Saturday, December 03, 2011

Yes, "Environmentalist" too often means "Person who can't do math"

How so?  Look at this plan, here and here, to turn the Eiffel Tower into the "lungs of Paris" by covering it with approximately 400 tons of plants.  OK, first of all, 400 tons of plants would be the plants growing on a few acres of land (especially if forested), so this would be an effort dwarfed by the grass on the Champs Elysees.  Never mind that 400 tons of plants aren't exactly going to counter the fuel use of that fair city of millions, either. It might compensate for the half ton pickups driven by most people on my block, but that's about it.

More distressingly for those who love architecture, 400 tons would also be the weight of a watering system for this kind of thing, which would in turn spray water throughout the summer on all portions of that venerable structure while making it difficult, if not impossible, to paint.  In short, it could result in the Tower's collapse within a few years. 

In related news, Aptera, an aspiring maker of electric cars, is bankrupt because they couldn't even get funding from the Obama administration, which is saying something. 

Or, rather, they are bankrupt because no one wants to pay a premium for a car that doesn't go as far as an ordinary gas powered car, which is a natural consequence of physics.  Electric car power comes from lithium or heavier atoms--atomic weight six or greater--while that from gasoline comes from hydrogen.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that physics more or less dooms battery power in all but niche applications.

But, of course, it appears that environmentalists, including Dr. Chu of the Obama administration, are not aware of the work of Dmitri Mendeleev.  Or at least aren't paying attention to it.

5 comments:

Brian said...

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that physics more or less dooms battery power in all but niche applications.

I think you are committing the same error as many math-challenged environmentalists: discounting completely the impact of future innovations. Particularly those that are reached iteratively (i.e., nearly all of them).

Bike Bubba said...

What element is going to be used, Brian? Lithium's the lightest metal available for batteries, and the energy it can carry is dwarfed by that of any hydrogen based fuel, pound per pound. Hence, any improvements are going to be incremental, not revolutionary.

Again, simple thing from the periodic table, and it guarantees that "Volt" designers are going to be tied up trying to reduce energy used by windshield wipers to get enough range for their boondoggle.

Brian said...

If I knew the answer to that, I'd have stayed in chemistry (rather than hopping to biology) and be making batteries. But I don't think that justifies dismissing the entire enterprise.

Mr. D said...

I'm an English major, so this is dangerous territory for me, but my understanding is that lithium-ion batteries are always going to have limitations that will make them only for short-range trips.

This is why so many people who love electric cars also hate suburbia and exurbia. If you can control the distances people move, electric cars might make more sense. It's a very coercive mindset, though.

Bike Bubba said...

That's part of it; the physics and chemistry is very simple. To have a battery, you need plates to channel the current created. The lightest element is lithium, and there is a limited voltage ("work function") that can be generated with a given chemistry.

So as long as you're constrained to some kind of liquid medium (water; atomic weight 18) with two lithium plates (atomic weight six), which you are with a battery, you are at a huge disadvantage against burning hydrogen with an atomic weight of 1.

Perhaps they'll double the energy/weight ratio of batteries, but I'd be surprised if they go much further. Science is against them.

And then you've got the fact that chemical reactions often become irreversible once you've taken them a certain length, as Mr. D. hints.