A soot-covered scientist at the Grand Academy of Lagado successfully extracted sunlight from cucumbers and stored it in aluminum cans. The discovery will allow energy producers to generate solar-powered electricity at night and will provide unlimited on-demand wintertime heat, researchers said.
A lofty idea, but purely fictional.
The Grand Academy is an invention of Jonathan Swift, in his 1726 novel, Gulliver’s Travels. The nearly 300-year-old tale comes to life again via Vaclav Smil, the prolific (nonfiction) author and energy-and-environmental systems professor at the University of Manitoba. He discusses Swift’s cucumbers in a 2011 essay, titled “Global Energy: The Latest Infatuations.” The story resonates today because it fulfills what many people are looking for from the energy industry — a simple solution to complex problems.
Smil likens Swift’s cucumbers to what he calls energy infatuations, “it” technologies that are purported to save us from foreign oil dependency, toxic pollution and climate change. He warns against such magical thinking.
“…successfully extracted sunlight from cucumbers and stored it in aluminum cans. The discovery will allow energy producers to generate solar-powered electricity at night and will provide unlimited on-demand wintertime heat, researchers said.
While living in Texas I learned a native techniques for extracting heat from
the fruit of Capsicum plants and storing it in a ceramic container. This also provides unlimited on-demand wintertime heat.
Thanks for the story.
Einstein reported in 1905 that energy is stored as mass, E = mc^2. That equation links the visible, physical universe with its invisible, spiritual side.
World leaders observed the release of that energy – long stored in the cores of uranium atoms – in the “nuclear fires” that consumed Hiroshima on 6 Aug 1945.
Sixty-four years (64 yrs) later, Climategate emails and documents revealed that world leaders had responded in fear to the “nuclear fires” by encouraging scientists to obscure information on nuclear energy stored at the centers of:
a.) Heavy atoms, like Uranium
b.) Some planets, like Jupiter
c.) Ordinary stars, like the Sun
d.) Galaxies like the Milky Way
The fabrication of information began almost immediately, with abrupt changes in the Sun’s internal composition: From iron (Fe) to hydrogen (H)!!
http://www.omatumr.com/AASWashington2002.pdf
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-21
And continued to today’s almost total loss of confidence in government science and in world leaders.
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/
The most pressing issue today is identifying new political leaders who are capable of restoring integrity to science, rights of citizens and citizen control over government, without reviving racism, retaliation,
and/or the threat of nuclear warfare.
We need a population that recognizes the impossibility of giving everything to everyone: socialism or social democracy, take your pick.
We may decry poverty, but I think it is necessary for some people to fail … and fail badly … for lack of effort, in order to provide a “bad example” to deter others from the same course of action and ultimately the same fate. We have made a bad mistake…with good intentions…in shielding people from the consequences of their own actions.
Thumbs up!
Grading on the curve…always deters incentive.
I see that this was posted on April 11th. It was posted 10 days to late.
The only proven solar storage medium is Canadian tourists in Hawaii. Put them in the sun for a few hours and they will radiant heat of up to four days after.