a hydrogen-powered car, and this is the closest yet I’ve ever gotten.

We’ll see in the next few years if South Carolina really becomes the leader in hydrogen production and storage that it’s trying to position itself to be. We’ll also see if I can figure out a way to get a FCV before most of the rest of the country…. GM, if you’re listening, I am TOTALLY INTERESTED.

Nowadays, you can’t get a bill from the electric company without an accompanying insert on ways to use less energy in your house. Insulate! Unplug computers! Buy EnergyStar Certified appliances! Considering the antiquated grid structure and long certification process required to build new plants to increase capacity, companies have little choice but to try to decrease demand by teaching consumers to use less power.

Contrast that modern reality with this 1937 concept, apparently actually used in France.

By pressing an electric switch, radio listeners may express approval of a current radio program. Holding down a small switch attached to the base of a small lamp placed near the radio, the increased current drain is shown at the local power plant or substation.

The power company raked in extra money by convincing people to draw extra power and telling them it was some sort of rating system. And convincing them this “special” button would be distinguishable from, say, turning on a light or using an electric toaster. Edison’s approach was all wrong — if he wanted people to buy DC rather than AC electricity, he should have sold them all thoroughly useless gizmos like this, that worked only on HIS special DC current. At worst, he wouldn’t be remembered as somebody who electrocuted an elephant.

Article via Modern Mechanix.

They used to dump oil-soaked bricks in the ocean to catch lobster.

Seriously, with a long history of “you have GOT TO BE KIDDING” actions like this, it’s amazing that some people refuse to be convinced of the idea that people can have a very negative impact on the world around them.

1931 article via Modern Mechanix.

OK, I lied, I don’t read it JUST for the advertisements — but they’re hilarious. Take this one, which appeared alongside an article describing collapsible paper hats.

Not only is it funny to wonder who got suckered into selling these goofy little gadgets, but I’m incredibly curious about the “free sales kit.” I’m guessing it included a matchbook, and instructions to set the customer on fire then put him out. What better way to demonstrate the little extinguisher!

Today, Merlite Industries apparently is a wholesaler of jewelry, and you can buy that same Presto miniature fire extinguisher for $65 at an antique store, or $9.99 on eBay. Just don’t try to use it:

The Presto “CB” Fire Extinguisher contained chlorobromomethane and could only be used in well ventilated areas. While a very good fire supressor, chlorobromomethane could cause cardiac arrest if inhaled. The use of chlorobromomethane was banned by the EPA because it depleted the ozone layer. — Maine Memory Network

Via Modern Mechanix.

When production of the Model T ceased almost twenty years after they were first produced, there were millions of them in the world in various conditions. New Uses for Old Fords (Modern Mechanix, 1928) described many ways the “defunct” cars could find new purpose, including an ultra-safe saw rig. (Bullshit inventions like that are why OSHA came to be, by the way. Don’t put your face within 12 inches of a huge freakin’ saw, unless you aren’t a big fan of your face.)

It’s interesting just how modern the idea of designed obsolescence is. Modern Ford would laugh for a week if you suggest their cars should have a life and function after their time as cars. (To be fair, Henry wasn’t intentionally designing his cars to be sustainable and reusable, simply durable.)

It’s interesting to see the gradual progression of how people stored written information. Clay tablets become lighter, flexible scrolls. Scrolls became codexs (books), increasing their capacity. Books became typeset rather than hand-copied, decreasing font size and increasing capacity. In the nineteenth century, microphotography was invented to miniaturize images even further.

A 1936 Modern Mechanix article, Canned Libraries Open New Vistas to Readers, commented on the spread of microfilm technology in libraries:

All of the reading material in the vast Library of Congress may be housed in a few small filing cabinets! To anyone who has seen the thousands of massive volumes in this great building, such a statement seems fantastic. But it remains a fact. Through recent developments in microphotography and the perfection of a new type of micro-grain film, the contents of two 10×15 inch pages can be reduced 400 times to occupy but three-fourths of a square inch of film….

Verneur Pratt, president of the International Filmbook Corporation, pioneers in the field of library microphotography, predicts that the filmbook will effect as big a change in the printing industry as the invention of movable type.

He points out that large telephone directories can be held in the palm of the hand, can be inserted in the machine in a moment, and with a few turns of a dial the desired number is brought to light. There is no thumbing of pages, and the pages cannot be torn out. In the same manner bulky catalogs, city directories, and dictionaries can be reduced.

One of the greatest advantages of film books is that small schools and libraries with limited space and money can afford to have all the material which is now available only in the large cities. Files of perishable newspapers can be photographed and thus preserved indefinitely. The cost of making film books will be much below that of printing regular books and their small size also eliminates the storage problem.

The last idea was a wee bit ambitious. While microfilm did become vital for archiving material, it certainly didn’t replace regular books. Can you imagine bringing a microfilm reader on the bus to read during your commute?

Nowadays, digital storage has enabled even more condensation of information. My current holiday wishlist includes an e-ink “digital book” (e-ink, unlike LCD screens, doesn’t cause much eye strain) which can download various text, PDF, or e-book files, putting thousands of documents in one small pamphlet-sized device. Continuing to increase compression of digital files and decrease memory size is basically the modern version of “smaller fonts”.

When we lived in Boston, there was a coal-burning power plant just down the Mystic River from us (we lived in Charlestown). Before I knew that, I always wondered why there was a very thin film of black grit that would cover our apartment if I left the window open. I’m glad we left before our kids were forced to grow up breathing that — and that’s nothing compared to the pollution there used to be in some cities.

Fifty-six years ago, London was stifled by smog starting on December 5, 1952.

Everyone in London walked blind for the next four days. By the time the smog blew off on Tuesday Dec. 9, thousands of Londoners were dead, and thousands more were about to die. Those who had survived no longer spoke of London’s romantic pea-soup fog. –NPR, 12/12/2002

Fog was common in London, but the nasty additives from every London home’s coal-burning stove made this smoke-fog seriously lethal. It awakened the public to the risks posed by pollution, and it’s an occasion worth remembering.