Thermoacoustic Cooling
Although this blog was begun to publicise my own fiction, there are so many interesting things to write about that the fiction element has been displaced by other kinds of stories; stories about geopolitics, concerns about global change (of which not least, climate change), and new developments in science and technology.
Principle of a thermoacoustic engine. Image courtesy Wikipedia.org
It currently seems to me, as an informed layperson, that the answer to the planet’s global warming crisis lies primarily not so much in technological advances as in social engineering for change. For example, livestock farming produces 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Halving the consumption of meat, to take only one measure, would have enormous health benefits for individuals and at a stroke, reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That’s the equivalent of removing the 2015 contributions of the two most populous countries, India and China! According to a 2006 FAO report, Livestock’s Long Shadow (416 pp.), cattle alone are responsible for more global warming than all forms of transportation put together.
Another quick fix would be to reduce national defence budgets and invest the money in women’s health and education, easier said than done, considering the political madness that one sees in countries around the world. This too can be changed if enough people around the world set their minds to it and realise that we, the people, are the drivers of political change. Politicians are servants. They are merely people responding to our collective angsts and biases.
As global temperatures rise, people try to cope by installing air-conditioning units. This compounds the problem, since electricity consumption multiplies and heat dissipates to the outside world, creating urban heat islands and causing yet more global warming. It’s like polluting an ocean. Imperceptible when only one person does it, but massive when done by millions. Here’s an exciting technological fix in the works that might help to solve the air-conditioning problem: thermoacoustic cooling.
Working example of a thermoacoustic engine: Image courtesy YouTube
The principle was apparently observed by glassblowers more than two centuries ago. They noticed a sound was created when blowing a hot glass bubble at the end of a cold, long tube. 19th century scientists figured the sound was produced by the thermal gradient, and resonance was giving extra energy to the air in the tube. Apparently the first modern application to capture this energy for cooling was used in NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery in 1992. Today, there seem to be two companies, in the Netherlands and in France, who offer solutions based on this principle for pollution free cooling. Here’s a link to the websites of Dutch company, SoundEnergy and France-based Equium. The sooner such companies are commercially successful, the better for the planet. Here’s a simple demonstration of the principle showing the working of a thermoacoustic engine.
Ice from Heaven:a tongue-in-cheek theological excursion
It happened one evening in the new year, driving back to the city on the autobahn from a visit to the town of Petronell-Carnuntum (once home to Marcus Aurelius’ Roman legions as they fought against the barbarians, so colorfully depicted in Ridley Scott’s movie, Gladiator). I was travelling at about 100 kmh, overtaking a column of trucks travelling at their legal speed limit of 80. There was a gusty wind blowing. The road was clear although it had snowed a day or two earlier. The temperature was close to freezing. Suddenly in the gathering twilight I saw something large and white swirling towards the windscreen of the car. Travelling in the middle of three lanes, with trucks on the right and faster cars on the left, there was neither time nor space to avoid it. A bone-jarring thump, and the windshield of the car dissolved into a criss-cross of lines as the safety glass shattered but did not break apart. Recovering from the shock, I realized it was a block of ice, the size of two or three bricks, that had dislodged from the roof of one of the trucks ahead of us. A harder gust of wind or a few km/h faster and I, with my precious cargo of three other people in the car, might all be dead.
Who threw that chunk of ice on the windshield?
Thinking about the incident later brought to mind the phrase “the hand of God.” Being of a non-religious bent, I am inclined to ask: was it the hand of God that threw the chunk of ice, or was it the hand of God that blocked it? Or was it both? A display of divine power? An attempt to impress that seems unworthy of an all-powerful being!
The beliefs of various religions claiming to know the origin of the universe and to give its creator a name; be it Jehovah, Jahveh, Allah, Brahman, etc. seems to me to be just that; beliefs. And the claims made by brilliant scientists like Stephen Hawking who said that the universe was decided by the laws of science simply fails my common-sense test.
“So then science is your God?” I ask Hawking in my dream.
“Well yes,” he replies. “If you like you can call the laws of science “God,” but it wouldn’t be a personal God you could meet and put questions to.” (see USA Today, Oct. 17, 2018)
So to my mind, the beliefs of both science and theology are limited, rather like the motto of the New York Times; “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” Although admittedly a superior newspaper, the claim is, in global terms, ludicrous. As ludicrous as the claim of any religion or science to know all the truth. As someone who has been close to death on two occasions, I can assure you there’s nothing to fear on the other side. On the contrary, the overwhelming feeling is a warm sense of peace accompanied by deep, wordless joy. One comes out of the experience loving life more than ever, but in a detached kind of way that is infinitely liberating. As to what really lies on the other side, I’m sure no one really knows for sure, so if it comforts you, go ahead and cling to your beliefs. But for God’s sake, don’t go starting wars or fighting over it.
Paul Salopek’s Donkey
I’ve sporadically followed Paul Salopek’s six-year walk across the world in National Geographic. As someone who loves to walk in all kinds of terrain myself, I find his a fascinating journey, a wonderful way to see the world up close in all its varied colors, moods and seasons. This to me is real travel; travel measured in footsteps rather than miles in a car or hours of flight. The very word flight conjures images of an attempt to escape rather than a journey to explore and expand one’s horizons. For much of the journey, Paul’s companions have been pack animals and his long treks have brought him to a real and humble understanding of the rich variety of sentient life. For this reason, he speaks with simple sadness of the death of Raju, the donkey who accompanied him on his walk across much of northern India. See the National Geo article here.
Representational Image: courtesy 680 news
I’ve aimed to walk 10,000 steps a day (around 5 miles/8 km) for the past few years and more or less achieved it, except when the weather’s been impossible. I was also surprisingly moved by the death of a feline friend last year. Maybe that’s why the article resonated with me. Maybe that’s why the following passage he quotes from Matthew Scully’s book Dominion lingers in the mind long after reading.
“How we treat our fellow creatures is only one more way in which each one of us, every day, writes our own epitaph—bearing into the world a message of light and life or just more darkness and death, adding to the world’s joy or to its despair… Perhaps that is part of the animals’ role among us, to awaken humility, to turn our minds back to the mystery of things, and open our hearts to that most impractical of hopes in which all creation speaks as one.” From Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy by Matthew Scully.
“…to awaken humility…” and to perhaps remind ourselves that a warming planet requires us to do this for our own salvation.
2 Days with a BMW i3
There’s a new car sharing company in town called Caroo mobility (caroo.at). Their selling point: e-cars only, offering a choice of makes and models that are fun to drive and easy to manoeuvre in town. They offered initial longer term rentals to volunteer alpha testers, so I took a BMW i3 for 2 days. The test package included 200 free kilometers per day, so I was looking forward to several test drives around the city and surrounding countryside. Recharging at the local energy utility’s (Wien Energie) 22kW installations was a breeze and took around two hours for a full charge (180 km in winter). The company supplied two different charging cards for the car. A smart phone app, quickly downloaded from a wide range of choices on the app store, showed several hundred charging points in and around the city. I should have remembered Murphy’s Law at this point!
BMW i3
We travelled outside the city on the second day, planning to visit two different towns south and east of Vienna, travelling around 220 km in all. Fully charged, the dashboard showed 180 km range left so we thought, armed with two charging cards, no problem. We’ll charge somewhere along the way. The two phone apps of charging stations, hastily downloaded in the morning, chosen at random from more than a dozen, showed scores of charging stations around the two towns and along the highway. We set off, the car fully charged and showing 180 km of range left on a cold, clear winter morning. By the time we reached the first town, 50 km distant, the screen showed we had 115 km of range left, not bad at all, considering the heating was set to 20C and we drove at modest highway speeds. After our visit in the first town, we had plenty of juice left for the next town, 70 km away. Our apps showed several charging stations at the next town, but we decided to play it safe and top up the charge before heading off. Our real EV learning experience began here.
At the first charging station, run by a different utility, our cards were compatible, but the car did not charge. I called the hot line of the utility and was assured, if the pillar light was green, the charge should work. Green lights all around, no charge! The helpful hotline lady said, sometimes these things are finicky. Try disconnecting and reconnect again. Tried this several times, no luck. So we drove around the outskirts of the first town for an hour, looking for other charging stations. Found another one. The chargers were not Type 2, the ones we needed. By this time our range had come down to 90 km, still enough to make it to the next town. Unsure of what would happen there, we decided to head back to Vienna on the highway, where there are a few charging stations. All of the charge stations were badly marked, so we missed the exits to two. Finally pulled into a giant service station where we found a bank of 6 high speed chargers, labelled 150 kW, 175 kW. The plugs were incompatible with our car. I assumed they were CCS, to allow high power DC fast charging, and was afraid they would fry our batteries even if I could connect. There was one 44kW pillar, where the BMW’s plugs were compatible, but our two charging cards were not valid here. So we ended up driving an extra hour back to Vienna to fully charge the car at one of the city’s charging stations.
So my short summary here. The BMW i3 is beautiful to drive with many well thought out details, some design quirks that don’t really work for me on first use (like the back doors opening backwards), beyond my budget, with the bare bones version starting at around €40,000. So when I buy an electric car later this year, it’s going to be a used Renault Zoe at 25% of the price of an i3, with a monthly rental fee for the battery. A word about the rental fee that begins at around €60 per month; it might sound like an additional financial burden, but remember that battery rental will keep your insurance costs low, since the most expensive component of the car does not have to be insured. Worth keeping in mind when you decide on a purchase plan. And the last word. Before I (or you) buy an EV, download a good app of local charge points and make sure you study the specs, not only of the car, but of charging port requirements with their corresponding charge cards or apps.
aviott 