- The Manhattan Project had a relatively simple goal, blowing things up. We knew this goal was possible, because the sun was already doing it.
- At that, it consumed approximately 100% of the top physical science and engineering talent in the United States.
- The primary problem of renewable energy is finding a
transmission/storage mechanism that is efficient enough to time-shift,
or location-shift, somewhat unreliable energy sources that tend to be most powerful in places that no one wants to live because they are very windy mountaintops, or 100 degrees deserts. While the light battery we all ardently desire may exist somewhere out there in the platonic engineering ether where new devices waiting to be born, it also may not.
- Even if we found some magic device that would let us live without foreign oil, we would still be affected by changes in price of same because our trading partners use it.
- Energy independence and environmental soundness may be inversely correlated; the fastest and surest way to achieve it would be to convert our economy back to running on coal.
- The Manhattan Project was dedicated to producing a product of which the government was the only natural consumer, few other large capital aggregators being in the market for a device that would allow them to incinerate tens of thousands of potential consumers in one convenient dose.
- The spending of huge amounts of money on researching something does not actually guarantee that you will get the desired product out of your research. You wouldn't think it, to listen to various activists, but often all you get out of research is proof that something you hoped was possible, isn't.
- If we could, merely by being willing to spend unlimited sums, guarantee the production of the desired useful product, then we should stop messing around with renewable energy, and start researching a perpetual motion machine, which would cut our energy consumption by 100%.
« If we only had socialized medicine . . . | Main | Why can't American firms make small cars? » Manhattan no more12 Nov 2008 06:59 pm
I am--to no effect, but still--demanding a moratorium on the use of the phrase "We need a manhattan project for [energy independence/renewable energy/global warming]." I submit the following observations:
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"The Manhattan Project had a relatively simple goal, blowing things up. We knew this goal was possible, because the sun was already doing it."
The sun runs on nuclear fusion, the joining of two tiny hydrogen atoms to form a single, still very tiny helium. Manhattan project achieved nuclear fission, the splitting of very large atoms to form still very large atoms.
Aside from that the post is good, carry on.
I don't think Megan was alluding to the distinction between fission and fusion but rather the explosive potential of nuclear reactions. The particular type of nuclear reaction is rather irrelevant to the argument.
In any event, yes, very good points.
And doubtless someone will come here and claim to refute all and sundry and think he has proven you a moron. That seems to be the course for these posts...
Wow. What a lack of knowledge about actual science!
1. The Manhattan Project was not, simply put, about "Blowing Stuff Up". The advances in physics, metallurgy, and all nuclear related fields is little short of breath-taking.
2. Much of the research development by the Manhattan Engineering District had large practical applications to the civilian nuclear power industry. So while the end result, the bomb, had no market outside of government, the research that culminated in the end result certainly did.
3. Your argument seems to be, it may not be possible to do anything about energy independence/renewable energy/global warming, and even if we can do something about it, it might not make much of a difference. That may be true, but what's the alternative?
I do believe this post is guilty of failing to put aside the cynicism that serves only to divide us.
The sun is an excellent example of a natural nuclear reactor. Just as trees are excellent examples of solar energy chemical storage devices.
FWIW, the sun is undergoing fusion, not fission. Of course fission was well known to be possible, too.
indeed, and their lack of mobility a very good example of the limits to using sunlight as an energy source.
Wow, Anthony, what a lack of understanding about actual science!
So you're saying, we should engage in a "Manhattan Project" to achieve energy independence because maybe the materials scientists who bring us crappy solar panels that cool a home for exactly two days, might also develop a really really neat nylon to be used in laptop cases. Woo hoo! Yes, New New Deal all the way! Fire up those Green Corps! Let's dump a huge portion of our GDP to develop it NOW! It's a win-win!
I'm also sick of everybody calling for a "Manhattan Project" for renewable energy. There are major differences that people don't get:
1) The Manhattan Project was trying to make a product with no worry about cost. They were just trying to get it done, with unlimited money. Well, we all already get electricity. The key to renewable energy isn't INVENTING renewable energy, it's about making it remotely cost effective. Someone once had a good quote about this, that I'll paraphrase, regarding a similar analogy: An Apollo Program of Energy: "This isn't trying to put a man on the moon. This is trying to find a new way to put a man on the moon when Southwest Airlines is already taking people there for $75 roundtrip on weekends."
2) The Manhattan Project was remarkably non-political. It was truly run by scientists who understood how science works. Nobody knew quite which path would allow them to make a bomb, and different research labs around the country each tried different things. The linear accelerators in California all owe their existence to related Manhattan Project research. The fact that most reactors in Canada run on plutonium (as opposed to uranium in the US) also has to do with different research in different areas. They could get away with this because it was a complete secret from the public, and because the government was so desperate to win the war that they were willing to put some political gamesmanship aside. Any project like that nowadays would be insanely political, which would mean that money would go to projects that pay off for politicians. Witness the disastrous funding for corn ethanol due to the fact that everybody dreams of winning the Iowa Caucuses.
I believe that government can be somewhat effective funding pure research. But as far as producing a product to be mass-produced to profit in the mass marketplace? That cannot be done with direct subsidies. Only tax breaks. For example, a tax break for anybody who buys an electric car would still allow the best electric car to win over the market. A pure subsidy would end up giving money to the electric car company that donates the most campaign donations, and would put back electric car research for years by STUNTING the growth of the best car.
There's no way that an Apollo or Manhattan Project-style program can work to achieve "energy independence" (whatever the hell that means... as long as you trade with other country you can't be independent of their energy usage...).
But if you are a big gummint fundamentalist, having the One endorse a Project is tantamount to solving ALL problems. Me, I just want a lake house. With enough acreage for the pony. Open invitation for drinks on the dock when you're visiting Newark, Megan!
One point Meg neglects, about ending our dependence on oil: Not only would our miracle battery have to store energy as well as gasoline does, but before it could replace oil the battery would also have to be easily and cheaply converted into water bottles, zip ties, pasta forks, and leg warmers. Which would be a helluva trick.
Anthony, the Manhattan Project was created with one singular purpose: to create an atomic weapon as fast as possible. The MP was ALL about blowing things up.
That knowledge was gained beyond weaponry, are outcomes of the pursuit of the purpose.
Megan is correct in that the project only worked because of the pursuit of a single goal. Her point clearly is that the current search for "energy independence" is fragmented to a high degree: rife with waste, ill defined goals, and competing egos and theories. Throwing more money at that mess is pointless.
I would also note that for one who slams Megan for "What a lack of knowledge about actual science!" you provide none of that yourself in your "argument." Instead you provide a bit of blather that could be found in the teleprompter of any network news reader.
Megan, you could have just said:
Synthetic Fuels Corporation.
Well, this is a slight misstatement of the scientific principles at work here (intentional or not) but that got a chuckle out of me.
At that, it consumed approximately 100% of the top physical science and engineering talent in the United States.
No, no. It consumed damn near 100% of the top S&T talent in the world. Most everyone in Europe worth anything came over here; what was left in Europe and Japan didn't get nearly as far.
Instead of a Manhattan Project we should provide incentives for individuals and maybe some Homebrew Energy Clubs to experiment. I have a dream that someday my house can produce its own electricity and maybe some extra for transportation and income.
Too much effort is going into big projects that will just change the energy supplier and do nothing to reduce our dependence.
""Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue...." - Mary Wollstonecraft
We also had the problem of the Nazis trying to build their own. Nothing creates incentive like imminent death.
In contrast, not only is the threat not imminent (because if we don't invent it in 1 year, we'll still be here), if someone besides us does invent it (i.e. Russia, China, India, etc.) then they'll just market it to us and we can use it ourselves.
I hear the global warming crowd getting worked up by imminent, but what I mean is that the world does not feel like it will be destroyed if we drive gas cars for the next few years--and, if we run out gas suddenly, well, we will survive-- we'll just be switching back to coal and horses. Basically, worst case scenario, in 50 years, our mode of transport will be horse and buggy again, along with sailing ships. Victorian Era, if you will.
Al Gore aside, $4 gasoline was the best motivator for a better source of energy, but now that we've fallen well below that, the incentive is much lower.
Actually we already have many devices that, if applied, would solve our energy consumption and environmental problems in short order. They include condoms, birth control pills, etc... All possibilities in the platonic ether converge on this solution, applied somehow, sometime.
Wow ... um ... ok I don't have the time (or, admittedly, the knowledge) to go into all of this but bullet points one and two are terrible: 1) no, as someone said the sun does nuclear fusion not fission. The fact that you don't know the difference really doesn't bode well. 2) what the??? Einstein (who you know) didn't work on the Manhattan Project Harry Hess (who you probably don't know) didn't either. Nor did Paul Dirac (admittedly he was at Cambridge at the time but still, an ally). There were a bunch of physical scientists not working on the project in the US and in our allied countries.
I'm not sure either of these are really crucial to your overall argument but still... dang.
We've already had several Manhattan projects devoted to energy efficiency, alternative fuels, and renewable energy. They just have taken place over the last 40 years and been funded by a lot of different entities, from the Department of Defense to private investors. And you can add work from Japan (who has about a million times more anxieties about energy supply as we do) and Western Europe. Just because the research effort has been widely distributed and doesn't have a catchy name doesn't mean it doesn't count.
The result: no miracles, not even big splashes, just achingly slow and steady progress.
We're up against some very tough challenges, such as the Laws of Thermodynamics and the fundamental nature matter and the elements.
Deal with it.
"Actually we already have many devices that, if applied, would solve our energy consumption and environmental problems in short order. They include condoms, birth control pills, etc..."
News flash: Most first world countries already have birth rates below the replacement rate. You don't really expect the teeming hordes in the developing world to adopt the fertility levels of Sex and the City spinsters, do you? You'll have to come up with a more direct way to reduce their numbers. How about banning sales of modern medicines, pesticides, fertilizers, and seeds to them? That ought to reduce their populations.
"One point Meg neglects, about ending our dependence on oil: Not only would our miracle battery have to store energy as well as gasoline does, but before it could replace oil the battery would also have to be easily and cheaply converted into water bottles, zip ties, pasta forks, and leg warmers. Which would be a helluva trick."
That is not entirely accurate. Bioplastics exist today and while they are more expansive than their fossil relatives, it is not by much. And since material cost make a very small part of the cost of a plastic product, the difference in product price is fairly minimal. In other words, most of us do not need 20 gallons of plastic a week.
"Actually we already have many devices that, if applied, would solve our energy consumption and environmental problems in short order. They include condoms, birth control pills, etc... All possibilities in the platonic ether converge on this solution, applied somehow, sometime."
Even if you assume that a lower population is desirable (a point I will strongly disagree with, since a lower population will have less talent) you are completely ignoring the transition period. If tomorrow everyone decides to only have one child instead of 2.1 then 50 years from now over 2/3s of the population will be retirees depending on the other third to produce. The situation will become worse with every generation. The only way out of that hole would to either work people until very close to death, or kill them at retirement.
Energy Independence isn't exactly the goal here - it's just how it's sold to climate change ambivalent types with isolationist leanings.
I believe the market will motivate green tech better than a government launched project. Not only because it won't get stonewalled, filibustered, or otherwise crippled (why were you in favour of hamstrung politicians again Megan?), but because industry tech heads have a better understanding of these things than policy wonks.
The problem is that companies have become very, very good at telling us that what we really need is something they already produce. Greenwashing is just a subset of modern-day advertising. If that sounds a bit Naomi Klein-y, let me just add that it's an industry in which I work.
On the other hand, the good news is that the best products don't need marketing, and so the market incentive is still there.
All we have to do is decide what we want. In that respect, Megan, it's a good list.
Here is a much better argument: Out of either the manhattan project OR the Apollo project, how cheap, safe and easy to use were the final results? Because that's what we want, as stated above, we ALREADY HAVE transport and energy that works, we now want cheaper and safer alternatives.
Actually we already have many devices that, if applied, would solve our energy consumption and environmental problems in short order. They include condoms, birth control pills, etc...
This only works if in short order means within 50 years. Because even compulsory spraying of contraceptives over the entire 3rd world (developed nations already use them) will not greatly reduce energy usage for some decades.
Are we trying to go slow? Don't we want to be a self-sufficient energy nation? Are these our goals or what? Look I'm with the hostess that we won't have some massive project that turns out a product. But I think its important to declare a goal and pursue it relentlessly. I mean the argument sounds like this to me, "its going to be really tough to do, and its going to take more than ten years, is it worth it?" Yes, if there is a word stronger than "yes" I mean that word. Ushering change is preferable to change smacking you in the face, or in this case draining your bank account.
Jeff W - Actually, the difference between American and Canadian reactors isn't uranium/plutonium, it's that American reactors(and most others) use enriched uranium and tap water, whereas Canadian reactors(and a few others) use natural uranium and heavy water. It's a matter of whether you enrich the moderator or the fissile material.
Plutonium is more so a byproduct of nuclear reactors than a source material for them, given that it does not exist in nature. It is of course possible to use uranium reactors to create plutonium for later reaction, but in practice, it's not really done.
Regarding the controversy over "the Sun was already doing it", the line was inaccurate but the message was not. The possibility of a uranium-based nuclear chain reaction was already publicly known from civilian science.
Anthony, the Manhattan Project was created with one singular purpose: to create an atomic weapon as fast as possible. The MP was ALL about blowing things up.
That knowledge was gained beyond weaponry, are outcomes of the pursuit of the purpose.
Megan is correct in that the project only worked because of the pursuit of a single goal. Her point clearly is that the current search for "energy independence" is fragmented to a high degree: rife with waste, ill defined goals, and competing egos and theories. Throwing more money at that mess is pointless.
I would also note that for one who slams Megan for "What a lack of knowledge about actual science!" you provide none of that yourself in your "argument." Instead you provide a bit of blather that could be found in the teleprompter of any network news reader.
Saying that the Manhattan Project had a relatively simple goal is a lack of knowledge about science. I don't think it is "blather" to point that out.
I'm sure you may have even gotten a chuckle as you typed that devastating bon mot. But is it really blather to point out that developing the general theories of fission reactions, discovering and studying elements like plutonium, starting the first self sustaining nuclear reaction, and the myriad other scientific breakthroughs that all had to happen to lead up to the creation of the bomb is not akin to what happens at General Dynamics when they make a new cruise missle?
Simon N. is right that energy independence isn't really the goal of greens. Neither, apparently, is producing low-cost energy without emitting carbon (that element upon which all life on Earth is based). If it were, greens would advocate dramatically expanding our use of nuclear power.
The goal seems to be to make energy more expensive for Joe Sixpack, so he can atone for his sins (having a house with a backyard, driving an F-150, etc.), while funneling taxpayer funds to well-connected green entrepreneurs and investors like Kleiner Perkins partner Al Gore.
Your exhaustion with the "Manhattan Project" phrase is linguistic exhaustion, which I share. The phrase is worked out. But don't try to pretend it has any concrete basis. Large government-funded science initiatives with discrete goals are extremely productive, and almost all of the objections you list are clearly wrong. (The Manhattan Project did not consume 100% of the country's top physicists and engineers; I believe a few of them were busy designing fighter planes. It was not certain at the start of the project that it would be possible to build a practical nuclear bomb -- the sun does not fit in the belly of a B-29. And so on.)
I mostly agree with Megan here, except for one point. A major leap in the energy density of batteries probably could be accelerated if the government made it a priority. There have already been impressive results using nanotechnology, although they are still in the lab phase and not production. One example of this is the work Yi Cui has done at Stanford; I believe an MIT research group has produced similar results with a different approach.
As for the difficulties of transmitting energy, it is tough, but high-voltage direct current lines can transmit electricity with a 3% loss over every 1000 km. That's good enough to profitably get electricity from solar farms located in North Africa into Europe, or electricity from offshore wind stations into coastal cities. I think the government needs to aggressively fund a lot of different approaches and see what works. Tom Friedman made this point well on the Daily Show last night - a Manhattan project isn't appropriate, but a commitment to funding a broad range of projects is.
Where would the ITER fusion project at Cadarache fit into this picture? Japan and France fought for quite a while over which one of them would get to host it, and get to pay half of the cost for it; everyone but France pays a small fraction for their share. The U.S. is participating. Are you saying it shouldn't participate?
Fusion really is what the sun does. If a line is drawn through them on a non-cheating graph, the temperatures reached in the fusion effort's trials over the years make a straight slanting line up to breakeven and toward ignition, without flattening in the line yet, even with funding delays (although over such a long period that jokes like "your grandfather's energy of the future" have become old and familiar).
ITER doesn't take "100% of the scientists"... I'm sorry, I don't know what to include in this context; your list puzzles me. How do generalities like the points you listed help in evaluating a specific thing like this?
Or help in evaluating the various, detailed questions of R&D prospects in other areas, for that matter?
Or is arm-waving past this toward a truly impossible perpetual motion machine really the extent of your interest, or lack of it? What is this back-of-the-envelope demonstrating that it's all pie in the sky and not worth pursuing?
It's mildly annoying that you confused fission with fusion. It's more annoying--since it is more directly relevant to your argument--that you think the Manhattan Project was "relatively simple" just because it was about "blowing things up". The fact that the outcome is easy to describe has nothing to do with the complexity of the means of obtaining it. In fact, it was pretty complicated, which is why all those scientists were required. If you want to argue that "Manhattan Project" is a hackneyed metaphor that sheds no light on the viability or worth of a proposed project, I'm with you. But to imply that you know something about the science involved that allows you to come to this conclusion is clearly an overreach.
DaveinHackensack - respectfully, I don't think greens are quite that naive. The gravest mistake you can make in any civil discourse is to assume that someone disagrees with you because they are mean spirited, or stupid. Overzealous, maybe, but not stupid.
I think nuclear isn't so bad for the US. You have a huge baseload power requirement and the industry is already there. It's less cut and dry here in Australia where the industry doesn't have a foothold. No industry is going to set up shop under the proviso that we want to be rid of them in a few decades. Also, I don't personally want us (humankind) to wait until someone coins the term 'peak uranium' to get our game faces on where new energy tech is concerned. Sure, a modern world without oil is difficult to envisage, but a world using far less of the stuff is achievable. Very much so.
Bill Gates just dropped a bit of cash into algae based biofuels - so perhaps that's more promising than the usual New Scientist flying car-type guff.
The Manhattan Project was not a fishing expedition; we knew what was achieved in fact was possible in theory. And we could theoretically replace the energy equivalent of the amount of oil we import, if we built between 250 and 300 new 1000 megawatt nuclear power plants. But alternative energy strategies and conservation are variously economically viable relative to the price of oil and coal. The fluctuation of the price of oil makes capital investment in alternatives risky. If your alternative was viable when oil cost $100 a barrel or more, then you just lost your investment since the price has fallen. So some scheme to stabilize the price of oil seems necessary to both identify which alternatives to pursue, and to attract investment in them.
brooksfoe,
Large government-funded science initiatives with discrete goals are extremely productive,
I doubt that, but there's a selection bias at work there anyway. To get funding an initiative would need at least a reasonable chance of success. It does not follow that any proposed initiative would therefore have a reasonable chance of success if it were funded.
and almost all of the objections you list are clearly wrong. (The Manhattan Project did not consume 100% of the country's top physicists and engineers; I believe a few of them were busy designing fighter planes. It was not certain at the start of the project that it would be possible to build a practical nuclear bomb -- the sun does not fit in the belly of a B-29. And so on.)
Well, out of those "almost all" allegedly "clearly wrong" objections, you manage to offer a rebuttal to precisely two. The first of those rebuttals is essentially a quibble. The point is that it is highly unlikely that the government today could induce a Manhattan Project-like concentration of scientific and engineering talent and resources on alternative energy or global warming even if it wanted to. We're not in a state of war, there is no sense of urgent need, and there are too many other needs competing for the talent and resources. And yes, the success of the Manhattan Project was not guaranteed, but it was judged to be probable, and the prospect of the Nazis producing an atomic bomb of their own within a few years created an urgent need to make the attempt. No comparably imminent and probable threat exists with respect to energy or global warming.
Deciduous plants seem to be able to store solar energy all winter. Bet we can too.
Or, shorter: The question of big development projects and the prospects for what they will be able to do has to be taken up and considered individually, in terms of the specific problems, the fields involved, the known work that can be done, etc.
If I'm interpreting you properly in that "Manhattan no more" should mean "no big R&D projects/objectives no more, to which the Manhattan thing could be applied" - there is no basis for such a global judgment that would apply to multiple fields at once, unless it is magically true, between and applying to and independent of all of the fields, that such big efforts (and how big is big?) are a mistake.
Your second-to-last point caught me, too, in its comment that "often all you get out of research is proof that something you hoped was possible, isn't." Again, I'm trying to interpret your intent, but this makes it sound like that result would mean it was a waste of time - like trying to have a product delivered and failing. Finding out that something is actually not possible makes new knowledge, likely to be valuable, even extremely valuable - it contributes new facts for scientific and technical efforts, and new information for people discussing priorities and possibilities. Things learned along the way to the conclusion contribute in the same way. This at least moderates the potential notion that what we face in such situations is the terrible possibility of simply wasting money on failure.
I don't know if you have left out premises that should have been here, Megan, but I don't think what you have here makes a full basis for coming down on the side of "no Manhattan Projects" or whatever equivalent I should use.
"the myriad other scientific breakthroughs that all had to happen to lead up to the creation of the bomb is not akin to what happens at General Dynamics when they make a new cruise missle? (sic)"
I'd argue that what energy really needs is the equivalent of the cruise missile development - a technologically simple approach born of a cheaper implementation of existing technology which completely revolutionizes the theater.
Yeah, the Manhattan Project analogy is a little awkward. And the people who advocate it tend to have a very rosy picture of the potential of science. When we don't really understand something, it's hard to estimate how difficult it will be to solve- so, the Manhattan Project had a different outcome from the War on Cancer due to misunderstanding the nature of the problem.
I do think, however, that it would be okay to call for a Human Genome Project for energy development- what happened there was that in 1991 there already was technology in place that could do sequencing, albeit in a limited fashion and slowly. However, the groundwork for assembling a genome (the artificial chromosome mapping) could be done in the meantime- and while that was happening, presumably the relatively crude sequencing technology we had would get better. The laying of that groundwork allowed the private sector to get involved and use a new techniques to generate a competing sequence, and accelerate the finishing of the project by decades. And while the NIH was lead on this, it coordinated with academic centers around the world.
So basically, we should coordinate with as many countries as will get on board to generate new technologies and implement smart grids, and hopefully some of them will pan out. And then the technologies will be implementable here, but also in the cooperating countries (hopefully China and India will jump on board, too). And it would help assuage bad feelings about Kyoto.
But yeah- maybe we shouldn't dump a ton of money into renewable energy helter-skelter. But a complete overhaul of the nation's energy grid would really help and would only make it easier for smaller, innovative producers to add their juice to the market, if they should materialize. Or modernizing buildings with new energy-efficient fixtures would pay immediate dividends. And furthermore, we have some good ideas for exactly how to do that. There's streamlining to be done and plenty of room for improvement, sure, but basically the know-how and technology is all there.
And it's not like we need to replace the steam engine or electricity turbines with energon cubes or some wild new technology- we understand the basics of wind and solar, they already work, we just want them to be better. Same goes for nuclear, for that matter. Clean coal is a little more dicey, but hey, it's possible.
As far as storage, I find it very hard to believe that we'll hit a ceiling on batteries anytime soon, when literally everything involving electronics requires them. And there are other ways to store energy that we already know about- potential energy, or electrolysis of water to hydrogen (actually pretty tough to store hydrogen, but whatever- something else that may or may not be improved). This may end up being the white whale of the green energy project, or it may be the site of massive breakthroughs. I agree that it's hard to tell from our vantage point, but like I said, I find it hard to believe that we've come as far as we can in this way.
So all told- we can definitely do the groundwork for utilizing a breakthrough if it comes, and if it doesn't, we can still use existing technology, it just may not be terribly efficient or economical initially. And we'd still be saving an assload from the new grid and efficiency measures. I also think it's enough of a national security priority that it would behoove us to at least give it a go.
I'll put the question all by itself: How big does something have to be before it is a "Manhattan Project", and therefore discussed here? Or, how far should our ideas about "Manhattan Projects" extend downward to apply to just substantial investment or some investment? Mixner talks about "a Manhattan Project-like concentration of scientific and engineering talent and resources", and says that doing that would be impracticable now... well, what size would be practicable, or what sizes are we actually talking about? Do we have a shape on this at all?
Simon Nix,
Where did I say that I thought the greens were naive or stupid? I think many of them (if not most) realize that their policies would make energy more expensive for average Americans and they are OK with that.
Well, out of those "almost all" allegedly "clearly wrong" objections, you manage to offer a rebuttal to precisely two.
While we would be "affected" by oil price changes even if the US didn't use oil, we would be vastly less affected, much as TGV prices are less affected than Air France prices. While ultralight batteries may not be possible, proposals for massive government-funded research into alternative non-carbon energy do not limit themselves to just researching batteries. "Energy independence" is a silly way to say "not buying Middle Eastern oil"; all carbon-free energy technologies reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and we can worry about our potential dependence on Nigerien uranium or Congolese beryllium or whatever if terrorists from the relevant countries ever start blowing up our cities. There are too few large capital aggregators in the market for carbon-free energy technology because there is no private market for "global anti-warming" technologies as yet, and there are numerous industries which do have private customers but where development costs are so immense that the only surviving companies end up as essentially Gaullist state-subsidized national firms, such as Boeing and Airbus. And, while there may be no scientific solution to renewable energy, if there isn't, we the planet are f***ed. This leads me to your very weird later assertion:
We're not in a state of war, there is no sense of urgent need
Wha....? Where do you live?
As someone mentioned above, the real problem is making the new sources of energy economical relative to the old sources. There is a second problem that is not quite so visible. The old sources are the result of literally, a hundred years or more of scientific and engineering development. They are highly refined and as efficient as can be consistent with the laws of physics and chemistry. That's very difficult competition.
brooksfoe,
While we would be "affected" by oil price changes even if the US didn't use oil, we would be vastly less affected, much as TGV prices are less affected than Air France prices.
It is not remotely plausible that the U.S. will stop "using oil" in the foreseeable future regardless of how much the government spends on alternatives, so this comment is a nonsequitur. Of course, other energy sources, including renewables, are also subject to large price swings in response to changes in supply and demand, so the idea that eliminating the use of oil would protect us from such effects is false anyway.
While ultralight batteries may not be possible, proposals for massive government-funded research into alternative non-carbon energy do not limit themselves to just researching batteries.
Another nonsequitur. She didn't say there was any such limit. She was pointing out that the kind of affordable and practical batteries (or energy storage more broadly) needed to make wind and solar practical as large-scale alternatives to fossil fuels may not feasible.
"Energy independence" is a silly way to say "not buying Middle Eastern oil"; all carbon-free energy technologies reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and we can worry about our potential dependence on Nigerien uranium or Congolese beryllium or whatever if terrorists from the relevant countries ever start blowing up our cities.
If they start blowing up cities, we obviously should have been worrying about it a lot sooner. And you seem to have completely missed her point about energy independence. You're not making any kind of serious argument here.
There are too few large capital aggregators in the market for carbon-free energy technology because there is no private market for "global anti-warming" technologies as yet,
Sorry, you'll have to show how you have determined the "correct" number of "large capital aggregators in the market for carbon-free energy technology" before you'll be in a position to claim that there are "too few" of them. And there is certainly a private market for wind, solar, nuclear, etc. (I assume that's what you mean by "'global anti-warming' technologies").
And, while there may be no scientific solution to renewable energy, if there isn't, we the planet are f***ed.
In that case, we're fucked regardless, and throwing vast sums of government money in search of that non-existent solution won't help.
Wha....? Where do you live?
The United States. And your point is.....?
I love that people are on record posting stupid things for their grandchildren to read some day. History and forward thinking people will leave people like McArdle in the dust bin of cynical shortsighted people with nothing to contribute to the current important dialogue.
Some day Mrs McArdle will be reading a bedtime story to her grandchildren under highly efficient LED lighting powered by a central home fuel cell unit that runs completely on power she harnessed from the local environment with no need for dependency on fuel cost or monopolistic energy companies. And in that future she can think of me reminding her of how wrong she was in the past and how grateful she should be for those who were more forward thinking then her.
I knew I saw a recession around here somewhere.....
LOL
The goal of the Manhattan Project was to build a bomb, to blow things up.
No one disputes that science was involved, and knowledge was gained from the project.
What's next, dirt clods at 20 paces???
I hate to detract from an otherwise sensible post but I have to join in the criticism of Megan's confusion regarding fission/fusion et al. The Sun is an example of a self-sustaining fusion reactor which is gravitationally contained. This says nothing about the physics or feasibility of self-sustaining fission chain reactions. They are completely different mechanisms and they operate on completely different principles.
Furthermore, there was no evidence prior to the Manhattan project that a fission bomb was even theoretically possible, let alone how practical it would be. Indeed, Heisenberg (yes, that Heisenberg) was working on fission research for Germany during WWII and came to the erroneous conclusion that a fission bomb would be astronomically impractical (partly because he had bad data, partly because his methodology was lacking).
I don't actually disagree with the premise that a "Manhattan Project" for an energy solution is not called for, but I can't help but find some of these points a weak argument to that end.
3) Energy density -is- a major problem. Why couldn't the Project address this? It's not an argument against a Project, it's a potential focus of such a project.
4) I can't imagine a world in which the US, magically independent of oil, is so negatively affected by import price fluctuations that the benefits of said independence are not worthwhile.
5) Must the project choose the fastest, most environmentally destructive choice, or might it not include this consideration in the goals of the project?
6) This explains why the government was the only one to undertake the MP, it doesn't argue against the government doing something similar for energy.
The final point is just ridiculous.
Wow, what a remarkably ignorant post!
The goal of the Manhattan project was 100% NOT TRIVIAL. They had to convert very abstract theoretical knowledge about atomic physics, into a concrete, real-world plan to make a bomb. There was nothing obvious about how to do this; many scientists even weren't sure that it was possible, and there was serious question about whether starting a nuclear chain reaction could ignite the entire atmosphere (similar to today's debate about the Large Hadron Collider making a deadly black hole).
It's not a stretch to say that they had about as much idea about how to build a nuclear bomb, as we today have about how to build a convenient, long-range car battery.
Furthermore, while it may be ridiculous to advocate "zero oil imports", it is *not* ridiculous to advocate *close* to zero *reliance* on oil imports. The crucial distinction is that advocates of the latter are merely interested in having domestic alternatives that can easily come on line while oil becomes expensive, not to shut of foreign oil every second.
*****
And of course, I'm going to make the same point I keep making: we should be asking if there's a *more* general goal we should be targetting with a Manhattan project. Instead of using it to find "better renewable energy", why aren't we using it to find "how to make a superintelligent being that can tell us how to solve our problems, including all the ones for which renewable energy is proposed as a solution"?
Hey, I'm just askin, is all...
The article below explains on a technical basis why a large government "Manhattan project" is not going to solve the energy problem.
Alt energy enthusiasts need to be cautious because massive government projects can cause massive environmental destruction if they implement the wrong technology. The fact that use of current biofuel technology actually increases carbon emissions and environmental destruction is a good example of this problem..
A New Manhattan Project
@TJIT: Let's play Mad-Libs!
However, a hypothetical "land a red-blooded American on the moon" project would not have any theoretical basis for a solution. There is no rocket design which satisfies those the requirements which we have or could readily develop the technology to utilize.
Note to self: "Apollo project", not "Manhattan project"
One strong case against those who worry about the effectiveness of such a project is that the problem may not be new technology at all, but simply technology adoption.
To wit:
"That's 80 miles per gallon and 400 horsepower [and 500 pounds of torque], folks. And the 48-year-old electronics engineer and master mechanic is not done yet."
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080701/BUSINESS02/807010341
If it's not a ruse, that's all the oil in Saudi Arabia, maybe, right there and enough time to wait for the hydrogen storage/transportation problem to be solved (assuming it hasn't been already).
3) Energy density -is- a major problem. Why couldn't the Project address this? It's not an argument against a Project, it's a potential focus of such a project.
You seem to be responding to a strawman. Megan's third point was about the problem of renewable energy storage (and transmission). She didn't say this problem couldn't be addressed. She said there may not be a solution.
4) I can't imagine a world in which the US, magically independent of oil, is so negatively affected by import price fluctuations that the benefits of said independence are not worthwhile.
I can. Whether it would be worthwhile would obviously depend on how much it would cost. And she didn't say "independent of oil" anyway. She said independent of foreign oil.
5) Must the project choose the fastest, most environmentally destructive choice, or might it not include this consideration in the goals of the project?
Yet again, you seem to have missed the point. There may be no way of achieving energy independence without incurring environmental costs greater than the benefits of that independence. If renewables aren't feasible at a large enough scale to replace fossil fuel imports, we may need to use domestic coal or other dirty forms of energy to make up the difference.
6) This explains why the government was the only one to undertake the MP, it doesn't argue against the government doing something similar for energy.
Yes it does. There was no market incentive to invent the atomic bomb. There is huge market incentive to develop alternative energy. That's why the private sector is investing so much in it. That obviously undermines the case for large-scale government investment.
Megan assumed that all renewable energy sources are unreliable, with unfavorable distribution in time and over geography. The heat of the Earth is a potential renewable energy source without these drawbacks. Drill very deep hole, superheat liquid, generate electricity.
okay, fine, let's retire the phrase.
The substantive case for government funding of basic energy research is still rock solid.
A major leap in the energy density of batteries probably could be accelerated if the government made it a priority
The massive demand that already exists for improved batteries is already driving R&D for the improvement of batteries. There's nothing special about more government money (on top of existing university grants) that will wave a magic wand and give us an innovation that's been eluding people for the last thirty years.
Since the invention of the NiCd battery in 1899, the only improved-energy-density rechargeable battery chemistry to be made economical is the lithium-ion type and variants thereof, conceived of in the 1970s and reaching market in 1991. That's still undergoing some maturation, but it's been various degrees of marginal over the last twenty years.
Maybe, maybe silicon nanowire anodes are going to prove usable for thousands of cycles and practical to manufacture and deploy. If they do, we'll see the fourth-ever leap* in basic rechargeable battery density in all of human history. Unless somebody stumbles across a similar improvement in cathode tech (the fifth-ever leap), it'll top out around three times current densities.
*Invention of the lead-acid battery in 1859 was the first, lead-acid to NiCd in 1899 was the second, NiCd to lithium-ion in 1991 was the third.
Perhaps the biggest problem with imported oil is that the money we pay goes to fund Middle Eastern Saddams and Ayatollahs. These guys tend to want large armies and nuclear warheads.
This part of the problem could be eliminated by seizing the oil fields. The Iranian and Saudi fields are conveniently located near the Persian Gulf, not far inland at all, and vulnerable to an old-fashioned amphibious invasion.
With the US owning the oil, the Europeans would be appeasing the US instead of the Muslims, as would the Chinese. Russia, being an oil exporter itself, would object. Nobody else would be able stand up to an American oil monopoly. And Russia can be bought off.
Imagine if the US had simply let Saddam keep Baghdad, and merely defanged his military and cut off his funding. Many fewer people would have died.
Save lives, internationalize the oil fields!
So Robinson Crusoe strands on this beautiful island. nothing there but trees - some of them fruit trees. as the smart rainforest ape that he is - he decides to do some fishing. for making fire and cooking he chops off some trees. there is nothing better around for making fire than the trees. he somehow wished that he could spare them but he does not know how. he needs to fish and cook to survive.. but then again - he is aware that there are fewer and fewer trees left. what if he uses them up before he is being rescued or finds another method of either feeding himself or for making fire.
hmm...
and hmm, again..
there are many ways how to save the planet today. not by investing more but by investing less. less in needless Green-Revolution machinery that wastes resources needlessly. By investing less in livestock agriculture and mono-agriculture. The land could be given back to the forests... 20% CO2 reductions from less livestock, 10% less CO2 from the Green Revolution, 20% less CO2 through land given back to nature.. that sounds like a good start?
anyway - climate change is merely a symptom and not a cause. by investing less in things that kill us and others - we would also tackle other symptoms like soil erosion and species loss. Maybe even the actual cause of it all.. one day.
Re: batteries... as long as we are not talking about batteries that should power an electric car - which have to be light and small and hence expensive.. of course there are solutions out there. the dots are there - the connections are not.
Call me stupid, but I didn't get the part about our trading partners still being dependent on oil. I thought part of the idea of this was we were going to make 60 gazillion dollars by forging and selling new technology around the world. Also, it seems to me Megan's post itself demonstrates the potential of a massive energy research project - just getting people focused here on the one thing seems to have generated a lively and potentially fruitful discussion. Even an expert commenting here, while probably not actually learning something new, may come away from the discussion with some new and possibly useful perspective on his own area of expertise. This is why, though not a scientist, I favor dollars for energy research as opposed to, say, dollars for Detroit.
I had the same thought John did: Why wouldn't we share this magic development with our trading partners (for a price, of course), reducing WORLDWIDE dependence on oil (as an energy source)?
has anyone mentioned that fission (manhattan project) and fusion (the sun) are not the same?
I take the opposite view: if we want "energy independence", or cheap energy for whatever end, we desperately need a Manhattan Project.
Fortunately, we've already got one, we paid for it sixty years ago, and we've even improved on its results over the years. It was called "the Manhattan Project", and it gave us nuclear power.
I'd like to point out one major R&D lesson I've picked up from following the Pharma industry for a decade: R&D does not necessarily scale. An $8 billion R&D budget does not guarantee twice the productivity (in terms of producing new drugs) than a $4 billion R&D budget.
A couple of quibbles:
1. "...it consumed approximately 100% of the top physical science and engineering talent in the United States."
Not exactly. The MIT RadLab had some pretty smart guys working on radar, and I think Bell Labs had some pretty top talent coming up with proximity fuses.
2. "The primary problem of renewable energy is finding a transmission/storage mechanism that is efficient enough to time-shift, or location-shift, somewhat unreliable energy sources that tend to be most powerful in places that no one wants to live because they are very windy mountaintops, or 100 degrees deserts."
If that's really the case, then it's simply a problem of engineering and money. Transmission lines are already efficient enough to move power around on a nationwide basis; we'd just need to increase the robustness, capacity, and perhaps interconnectedness. And interconnected reservoirs (pump water uphill when excess power is available, run it downhill through a turbine when more power is needed) are pretty good storage methods; again, you'd just need to build them. No scientific breakthroughs needed.
As another poster pointed out, though, the problem isn't coming up with alternate energy sources, it's making them cost-effective relative to existing energy sources. If a natural gas-fired power plant can generate electricity for two cents per kWh, and a solar plant can generate electricity for five cents per kWh, guess what - it's going to be hard to convert to solar, regardless of whether the problems of transmission and storage are solved or not. And "mobility" adds the problem of energy density: if your car can transport you 400 miles at a cost of $32 (25 mpg, $2.00/gallon) without stopping, and an electric car can only transport you 200 miles before you have to stop and spend two hours recharging the batteries, the fact that the electricity to get you 200 miles only cost $10 may not be sufficient.
DG_Lewis: There may be reliable energy storage methods, but pumping water uphill just ain't one of 'em. Just to give you an idea, the raw amount of energy you can store by lifting something up is equal to its weight times the height you lift it through. So, back-of-the-envelope calculation: say you can build a facility that lets you lift 10,000 gallons up one full kilometer. How much does that store?
1000 gal * 8 lb/gal * (1/2.2) kg/lb = 3600 kg
g = 10 m/s^2
Weight = 3600 kg * 10 m/s^2 = 36000 N
height = 1000 m.
Energy stored = 36000 N * 1000 m = 36 million Joules.
There are 3.6 million Joules in a kWh, which means that even that expensive facility would let you a whopping 10 kWh ... worth about a dollar.
***
As for the other problem you mentioned, how to make people buy solar at 5 cents/kWh when natural gas is at 2 cents/Kwh: make people incorporate the externality of the "worse" fuels into their costs. So, slap a proportional tax on fossil fuels, and to eliminate the corruption, rebate it to all adults.
That is a very important point though: a lot of people, including otherwise-bright libertarians, seem to think that if some better green technology comes out, that solves the problem. Like you explain, it doesn't eliminate incentives to use the bad one, and *still* wouldn't even if it were cheaper. More green options simply menas the supply curve is shifted out.
Not to veer off, but the people who call for a Manhattan project are the same people saying that embryonic stem cell research will solve a boatload of diseases. It's the triumph of hope over, well, any fact.
The fact that you believe something can be done doesn't mean it will be, and, if it fails to deliver, the downside is all we have. And with human beings, those downsides are all the more heartbreaking.
Wow, now that's what I call "vapid." Not sure whether the respondents who can do nothing more than point out the distinction between fission and fusion or the author herself are worse.
Who cares what you call a research initiative? And what kind of nutcase thinks government funding of basic research, directed or otherwise, is actually bad? I believe I had the misfortune of seeing Megan babble about supposed risk averseness in academia on an episode of bloggingheads a while back, but here she is saying that a proposal to spend a probably trivial sum on basic research is somehow wrongheaded and foolhardy. "What if we don't find exactly what we're after!?"
And look at this:
"The primary problem of renewable energy is finding a transmission/storage mechanism that is efficient enough to time-shift, or location-shift, somewhat unreliable energy sources that tend to be most powerful in places that no one wants to live because they are very windy mountaintops, or 100 degrees deserts. While the light battery we all ardently desire may exist somewhere out there in the platonic engineering ether where new devices waiting to be born, it also may not."
As though Megan has a stronger grasp of what such a project would entail than the people who would eventually implement it. Virtually everyone familiar with the issues surrounding renewable energy is aware of this... So why bring it up as an objection?
The rest is alternately truisms of little relevance (e.g. there's no guarantee of success), stupidity (sure, we have this new superior technology, but no one else does, so we're back where we started), and flat out ignorance (the only useful product of the Manhattan Project was nuclear weaponry). Good God.
The Manhattan Project had a relatively simple goal, blowing things up. We knew this goal was possible, because the sun was already doing it.
This is absurdly over-simplified. To use this level of analysis, a new Manhattan Project has a relatively simple goal as well: reducing the cost of domestic clean energy. We know this goal is possible because there are significant externalities yet to be priced into fossil fuels and the US receives enough sunshine and wind to power itself many times over.
At that, it consumed approximately 100% of the top physical science and engineering talent in the United States.
Not even close. ~200,000 people and ~$30 billion current USD for practically the entire project. And a lot of the "top talent" designation is ex post facto. Just a few years prior, and indeed after, Oppenheimer for example was looked down upon by many other physicists.
The primary problem of renewable energy is finding a transmission/storage mechanism that is efficient enough to time-shift, or location-shift, somewhat unreliable energy sources that tend to be most powerful in places that no one wants to live because they are very windy mountaintops, or 100 degrees deserts. While the light battery we all ardently desire may exist somewhere out there in the platonic engineering ether where new devices waiting to be born, it also may not.
A low loss smart grid coupled with a V2G PHEV fleet will get you most of the way there. Converting solar and wind to methane or molten salts for later usage is also doable.
Even if we found some magic device that would let us live without foreign oil, we would still be affected by changes in price of same because our trading partners use it.
Are you saying that developing the atomic bomb 100% insulated us from the fate of our partners or larger financial dynamics?
Energy independence and environmental soundness may be inversely correlated; the fastest and surest way to achieve it would be to convert our economy back to running on coal.
By that rationale, we had no real need to develop nukes- it was after all much cheaper to use conventional munitions to achieve the same initial level of casualties.
Apples and oranges. The goal is two-fold. Ignoring that is willful deception.
The Manhattan Project was dedicated to producing a product of which the government was the only natural consumer, few other large capital aggregators being in the market for a device that would allow them to incinerate tens of thousands of potential consumers in one convenient dose.
Harnessing nuclear power for civilian energy use was concurrent with the idea of weaponizing it by many theorists.
The spending of huge amounts of money on researching something does not actually guarantee that you will get the desired product out of your research. You wouldn't think it, to listen to various activists, but often all you get out of research is proof that something you hoped was possible, isn't.
Most of the money spent will be in refining existing technologies and driving down their costs via economies of scale. The US does not need an as of yet non-existent technology to provide its own energy. The world may. Different story.
If we could, merely by being willing to spend unlimited sums, guarantee the production of the desired useful product, then we should stop messing around with renewable energy, and start researching a perpetual motion machine, which would cut our energy consumption by 100%.
This is just lazy and moronic. Nothing about generating 100% of our energy domestically and renewably violates the laws of physics. Please.
You guys always nitpick poor Megan to death. Yes, the sun is fusion, not fission, but her main point stands: they knew a fission chain reaction was possible when the Manhattan Project commenced. Not because of the sun, but because Enrico Fermi had demonstrated one in 1942 in Chicago. That meant that the underlying principles were sound, and all that had to be done was to figure out how to actually implement it.
That's not the case for things people propose a "Manhattan Project" for today; they basically want a large government project to discover things, which won't work. If some scientist somewhere were to discover, say, a verifiable way to make cold fusion work but it required a massive effort and expenditure to actually build, then yeah, a new Manhattan Project would probably work (although a private sector project would undoubtedly do it more efficiently). But that's not the situation we're in at the moment.
Ironically, the original Manhattan Project laid the foundation for the one technology (nuclear fission) that could achieve most of the goals of the proposed "Green Manhattan Project".
While I believe that investing a ton of money will EVENTUALLY lead to some cool new technologies, this doesn't address the problem that if you believe the climate data, we are already well behind the curve when it comes to preventing or halting climate change. If we push for nuclear now, most of the plants won't be done for 10 to 20 years, but at least we're guaranteed to have some impact in 10 to 20 years. There is no guarantee the "big breakthrough" will come or be sustainable if it does.
It's sad that we've ignored a sustainable, proven and safe technology for so long and continue to do so because of misinformation and politics. Ultimately though, Mother Earth doesn't care about our politics. If climate change is as devastating as some predict, we'll have our pollution, over-population, and energy problems solved for us, just not in the way we would have liked.
Hopefully we'll get our act together before it's too late.
Most of those that call for Manhattan Projects or Apollo Programs for their pet problem of the day don't understand that neither one was solving a science problem, but an engineering problem. Scientist tells us what can be done, engineers make it so. The atomic bomb was known to be possible to build. Going to the moon was a known extension of existing technology. In both projects, there were significant technical problems to overcome, but neither required "Unobtanium" to succeed. Both programs used solutions that were expensive and overengineered. Both developed two solutions to the problem until the end or near to it. (There were two types of atomic bombs developed and used. Apollo carried two competing contractor teams for key hardware until late in the program.)
Megan is right that the fundamental problem in using diffuse, unreliable, and unpredictable sources of energy like solar and wind is storage. While there are a few promising techniques in energy storage being developed, I'm not sure that massive R&D funds are needed, as the market for such devices will be huge. Look how NiMH and Li ion batteries have displaced NiCd, without government intervention.
I'd propose that if the government wants to spur development, offer some prizes. DARPA is offering a prize for development of a lightweight battery for powering equipment used by soldiers. The DARPA grand challenge for autonomous vehicles was a huge success - generating much more R&D than grants would have.
[i]To wit:
"That's 80 miles per gallon and 400 horsepower [and 500 pounds of torque], folks. And the 48-year-old electronics engineer and master mechanic is not done yet."
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080701/BUSINESS02/807010341
If it's not a ruse, that's all the oil in Saudi Arabia, maybe, right there and enough time to wait for the hydrogen storage/transportation problem to be solved (assuming it hasn't been already).[/i]
You should really be skeptical of such claims as in that article. For instance, modern automobiles are capable of far more than 8-10% efficiency, but his claim of 38% would suggest that his vehicle is in serious non-compliance with regulatory requirements.
That is one of the things that many people do not realize, that emissions requirements as well as other regulatory requirements put serious pressure on efficiency and fuel consumption. I'm not saying that the regulations aren't needed or even useful, just that people need to accept the fact that emissions and fuel consumption is often a tradeoff. This is why some older FI vehicles are so fuel efficient.
I would bet top dollar that his vehicle wouldn't be certified to operate on the road. Either that, or the cost is so ridiculous that it renders the vehicle unfeasible.
Not only would our miracle battery have to store energy as well as gasoline does
No, it doesn't. It doesn't need anywhere near the energy density of gasoline.
Your car holds as much gas as it does because it would be inconvenient for you to have to fill the tank every day. But an electric car, you can charge the battery every night when your home.
So the energy density doesn't need to be 5 days worth of driving on a single "charge", like gasoline delivers, it only needs to be a little more than one day. Since you "fill the tank" every night.
Joe Schmoe -
Would the nuclear fusion effort, for example at ITER (multinational) or at the National Ignition Facility (U.S.), match your specification of "a verifiable way to make cold fusion work but it required a massive effort and expenditure to actually build"? If not, in what respects?
Fine. From now on, we need a "Mercury Project" for those things.
I'm not saying that the regulations aren't needed or even useful, just that people need to accept the fact that emissions and fuel consumption is often a tradeoff.
Why would that be the case? It's uncombusted hydrocarbons that are regulated in the emissions, isn't it?
Wouldn't a low-emissions vehicle be combusting more hydrocarbons, and be more efficient, therefore?
What's the tradeoff? I'm not seeing it.
I have to say that the people that feel compelled to quibble over something like fission/fusion should take some time to truly reassess their lives.
I mean, Jesus.
The two commenters who already mentioned "perpetual motion" both missed Megan's point, which was that merely having a project does not guarantee any results.
The PM machine was the counter-example to that untenable but oddly widely-held belief; it is not some sort of weird attempt to do what the words didn't actually do and somehow claim that all government projects can't produce anything.
(Note also that anywhere someone says "Manhattan Project" we cal also try "Apollo Project". The "If we could send people to the moon, why can't we [X]" trope is just as invalid and just as annoying.)
And in their rush to call her wrong, they missed how she was wrong - though in a way that doesn't invalidate any of her substantive points.
Having a perpetual motion machine (that could be used usefully to produce power) would not "cut energy consumption by 100%". It would make energy so cheap that nobody would ever bother to conserve any of it, and increase consumption dramatically.
(And at the same time, given how much of the cost of everything is energy, one way or another, it would reduce the cost of everything, effectively making everyone much wealthier.)
Yes, the difference between fission and fusion is miniscule, really, when the point is really to just write snarky b.s. to fill time and space with blather.
Why would that be the case? It's uncombusted hydrocarbons that are regulated in the emissions, isn't it?
Also NOx (smog) emissions, which increase as combustion temperature increases.
Efficiency of combustion engines is limited by a simple factor: the highest temperature in the engine as compared to the low-temp reservoir, aka the air passing through the radiator. It is physically impossible to increase engine efficiency beyond the 30-40% range without increasing combustion temperatures to the point where smog is generated. And that's assuming frictionless bearings, no wind resistance, etc. Toledo Blade car guy is full of crap.
Why would that be the case? It's uncombusted hydrocarbons that are regulated in the emissions, isn't it?
Rob has it exactly right. Along with NOX emissions, governments also regulate CO, HC and particulates.
We have a lot of tools in the engine to help us mitigate NOX emission. Changes in spark timing, injection timings(diesel), and something we call EGR (exhaust gas recirculation). All of these reduce efficiency and all are necessary (even with catalysts) under current regulatory structures.
With particulates, we like to burn of the carbon using hydrocarbons in an exothermic reaction in the exhaust system. Also a loss of efficiency.
Reducing unburned HC's are also difficult as most of the unburned HC emissions occur in the few minutes after startup. Yes, we can try to burn all of the hydrocarbons, but that's the trick isn't it! There are limitations to the robustness of combustion systems, and sometimes the countermeasures can also reduce efficiencies.
When one installs a catalyst, this increases backpressure, also reducing efficiency.
And not only is there a tradeoff with efficiency, but there are tradeoffs with different emissions species during different operation points!
It's not as easy as one thinks, hence the million upon millions (billions?) spent complying with emissions regulations.
But an electric car, you can charge the battery every night when your home.
Which is great for daily commutes. It's not so great for when you have to drive more than a 100 miles in one day.
I can't really visit my parents if I have to spend two "charging" nights in hotels each way, and I'm just driving from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia
@Rob_Lyman: I think you mean that the *maximum physically possible efficiency* (i.e. Carnot Limit) is determined solely by the temperature difference; many other factors determine your actual efficience, including, among other things, the fact that cars don't use Carnot engines, which would be infinitely slow :-P
@Chet and Rob_Lyman: Yes, the Nitrogen in the air is what's responsible for the bad emissions: pure combustion in oxygen in clean. So, one way to really cut down on the bad emissions would be to filter out the nitrogen before it gets to the engine. (Nitrogen is ~70% of the air by mass.) I have no idea how feasible that is; I know it would probably be cost-prohibitive to liquify out the N2 (which happens in the process of liquifying oxygen out of the air) ... and who wants their car to look like the floor of a trendy nightclub? :-P
@Sigivald: Sorry, but whatever nitpicking there might have been, the commenters were also pointing out very serious, fundamental problems with Megan_McArdle's argument, and her ignorance frankly astonishes me. Yes, a Manhattan project may ultimately be a bad idea, but that doesn't mean you get to make whatever dumb argument you find to prove it. (I have to make this point a lot to people on Mises.org-related discussions...)
Yes, Megan_McArdle is right that spending the money doesn't guarantee finding a solution, and the perpetual motion machine proves this. So? Who was claiming otherwise? And why is the goal (deriving enough energy from renewable sources) impossible as per the laws of physics? Oh, that's right: it isn't.
Reading her post again, I really can't forgive the level of ignorance it shows -- both relevant, and irrelevant to her "real" point.
including, among other things, the fact that cars don't use Carnot engines, which would be infinitely slow :-P
Uh.. Yeah they do... All ICEs are Carnot heat engines.
Do you mean stirling engines, which are a subset of Carnot engines?
So, one way to really cut down on the bad emissions would be to filter out the nitrogen before it gets to the engine. (Nitrogen is ~70% of the air by mass.) I have no idea how feasible that is
It isn't.
No offense or anything, but Rob Lyman is 100% correct and you're way out of your technical league here.
Another Kneejerk post from our lovely libertarian Megan.
But alas, we're strictly talking dictated (and falsely reached) opinion with this blog; with little emphasis on research or understanding.
I'm sure quite a few German and American scientists would have a bone to pick with you.
I think you mean that the *maximum physically possible efficiency* (i.e. Carnot Limit) is determined solely by the temperature difference; many other factors determine your actual efficience, including, among other things, the fact that cars don't use Carnot engines, which would be infinitely slow
I think that you misunderstood. What Rob was referring to was that heat rejection to the environment puts heavy restrictions on thermal efficiency. About 1/3 of available energy is dissipated in such a manner. The rest is used in compression, pumping losses, and work output. Work output ends up being about 30% of available energy, at the most.
DDP: Please read my post again. Do you really think I don't understand the thermodynamic limits Rob_Lyman was referring to? My objection was to his characterization of the temperature difference as being the "sole" factor in some meaningful sense, not to the claim that heat rejection to the environment poses limits.
And if anyone thinks Glorious has a clue what she's talking about, please look up, on Wikipedia, all the terms she and I used, and decide for yourselves which of us is ignorant.
I did not mean to imply that heat rejection was the "sole" cause of low efficiency. I meant to point out that no "Manhattan project" will ever--ever--overcome that fundamental limitation on heat engines. The only options are 1) drastically cool the world's air, or 2) greatly increase combustion temperatures (to the detriment of smog regulations, and lots of other things besides).
Also to point out that Toledo Blade car guy can't possibly have achieved what he claims with any form of IC engine, because this isn't a matter of more electronics, as he claims, it's a matter of physics.
And if anyone thinks Glorious has a clue what she's talking about, please look up, on Wikipedia, all the terms she and I used, and decide for yourselves which of us is ignorant.
You seem to think that carnot efficiency doesn't apply because cars don't use the completely hypothetical "carnot engine." No, it applies to *ALL* heat engines.
I might have done a terrible job of making that clear, but it's true nonetheless.
My mistakes aside, you seem to think that cryogenically distilling nitrogen from the air in a car is just "probably cost prohibitive." Erm, how about it'll clearly take way more energy than the efficency increase from higher combustion temperatures could ever give you. It's not just expensive, it's a design impossibility.
@Glorious: You seem to think that carnot efficiency doesn't apply because cars don't use the completely hypothetical "carnot engine."
Yes, it "applies", but not in any useful way. My point was simply that car/truck engines in actual use are better approximated by by other thermodynamic cycles (such as the Otto cycle or Diesel cycle), which have even lower max theoretical efficiencies than the Carnot cycle. Yes, the Carnot efficiency is still the max over all engines ... but the engines in question still aren't a Carnot engine. Which would suck anyway, because, again, a true Carnot engine runs infinitely slowly.
Please, please read my statements in context!
My mistakes aside, you seem to think that cryogenically distilling nitrogen from the air in a car is just "probably cost prohibitive." Erm, how about it'll clearly take way more energy than the efficency increase from higher combustion temperatures could ever give you. It's not just expensive, it's a design impossibility.
*sigh* I was proposing the nitrogen removal as a solution to the *noxious emissions* problem, not the *energy efficiency* problem. Obviously, a solution to the former hurts the latter -- that's exactly the tradeoff that catalytic converters bring in, and why all the designs people propose for higher fuel efficiency don't pass the EPA standards: the EPA also restricts how much asthma you can give to the children you drive by.
Again, read my statements in context, and an apology about my engineering knowledge would be in order.
@Rob_Lyman: we're in agreement, I was just helping to clarify for the others what you meant.
The biggest pollution resulting from oil consumption is not carbon emissions nor is it NOx. It is the radioactivity of nuclear war.
Feeding the Ayatollahs and other radicals hundreds of billions of dollars per year leads to Jihad. We have to stop pumping them full of money.
Ah yes, because nothing increases the stability and peacefulness of a volatile region like its economy collapsing.
Emotion, ma'am:
During WWII, TPTB in the US were _afraid_
of being stood up against a wall, or worse,
by the NAZIs; No "Peace with Honor" option.
Afterward, they feared/opposed/crippled nuclear
power (fission or fusion) and any other new tech
which threatened their interests.
Note that the _other_ practical development of
Quantum Theory, solid state electronics, sort of
slid past unnoticed, until too late. :)
JFK was _afraid_ of the political fallout
if the USSR beat the US to the moon.
After Apollo, the US space program was shut down,
right on schedule, per plan, for the same reasons.
The list goes on...
Now, if/when TPTB realize that they, _personally_
are up against the wall, again, due to the
continuing economic collapse, they will suddenly
support nuclear power, space-based solar power,
and any new tech manufacturing opportunities
which look like keeping the US solvent.
They will almost certainly refer to their plans
as "A New Manhatten Project"; Sorry about that.
P.S.
If you, or your readers, think _I_ need a
reality check, I suggest you, and they, check out
the recent debunking of the Global Warming Panic,
and recall that until recently, this Chimera was
going to require a, ah, you know :)
It's not so great for when you have to drive more than a 100 miles in one day.
You having to drive more than 100 miles in one day, in a personal passenger vehicle, is a fundamental failure of our transportation infrastructure. If we're talking about the magic fairy-pony land where everybody has a smart grid electric car, we might as well imagine a useful network of trains, as well.
Further the time it takes to recharge has nothing to do with energy density, and everything to do with the fact that gasoline is a liquid that you can pump but too much electricity over a period of time can toast your battery and wiring.
But the rapid-charging-for-long-trips problem isn't entirely unsolvable. Perhaps you'll simply pull into the "filling" station, and your car's dead battery is exchanged for a charged one. We do it with propane tanks. Why not do it with a standardized battery?
You having to drive more than 100 miles in one day, in a personal passenger vehicle, is a fundamental failure of our transportation infrastructure.
Why?
If we're talking about the magic fairy-pony land where everybody has a smart grid electric car, we might as well imagine a useful network of trains, as well.
We used to use trains, but we mostly abandoned them as cars became affordable for ordinary people. Future cars will be cheaper, cleaner, safer and more efficient than today's models. We're not going to go back to trains.
You having to drive more than 100 miles in one day, in a personal passenger vehicle, is a fundamental failure of our transportation infrastructure.
Huh? My parents live about 180 miles away, so we like to take the kids up to visit them every so often. There's Amtrak, but it's really expensive, and lugging two kids' stuff onto the train is not exactly easy. Intermodal transfer pretty much always sucks.
I am not seeing how this is a fundamental failure of anything.
That said, the battery swap idea has promise.
There's Amtrak, but it's really expensive, and lugging two kids' stuff onto the train is not exactly easy
That's what I'm saying. 180 miles is an absurd distance to be expected to travel in a personal automobile; the only reason you're accustomed to it is because all the alternatives are even worse.
That's the critical failure of our transportation infrastructure. In any other civilized nation the necessity to drive from one population center to a distant one would be regarded as a systemic failure, which it is.
It's like 2000 people innertubing from Brooklyn to Manhattan across the East River every day. Far better, far safer, to aggregate all that travel in the form of a ferry.
chet,
That's what I'm saying. 180 miles is an absurd distance to be expected to travel in a personal automobile;
Well, you can say that as many times as you like, but unless you can provide an actual, you know, argument as to why it should be considered "absurd," you're not going to be terribly persuasive.
In any other civilized nation the necessity to drive from one population center to a distant one would be regarded as a systemic failure, which it is.
Precisely which civilized nations are you referring to? I have visited many, and I do not know of any country where the alternatives are better. I've done the Eurrail thing and the JR thing, and they are no easier than Amtrak to haul large volumes of kid stuff on or off of. Doubly so when one of your kids likes model rockets, which don't pack well at all. How much have you traveled with children?
Nor is it any more fun to share personal space with strangers, especially those who smoke, in Europe than in the US.
Intermodal transfer sucks no matter where you live, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Bottom line: I'd choose to drive in Europe, too.
If they have no military, no oil, and no money, we don't care. That's the point.
And once the US controls the worlds oil supply, the Chinese and Europeans will be appeasing the US instead of the Muslims.All the proposals for US "Energy Independence" assume the total impoverishment of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the other OPEC states. Nobody in the West seems to mind. Is that because Energy Independence is only a fantasy?
The issue of whether to embark on a "Manhattan-Style Project" is really a matter of timing. The reason the original Manhattan Project worked was because the basic physics had already been solved, and only the details needed to be worked out. If the same project had been tried ten years earlier, it would have been a much riskier venture, because fission itself had not even been discovered. If someone had just said "let use this whole atomic thing to build a bomb to blow stuff up" and then looked for ways to do that, it would have been very hit and miss.
Similarly, with many alternative energy proposals, a crash research program might not have worked ten years ago. But as it happens, I think we are poised right on the cusp of all kinds of very positive developments in solar, wind, and geothermal. In many cases, we are already there, and just have to devote the capital to building large scale power installations. In others, we are just in need of intensive research. The rate of growth in efficiencies in all these areas is quite fantastic, especially in solar power. There is very good reason to think that massive investment in research in these areas will be highly productive across the board. So the notion that a "Manhattan Project" for energy independence wouldn't work is doomed is just nonsense. It's just a very different project than building fission bombs, and requires a different structure. But it certainly can and should work, and bear much greater rewards than a senseless arms race.
I guess that this discussion is dead.. but better late than sorry.
Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO Google:
Where Would Google Drill?