Captain Obvious

If you have followed my Captain Obvious blogs over the last few years, you are well aware of my warnings about carbon capture and other sustainability mirages, which are often put forward as solutions to our planet’s energy problems.  One more just bit the dust, and it wasn’t due to Trump’s presidency … it was due to the reality of things:

Climeworks’ capture fails to cover its own emissions – Heimildin

The story keeps repeating itself, and if you haven’t watched Planet of the Humans, you are uninformed and are being lulled into a delusional hope that technologies like EVs, solar, wind, and even nuclear are going to save the day.  These are not bad ideas, but they are insufficient to sustain our future world.

We must cut consumption of not only energy but also stop raping the planet of non-renewable natural resources.  The pace of this carnage is completely out of control today, and the first victim will be our oceans and the fish they produce.  Rampant overfishing is collapsing fish stocks.  It seems we do not learn anything from history.

But, unlike in the whaling industry, a new natural resource (the discovery of oil) will not save the day.  We keep searching for something shiny and new to compensate for our guilt and shame.  Recycling makes us feel better about consumption … but it doesn’t work.  EVs make us think we are doing our part, but mining the rare-earth materials for their batteries makes them the blood diamonds of the energy business. 

By analogy, I have been struck by how AA works to help people with addiction to alcohol.  It is not always successful, but there is something to learn from why it works when it works to help people.  There are two huge lessons I learned from a detailed study of the Twelve Steps and The Big Book that they use to share stories of challenges and success:

1. You must get past your excuses and face yourself and all the garbage that your heart and mind have collected to justify your bad behaviors. You can’t just admit you need help … you must “bottom out” in your belief you can do this alone.
2. This can’t just be an intellectual exercise. You must commit to a continuing dialogue of interaction with another person who has gone through these challenges and work weekly on the progress toward sobriety.

The pattern I am seeing in all of life today is our tendency and temptation to use easy buttons and pills to take away our responsibilities.  The easy buttons are to elect people who we think will make our life better without any sacrifices or commitments on our part.  Failing that, we want a pill to take away personal accountabilities and responsibilities.

It is time we admit we are in real trouble as energy addicts and commit to working towards energy and societal sobriety together.

Begin your journey by watching Planet of the Humans, followed by the newly released and widely acclaimed documentary, David Attenborough’s Ocean. At 99, it may be his last production attempting to awaken the world to the reality of man’s impact on the planet.  I would call it his best. 

 

Is this one more oxymoron like jumbo shrimp … literary devices that juxtapose contradictory words to create a more complex or nuanced meaning?  The United Nations was created after World War II to foster world peace and wellness by providing a place for open discussion and resolution of world problems.  Cooperating in solving problems has been elusive to say the least at the UN, because each country tends quite naturally to look out for what it thinks are the best interests of its citizens.  Seeking the “greater good” has been elusive.  Somebody’s ox is going to get gored.

Don’t get me wrong … it has been a helpful venue to openly discuss world problems, or at least the perception of those problems, but perceptions are the problem about which the world is far from united. 

If we define the problem as world hunger, we get answers like rich countries attempting to feed the starving rather than admitting people shouldn’t live where there is no food.  Over millions of years, our species and all other animals have adapted to living where there is food and water.  As one late night comedian humorously summarized the situation of people in the Sudan needing other countries to send them food and water saying, “They don’t need food or water!  They need U-Hauls!”

Food is a critical element of world peace, but what we define as food matters as well as our country’s obsession with beef and even chicken has pushed us to use farmlands to raise their feed rather than feed our people directly.  The world has proven a rice diet keeps humans alive longer and living healthier.  We all know that, yet we persist.

Water of course is the foundation of life.  We can live for weeks without food but only a matter of days without water.  Fresh, clean drinking water has always been a fundamental and whole societies have relocated when it was no longer available.  It is a miracle of our planet that it has an abundance of fresh water, yet almost all of it is now polluted with microparticles in part because of our obsession with plastic containers.

Books and movies can help make us aware of our sins.  Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring published in 1962 documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of DDT, a pesticide used by soldiers during World War II. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry’s marketing claims unquestioningly. 

Read that last sentence again … public officials accepting claims unquestioningly.  That my friends is the root of our problem.  People believe we can supply our unquenchable thirst for energy by using wind and solar rather than asking why we are using energy in the first place.  We can’t keep building wind and solar devices by raping the planet for rare earth minerals and killing the children used to mine them.  The excellent documentary Planet of the Humans covered this extensively.

We can’t keep destroying “the wild things” like our rain forests and oceans, which is so well documented in David Attenborough’s testimony movie A Life on our Planet.  The Amazon rain forest is being destroyed to raise grain to feed the beef industry in that country.  We can’t let the world overharvest our fish in international waters.  See the movies Seaspiracy and Cowspiracy for vivid proof, and Cowspiracy points out accurately that the beef industry not only consumes too much farmland … it also depletes our water supplies.

The intellectuals of the world all know these are facts and that we are headed for another extinction event if we fail to heed the clear warnings today.  Yet the spirit of cooperation to seek the greater good falls on deaf ears as the world tweaks the business models to appear to be sustainable.

There is almost no wild salmon in our food supply: it is all farm raised.  We have almost no grass-fed animals: it is all fed in feedlots.  Our world fish supplies have been decimated, so we clearly can’t keep going.  Yet, we argue that eliminating the use of fossil fuels will save the planet.

Can we be united on one clear message?  We must heed the warnings … and not be distracted by superficially appealing notions like climate change that are the result of bad decisions in our life choices far beyond the use of fossil fuels.  Food and water are the basics of life and the path for the future of these right now is unsustainable.

Am I going too fast?  Or are you OK with the equivalent of the movie Hunger Games playing out in your future? … yes … within your lifetime!

According to Wikipedia, dreams are a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.  Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5–20 minutes, although the dreamer may perceive the dream as being much longer.

My wife and I often share these events, searching for meaning, and are rarely able to explain them.  One of the most frequent and upsetting nightmares we both have is being at college and forgetting where our next class is, knowing there will be a test that day for which we are unprepared.

Our dog had dreams … I know … because he would move his paws as he was running and would grimace his face at times expressing some level of angst. 

All these dreams are innocent parts of life.

What is not so innocent is when the dreams of a few are spread as predictions of the future to burnish their brand or lead others to believe they are onto something special.  In the Old Testament, we called these people prophets.  Today’s dreamers seem more interested in profits. Many are dreaming of hydrogen, fuel cells, fusion, and more. Something is interesting in all these dreams … but they are mirages of the future, not visions of it.

Perhaps it is natural that people dream of flying cars … like the Jetsons … after all, wouldn’t it be nice to fly from point-to-point rather than battle it out on what we call freeways?  Take a look at what Cadilac is dreaming about https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/travel/road-trips-self-driving-cars-ad501e2d?st=cWmWhy&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink and tell me this is reality anytime soon.  I drive a Tesla with self-driving features, and I will not use them.

Our Lexus has several built-in features that help keep you in your lane, alert you to potential blind spots, and detect when you may be distracted while driving.  Some of these are very helpful.  Others are not.  And what I now observe is that the danger on the road is from idiots coming from behind you at excessive speed playing slalom cutting in and out to gain a few feet in traffic.  We have come so close to accidents due to them more than anything else.

Then, there are the roads themselves which are falling into disrepair with potholes that can swallow your car tires and destroy your suspension. My wife, Susan, can chalk one $5,000 car repair to our Tesla hitting one breaking our rear axle.  That was two years ago, and we have reported it multiple times to the to the county, and it is still unrepaired.

I am not trying to ignore change.  I embrace it.  But I do sneer at those who pretend that change is easy and forthcoming in the next year or so to polish their corporate reputation, giving shareholders hope for a better day.

It does help to look back at how quickly some changes have occurred.  Our modern cars are more comfortable, fuel efficient, and capable.  I do remember that there was a time when speeds of over 30 mph were considered incomprehensible.

Once again, history is helpful.  On May 21, 1901, Connecticut became the first state to pass a law regulating motor vehicles, limiting their speed to 12 mph in cities and 15 mph on country roads.  Speed limits had been set earlier in the United States for non-motorized vehicles: In 1652, the colony of New Amsterdam (now New York) issued a decree stating that “No wagons, carts or sleighs shall be run, rode, or driven at a gallop” at the risk of incurring a fine starting at “two pounds Flemish,” or about $150 in today’s currency.

In 1899, the New York City cabdriver Jacob German was arrested for driving his electric taxi at 12 mph. The path to Connecticut’s 1901 speed limit legislation began when Representative Robert Woodruff submitted a bill to the State General Assembly proposing a motor-vehicle speed limit of 8 mph within city limits and 12 mph outside. The law passed in May 1901 specified higher speed limits but required drivers to slow down upon approaching or passing horse-drawn vehicles and come to a complete stop if necessary to avoid scaring the animals.

Did you notice that it was an electric vehicle?  My biggest concern with our Tesla is not scaring an animal but rather running into a pedestrian who can’t hear my car.

Dream on Cadilac …

Yes, I am an engineer, and we are trained to understand tradeoffs.  It is called value engineering and is defined as the systematic approach to analyze the functions of a product or process and find ways to provide the same or similar functions at a lower cost without sacrificing functionality or performance. It’s a multidisciplinary process involving experts from various fields to identify cost-saving opportunities while maintaining or improving value.

One clear example is driving my Tesla.  The faster I go, the lower the battery range, and for long trips, the recharge stops are more frequent and take longer.  There clearly must be a time to destination objective function and a total kWh to destination perspective … aka cost for the trip.  This may be extremely difficult to do in your head but is easy to do in practice … but there are so many value components that it does get tricky.

One emotional answer is to drive at your normal highway speed, say 75, and run the battery down to almost zero and then recharge it all the way up to get to your destination.  That is almost never the right answer because the battery charges to about 60% very quickly and then slows down, with the last 10% taking so much time you should never consider it.

So, you run the battery down, charge back to about 60% and then run the battery down.  Then, you evaluate running at 80 mph and find you need another charge stop, so you emotionally decide that is wrong, but the math proves contrary in many cases.  Yes, I am talking about trips that are more than 500 miles, but I am trying to emphasize the point that life is almost always about tradeoffs.  What is the value of your time and how important is it to have a reasonable battery level when you arrive at your destination.

I used to stay at places where I could charge overnight.  That was a great idea then, but Tesla then starting to bark at us when we did it … they wanted us to charge and then move the car so others could use the spot.  They were right of course, but the value changed in the equation above.

Enter the question of supersonic travel.  Boom Supersonic has once again gained public awareness: Boom Supersonic   

My previous blog on this bears reconsideration about whether the idea is consistent with a modern sustainable energy objective.  But, as the blog indicated, we no longer believe that 55 mph is the right speed limit, so we are hypocrites.  Captain Obvious

We engineers all know that speed comes at a terrifying increase in energy use, called the square law.  Going twice as fast quadruples the energy consumption.  So BOOM must contend with the obvious question about why such obscene energy use should be tolerated?  Notice in the articles both years ago and recently that NO ONE ASKS THAT!

Another example of this optimization quest is the whaling industry, which has become familiar to us since we began spending summers aboard our power catamaran in Mystic Seaport Museum Marina in 2023.  In the late 1800s manually thrown harpoons were replaced with exploding devices fired from cannons in the bow aboard steam powered ships that could run down the whales.  This certainly increased the yield and lowered costs, but no one was asking the obvious questions: Is this the right thing to be doing and is this sustainable?  Could they not see they were wiping out the entire species, or did they not want to ask that question?

So, there we have it.  When I want something, I am not interested in compromises.  We have become obsessed with convenience and seem unwilling to balance that with sustainability questions we all face on this blue marble planet.  We don’t seem to learn anything from history, do we?

 

You all know what the word means: Decorum refers to proper and polite behavior or, more broadly, the appropriateness of style or content in a specific context. It encompasses etiquette, decency, and respectfulness, often used in settings like classrooms or courtrooms.  If you need to see some streetwise illustrations of the contrary, click to watch Chris Rock’s advice about interacting with the police.

The recent blowup between Musk and Trump illustrates why the age-old adage is so true: if you can’t say something nice about a person, don’t say anything at all.  It is OK to entertain thoughts in your head, but once you say them to others, consider the long-term consequences. 

Sometimes you have to reach deep into your brain to come up with the right answer to competitive questions like: “how does your product compare to …”  Today’s large companies are prone to lawsuits, so in the case in point I simply said: “ours offers practical answers to everyday customer questions.” 

I often use the phrase, “you can’t fix stupid,” but after many attempts to explain something, have resorted to saying, “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.”  The results are always incendiary … it would have been much better for me to resort to the southern way of saying the same thing: “Well, bless your heart.”

There are of course times when the truthful answer hurts.  Decades ago, I was asked how customers could fall for such wildly unrealistic claims about cogeneration system payback and trust the underhanded slimy wheelers and dealers proposing projects to them.  My response angered many in the audience when I said: “apparently your customers trust them more than they trust you.”

One of the most humorous responses to my quips was after I described utilities change in geological time frames.  I didn’t know that a top-ranking officer from that utility was in the room until he stood up and barked at me: “Mr. Gilbert … I have had about all I can take of your exaggerations about utility leadership and the pace of change.  You say we change in geologic time frames … we don’t move that quickly!”  Humor can almost always soften the tone.

I do like what I see now in the White House briefings: people are raising their hands if they have a question.  How nice. Historically these briefings seemed to be like the open outcry system we used to use in the mercantile exchanges, which have largely been eliminated in favor of electronic trading.

Hailing a cab in New York City using hand gestures has been replaced by more dignified requests of Uber and Lyft, both of which offer opportunities to rate the passengers and the drivers.  Maybe that’s the model we should follow for all public discourse: audience meters … like what the media uses during debates.

Maybe some kind of electronic feedback can tame the tempers and let people know when they are out of bounds.  Anything would be better than allowing the world to watch adults behaving badly.