Environmental-Friendly Pandora's Box

 

Hello, Guys!!!

 

It’s Aaron. Currently: a wannabee engineer. Student and (beginner)Blogger for all things Engineering. I made this cool and radical blog in order to make an impact on the world and Engineering in it. This is my first time making this blog. So, forgive me with all the flaws of this blog. However, I promise I will not purposely spread misinformation in any of my blogs. Just in case there is correction needed, I will be happy to do it.

In my first blog, I want you guys to pay attention to this mythology that I learned from my elementary days, Pandora’s box. For the sake of this purpose of this blog, I will make a brief (WAY BRIEF!!!) description of it and make some possible modifications. Pandora is a woman created by the Gods. The purpose of the creation is to purposely punish mankind. She was given a box and told not to open it. However, she opened it because of her curiosity then all of the negative contents came out, including hardships and suffering. She can’t comprehend what she had done. She closed the box because she believed it would avoid further damage. However, the irony here was she closed the box while there is another content besides all the negativities. This other content is hope.

Now, I have a proposal of a theory. I believe there is another “box” somewhere that has yet to be opened. However, I believed someone had already opened it. I want to call this particular box Environmental-Friendly Pandora’s Box. I believed that this box exists and it is already open because of the problems that exist in the environmental movement. Like Pandora, someone opened it and then chaos ensued. However, this has a different ending because the one who opened it believed that goodness came out of it and then closed after this particular person believed that the goodness came out of it is good enough and if he kept it open the negativities will come out of it. The issue was he can’t really identify if the stuff that came out of the box is actually good. His perspective has limits that influenced his decision to close the box. He might have been deceived that he believed that the good stuff came out of the box instead of bad. This design of this specific box is so complicated that we should not trust him in keeping it(let alone his decision to close it). Here we focus on identifying this guy and analyze the consequences of his actions, BUT let us focus what’s inside the box first.

An article came to my attention. This article was written by Joe D’Allegro.  An immediate idea, as it has already been given by the title, is that Elon Musk, a Tesla CEO, believed that there is no way that hydrogen-fuel cells would be a viable alternative energy to be use on anything, including on electric vehicles. Since the focus of this article is car usage of this type of energy source, we should immediately identify the vehicle that uses this particular energy source. The vehicle that uses this energy source is called Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). The way FCEVs function is that their engines use hydrogen stored in their tanks combined with oxygen from air to produce electricity. After the process is done, the two elements are supposed to convert into water vapors which replaces smoke that are usually emitted from gasoline run vehicles. The benefit of the design of this type of vehicle is that it does not require plug-in to a power source as opposed to the common battery powered vehicles (EVs). (D'Allegro)

This thedriven.io article has his more elaborate reasons on why he would object to it. He claimed that he heard the question so many times since before Tesla’s Roadster came out. His problem is more focused on the complicated nature of hydrogen:(Schmidt)

“It’s only a liquid close to absolute zero, so it’s really not realistic to keep it as a liquid, so you have to keep it as a gas. So you need a gigantic fuel tank, volumetrically, and it’s got to be very high pressure. It’s a big pain in the arse, basically”(Schmidt)

He even further states, “If somebody was going to, say, use an ultimate chemical energy storage mechanism …. I’d say use propane or something like that or methane, those are way, way better than hydrogen, and then having a fuel cell just adds even further complications to the situation”(Schmidt)

The problem does not end there. The Union of Concerned Scientists stated that producing hydrogen itself can produce pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions. However, even if the fuel comes from the “dirtiest source”, natural gas, it can cut emissions by over 30 percent.(Union of Concerned Scientist)

Lets check this infographic by MEED: https://www.power-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2019/10/Hydrogen_Infographic-1.pdf (MEED)

It explains that the benefits of this energy is too hard to ignore. This is "hope" in this "box" that should go out instead of being closed down. 

In Conclusion, the culprit that closes the "box" are the consumers who refuse to dig deeper about this energy. Elon just simply said what he knows. He never claimed that hydrogen is a bad source overall. He just simply does not want to complicate things. The original "hope" from the box are the support from other people regardless of background. My hopes for this first part of this prototype blog is to spread awareness about thinking deeper about things. There are multiple versions of "boxes" out there that most of them deviate from the original mythology. However, the lesson about the "box" on this blog is to never fear things. "Bad things" will always happen, but we must see the whole picture. This is the specific challenge that most environmentalists and ethical engineers are facing; critics cast doubts in hopes to deter this movement and make society descend to decadence.

Citations:

"How Clean Are Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles?" Web. 04 May 2021.

 D'Allegro, Joe. "Elon Musk Says the Tech Is 'mind-bogglingly Stupid,' but Hydrogen Cars May Yet Threaten Tesla." CNBC. CNBC, 24 Feb. 2019. Web. 02 May 2021.

 Schmidt, Birdie. ""A Big Pain in the Arse": Musk Says Hydrogen Transport Is Crazy." The Driven. 28 Jan. 2021. Web. 02 May 2021.

 MEED. "Realising the Hydrogen Economy." Power Technology. Web. 02 May 2021.