11/8/02 - ALTERNATIVES

One of the things I learned doing public child welfare work as a social worker for thirty years is that there are always alternatives to human behaviors. Rabbits and squirrels are not so fortunate. If you flush out a rabbit and you have a good dog (beagles are probably the best) all you have to do, as the hunter, is stay put because the rabbit will always run full circle. When he crosses his original track the dog will be faced with a rabbit scent going in four different directions giving the rabbit the advantage to get away while the dog decides which way to go. Squirrels have a similar evasive behavior in that they dart quickly to one side and then to the other. This works great when a hawk is looking for dinner in the tree tops but not so well on the highway when your in a hurry to get home after a long day at work.

Humans always have alternatives to our behaviors. If it were not for that social work would be no more effective than trying to train a rabbit to climb a tree rather than run in a circle when being chased by a dog.

The point is that there are alternatives to producing energy by burning fossil fuels the way we now do it. My favorite is nuclear fusion since that's the way the sun makes energy and I've always thought of the sun as a good guide for how things might best be done. When my students would take me to task about all the technical problems inherent in using nuclear fusion (there is actually only one) and I was bent on illustrating how societal resources could be divided up differently, I'd revert to the old hole in the ground alternative. Simply dig a hole deep enough so that the bottom of the hole would be warm enough to turn water to steam. Let some of your favorite river flow into the hole, capture the steam, turn turbines with it and voila you have energy which we humans have demonstrated that; number one we are unable or unwilling to conserve and number two we will need more of it since our numbers continue to grow. 

The other point is that there are alternatives to ICE. One of the major ways we humans make energy is by touching a spark to a carefully controlled mixture of hydrocarbons and air compressed to just the right pressure in the cylinder of an Internal Combustion Engine. Unfortunately the residue of this process, that comes spewing out through the exhaust valve is, in large quantities, toxic to positive human growth and development. Over the years engineers have tried to deal with that drawback, to an otherwise wonderful innovation, by tinkering here and tinkering there. Lately the effort to minimize the "foot print" of ICE has become more political than technical and, believe it or not, the Congress of the United States, tinkering here and tinkering there, has relaxed standards to control these toxic emissions.

The other other point is that one of the alternatives is already here. Hydrogen fuel cells are a different way of drawing the energy out of hydrocarbons to heat and cool our dwellings and to power our vehicles. Fellow Chapter members have helped me to understand that these fuel cells do not increase the overall amount of available energy since they use the same hydrogen now being used in the Internal Combustion Engine, they simply "burn" the hydrogen cleanly and more efficiently. The residue coming out of the exhaust valve, so to speak, is water rather than the complicated carbon molecules that are raising havoc with the air we breathe. For all intents and purposes, ICE is a dinosaur. Maine should consider establishing the first ICE museum in the world in order to attract tourists to view the enormous application of ICE. In just a couple of generations humans have evolved from having to walk or ride a horse to where ever one was going to being able to transport ones self in metal boxes nearly anywhere at 70 miles/hour or faster if you can afford to fly.

Unfortunately, we humans are addicted to ICE just as surely as a teen might be addicted to ecstasy or sniffing glue. It will be hard to let it go. It is difficult to imagine there is an alternative that is just as good as ICE (maybe even better) yet doesn't poison the air. Hydrogen fuel cells are that alternative. The October issue of Scientific American contains a helpful illustration of how it works.

The most important point is that we environmentalists, both lay and professional, have the opportunity and possibly the responsibility, to articulate the need for alternatives to burning fossil fuels, in ways that policy makers and the general public can understand and see as hopeful. 

Transitioning from where we are to where we might be in energy production and distribution will not be easy. The problems are primarily social and political. Just as cutting down all the old growth forest is a social (jobs) issue as well as an environmental issue, doing away with ICE is a social (jobs) issue as well as an environmental issue. Mechanics, for example, will have to learn how to guide hydrogen in to the front end of the process and traction out the other end while giving up the skill they already have at fine tuning the petrol/air/spark/compression ratio of ICE.

So, the real point is whether we environmentalists will sit back and wait for the transition to occur as we have with solar power or whether we will become more AA (active assertive) in transitioning to fuel cells. The human tendency will be to maintain the status quo for as long as possible. Although we love to change, especially for the better, we don't tend to like it while it is going on and those who have to learn new skills in order to keep their jobs (sense of security) will be reluctant to see the beauty of the transition. When the State of Maine, Department of Human Services, Bureau of Child and Family Services began transitioning from a paper driven information system to an electronically driven system, the first computer on the third floor at 200 Main St. in Lewiston was turned on and acted as a very expensive clock for over a year while people went about their business using the old paper system. By the time I retired two years ago even the most recalcitrant of employees were banging the keys of the computer to find out where their kids were and how they were doing. 

To be sure there are zillions of things humans ought to be doing to maintain the habitat that sustains us. There is nothing we could do that would be kinder and gentler, with the possible exception of deciding to stop killing each other, to improve our foot print on the earth, than to switch to hydrogen fuel cells. The mystery is why we would wait a minute to begin the shift? 

Jim Tierney, Past Chair
Appalachian Mountain Club
Maine Chapter