-
Disabling American Sovereignty
May 22, 2013 | 13 comments
-
Another Correa Problem
April 15, 2013 | 9 comments
-
The Lady Wasn’t for Turning
April 8, 2013 | 20 comments
-
Let’s Lose LOST
March 26, 2013 | 25 comments
-
The Missing Word on Trade
February 15, 2013 | 4 comments
The Energy Spectator
Alternative Energy and the Academy at Lagado
The first academic Swift’s Gulliver met at the Academy was working on a new source of energy.
A lot of otherwise sensible people have been calling recently for massive government investment in alternative energy research, arguing that it is the only solution to the risk of global warming that doesn’t involve economic ruin. I can see their point and have often considered it myself. Then I remember Gulliver’s Travels. Jonathan Swift’s classic work is not a simple fairy tale, as so many children’s adaptations have made it seem, but a biting satire that tells us that certain popular conceits are not new, and we should be wary of falling for them again.
The most relevant passage is in Part III, when Gulliver visits the Academy of Lagado. The Academy is DARPA in all but name, a brain trust where those with great ideas can work on those ideas at will, free from the corrupting demands of the marketplace. The first academic Gulliver meets is working on a new source of energy:
The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect…He has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me “to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers.”
Yes, Gulliver met a solar power researcher. How does this speak to us today? Consider that in Germany, the world leader in solar power, photovoltaic solar panels supply 0.6 percent of the country’s energy, but the total cost to the country’s economy for those modules, which have been installed in the past decade, is likely to reach almost $75 billion. It is always a very dear season for solar power.
Others at the Academy are pursuing equally noble research projects. One, for instance, is trying to figure out how to turn excrement back into food. Another is teaching boys how to write treatises on politics using words generated randomly from a machine.
Yet it is the Academy’s mission and the attitude of Lagado’s citizens to it that speaks most closely to proposals for massive government investment in alternative energy:
In these colleges the professors contrive new rules and methods of agriculture and building, and new instruments, and tools for all trades and manufactures; whereby, as they undertake, one man shall do the work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials so durable as to last for ever without repairing. All the fruits of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose, and increase a hundred fold more than they do at present; with innumerable other happy proposals. The only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or clothes. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair.
As Swift so ably reminds us, innovation for its own sake comes at a cost, particularly when it is preceded by rejection of the old. Would that the Obama administration had kept that in mind before imposing stricter automobile fuel economy standards without any real idea of how to reach them!
The irony is that Lagado was once a happy and prosperous place, but fifty years before Gulliver’s arrival, some citizens went abroad and, on gaining a smattering of learning elsewhere, “began to dislike the management of every thing below, and fell into schemes of putting all arts, sciences, languages, and mechanics, upon a new foot.” Gulliver’s host had not fallen for the new fashion. Instead, he continued to live in an estate run along the old lines. The price he paid was also dear:
[S]ome few other persons of quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill common-wealth’s men, preferring their own ease and sloth before the general improvement of their country.
Apparently, Swift even anticipated the price of being a global warming skeptic.
About the Author
Iain Murray heads the Center for Economic Freedom at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and is the author of Stealing You Blind: How Government Fatcats Are Getting Rich Off of You.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (31) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Iain Murray
More Articles From The Energy Spectator
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/12/03/alternative-energy-and-the-aca
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
WTF| 12.3.10 @ 7:25AM
Look up "Bloom Cube", Murray. Then check the mileage improvements already gained in the last few years.
Iain Murray | 12.3.10 @ 8:39AM
Ah yes, the Bloom Box that costs around $800,000. See Swift's remarks above.
David W| 12.3.10 @ 1:19PM
I too checked the article. It requires oxygen pumped in one side, fossil fuel (some sort of gas) in the other. I assume the O2 would come from air. If not then it would require energy to be concentrated. The fossil fuel has to be generated. If nat'l gas it is drilled. If syn gas from coal or oil then you have the same problems as with gas or other products. If methane from landfills, that would be somewhat limited (plus I believe it has to be cleaned up a bit - especially for a fuel cell - as any organic fuel would be - otherwise it may cause corrosion/pitting/catalyst poisoning/etc.).
They saved companies money, but is that before or after the subsidy? If after, how accurate does that make the savings. How does a Bloom Box generating efficiency compare to a natural gas power plant, taking into account all of the costs?
I saw the 60 minutes episode upon which the web article I read was based. I would love for that to be a success. And maybe it will. But color me sceptical until it is out of "research" and into the real world (maybe it is by now).
DCC| 12.3.10 @ 8:31PM
I will remain a skeptic about the Bloom Box until they JUST ONCE tell us the cost to generate one kW of power. Ever noticed that they never do? Break it down by Box cost, subsidies, operating costs, estimated lifetime of the box and rate of amortization. Until then, it's no more than an experiment being indulged in by companies with extra money. By the way, they never say what they charged those companies. There is no reason to believe they charged full freight.
The big difference between Gulliver and the 21st century gullible is that Gulliver somehow saw behind the curtain, something we can't often do today.
Bob K.| 12.3.10 @ 7:42AM
Done at the orders of an ignorant government by even more ignorant bureaucrats while making cars smaller, more expensive, less comfortable, more dangerous; engines more complicated, parts more expensive, fuel more expensive, which are meant to be driven on highways designed for high speed transit in a country located on a continent over 2000 miles wide!
MoeBlotz| 12.3.10 @ 7:54AM
The late Henry Yunick patented an adiabatic engine, circa 1985,that used heat from the combustion process to vaporise fuel passing through the carburetor. Without Federal mandates Mr.Yunick made a working model that exceeded horsepower and fuel economy norms of the period,with lower emissions. The free market has responded to government intervention in areas automotive and otherwise,improving our lives in spite of the myriad regulations,not because of them.
Alert1201| 12.3.10 @ 8:06AM
How many government subsidies did the Wright Brothers get?
Paul Milenkovic| 12.3.10 @ 11:49AM
A yes, Henry "Smokey" Yunick of race car fame. Legend has it that a particular race limited the gas tank to a certain number of gallons so that the race cars would compete on a level field in terms of the number of required pit stops.
The rules said nothing about the length or diameter of the pipe connecting the fuel tank to the motor, so Mr. Yunick made that connection with a long length of coiled rubber hose, holding some extra fuel in the connection between tank and motor. Needless to say, the rules were changed for the next year.
I am familiar with what you speak off. Popular Mechanics or Popular Science at a piece in the late 70's/early 80's about Mr. Yunick's Chevy Citation, where he cut down the 2.7L V6 into a 1.35L 3-cylinder, bolted on a turbocharger and worked his engine magic to come up with a car with ample acceleration that was claimed to get 60 MPG.
I think what he as doing was 1) use a small displacement engine, 2) use turbo charging for adequate power when needed, 3) recycle exhaust heat to reduce power when required with reduced throttling losses, 4) use high compression ratios, and 5) use some kind of combustion chamber boojum so the thing didn't destroy itself with knock or detonation.
This thing may have worked as advertised, but it may not have passed those pesky EPA tests, especially for NOX emissions. On the other hand, Mr. Yunick was a race mechanic's race mechanic when it came to skirting the edges of the rules and maybe a little more, and there is some speculation that with his high MPG car, he may have been pulling our legs, just a little bit.
MoeBlotz| 12.3.10 @ 8:04PM
Read "Best Damn Garage in Town,the world according to Smokey", then tell me if you think he was yanking our chains.
Ray| 12.4.10 @ 2:01PM
The claims of Henry Yunick notwithstanding, there was no, and still is, increases in fuel economy observed through his "breakthrough" process. It actually REDUCES fuel economy.
That pre-vaporization (heating gas into a vapor) process itself increases fuel line back pressure, which, if you know anything about internal combustion engines, requires higher fuel pump pressures in which to overcome the inherent resistance that this back-pressure causes (expansion gasses move in all directions, not just along the direction of flow in its liquid state and the pump itself, thanks to its geometry, restricts flow in the "forward" direction during more than half it's "pumping" cycle , which causes back pressure) and transfer fuel into the combustion cylinders, which, in turn, requires more "horsepower," more energy from the combustion process itself, though the mechanical linkages necessary to power that fuel pump, to generate those higher fuel line pressures which are needed to overcome the gas pressure you just, foolishly, introduced into the fuel system.
Here's how it works: the lower the pressure of the fuel before it enters the combustion chamber, the easier it is to get that fuel INTO to combustion chamber. As gasoline in a gaseous state induces more pressure in the fuel delivery system than when it's in a liquid state, it's several time harder to get that fuel into the combustion chamber, and this lowers fuel efficiency.
Also, the very act of the combustion cylinders expanding in volume (which occurs after the fuel enters the chamber and the piston moves "down") naturally vaporizes the fuel, so that pre-vaporization is totally redundant, thus adding to it's inefficiency.
That's WHY no one uses it, especially with fuel injection engines. It's actually reducing gas mileage (fuel economy) through the loss of horse power.
Petronius| 12.3.10 @ 10:13AM
A couple years back my $6000 investment in a mutual fund holding conventional energy stocks paid out a dividend which covered not only what I spent for gasoline, but my auto insurance to boot.
Thank you Oil Companies, every one!
Al Adab| 12.3.10 @ 2:33PM
Much better luck than my mutual fund holding GM although my CVX continues to perform. Congratulations.
WTF| 12.3.10 @ 10:51AM
I googled Bloom Box costs; got nothing like what you assert. We could rid ourselves of the grid with the Box, and save 20-25% in the bargain.
L. Ross| 12.3.10 @ 11:11AM
Here is the website. Found it immediately. Look about halfway down the page, in the Bloom Box Scalability and Price paragraph, and you will see the following.
The current Bloom Box costs between $700k-$800k.
http://www.suite101.com/conten.....ll-a205310
I'm all for this kind of stuff, and hope that costs come down about 40 fold. I could see paying $20,000 for electricity in a box, but not more than that.
Alert1201| 12.3.10 @ 11:45AM
Excellent stuff. Although I'm not sure I would call it electricity in a box. It sounds like you still have to supply an organic energy source that is converted to electricity.
Bob K.| 12.4.10 @ 9:17AM
I note that the California Corporations mentioned in the article that use these Bloom Boxes and who state that they have saved energy costs also received state and federal subsidies to install them.
That is Corporate Welfare, if you will. Another form of "trickle down" socialism that never seems to flow down to the common man or woman.
One wonders if these very large corporations, many of which pay low wages to the great portion of their employees in order to be profitable,would invest in this technology without these subsidies.
MikeW| 12.3.10 @ 11:15AM
Nice article, I had forgotten how funny Jonathan Swift was.
I laughed when Energy Sec Chu called for more alt-energy funding a few days ago. As his last job was directing the Lawrence-Berkeley National Laboratory, that's exactly what one would expect. He's just trying to propagate his particular sub-species, the ivory tower researcher. It reminds me of an "obesity conference" a few years back that ended with all these obesity researchers calling for, yes, more funds for obesity research.
T H Huxley| 12.6.10 @ 9:32PM
MikeW: Did you ever wonder why Secretary Chu won a Nobel Prize in physics and you didn't?
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.3.10 @ 12:39PM
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.3.10 @ 11:53AM
OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!!
Folks, Beebop, Mr. Grant...
Read it and cheer. (from American Thinker)
http://www.americanthinker.com.....risma.html
Reply to this
ken (Old Texican)| 12.3.10 @ 11:59AM
PS on the article on Sarah. Be sure to read the comments.
Al Adab| 12.3.10 @ 1:11PM
However, the modern American educational system- an institution pursuing it's own agenda rather than an instrument to create an educated public- no longer reads and studies the lessons of the Western Canon. Much wisdom is lost by turning our backs on the learning and dialogue of 2500 years.
kiltmaker| 12.3.10 @ 2:14PM
People should read the classics. There is nothing new under the sun. In some form or manner, the idea has come and gone. Good ideas get developed by some smart entrepreneur and money is made and life gets better and society benifits.
Let the government steps in and try to direct the direction of innovation and the good idea may be missed or mishandled. The man catching sunbeams was following a dead end, but as long as he had government funding, he would continue trying to bottle sunshine. The private sector would have redirected his talent to finding another solution.
Old DARPA Guy| 12.3.10 @ 2:47PM
I take offense to the DARPA comment. At least at DARPA we had to have some reasonable laws fo physics justification to establish a chance of success before getting program funding. Not only that, the whole purpose of DARPA was to take risks that the regular world would not attempt.
With regards to the developing efficinet engines and getting great gas mileage, I was on a DARPA panel over 10 years ago reviewing what could be done to improve the state of the art in engines and power for military vehicles. Some things that must be remembered. The amount of energy in a gallon of fuel is finite! The engine cycles themselves have theoretical limits of performance. Most bandaids to existing engine cycles can only move their performance to the theoretical limit. I can oly laugh when I see people state there are magic bullet technologies. The best thing to do is run temperatures higher for more efficiency but then materials are the limiting factor.
I also did studies for the m ilitary on alternative energy and could not come up with any approach that was cost efficient or delivered anything better than slight improvements to existing or currently developing technologies. To me the best approach to better efficiency was to lessen the system parasitic losses with lower friction or improved thermal insulation.
cnc| 12.3.10 @ 7:23PM
It's all going to be drone tanks and planes soon anyway. Better economy through lighter vehicles.
MoeBlotz| 12.3.10 @ 8:07PM
I get great gas mileage,from my brother's chili.
JD| 12.4.10 @ 12:56AM
Like solar cells and secondary batteries the technolgy of fuel cells is old. The research has been to find cheaper materials and manufacturing processes to make them cost effective. Politicans love alternative energy and distributed generation and do what they do best, spend OPM. The Silicon Valley venture capitalist are just looking for the next Dot Bomb. They will never find a Google in their alternative energy investments. They will burn through billions before they realize they were chasing rainbows to find a pot of gold. Obama's and the venture capitalist's $1B investment in Solyndra has already disappeared down a rat hole. They can't compete with the Chineese.
Dacron Mather| 12.4.10 @ 1:10AM
It seems imprudent for inmates of so august a Yahoo establishment as CEI to compare DARPA to the Academy of Lagado,
Docrox| 12.4.10 @ 1:42AM
Ladies and Gents...this way to the perpetual motion machine...please kindly deposit your tax dollars here...and wait patiently while I go and plug it in! Snake oil salesman switched products when the "age of electricity" was ushered in. They are all still preying on the ignorant that just KNOW entropy is an illusion. Where is that John Galt and his ambient static electricity engine when you need him? Oh, yeah, he checked out on this society...because he realized the new "Energati" would never let him keep his idea. "Govt subsidy of innovation" is an oxymoron...one the govt has politicized anything, it is no longer innovative...it no longer creates wealth...it is a tool of tyranny!
Ray| 12.4.10 @ 2:16PM
We DO make a difference, at the voting booth. Don't take us to be fools and rubes.
Marc Jeric| 12.7.10 @ 7:15PM
New environmentally friendly energy? Geothermal electricity is now 60 years old; it is more expensive, produces large quantities of waste, such as arsenic and radioactive Cesium and Strontium. Solar electricity - when available (30% of time) - is 4 times more expensive, destroys all life in the permanent shade of its reflectors. It is also old - now in its 6th decade. Wind power? When available (20% of the times) it is 4 times more expensive; those huge turbines kill birds by millions (birds do not see those blades that act like giant Cuisinarts for birds); it is also very old - it dates from Don Quijote times.
I should know - I worked on all of them during my 40-year career as design engineer.
T H Huxley| 12.7.10 @ 11:17PM
Apparently, you don't understand that research makes vast improvements in technology. The first TV was invented in the 1920's and now we have plasma screen TVs. I actually know one of the "Ivory Tower" scientists that made plasma screens practical. As far as solar cells are concerned, why don't you take a look out your window and take a look at all of the rooftops that could accommodate solar cells. Putting solar cells on rooftops wouldn't cast any more shadow than is already cast by the house. Are you really as stupid as you appear?