Why I'm glad my kid doesn't go to BYU
Sometimes, readers get angry. And they email me. And I respond. Why shy away? But then the whole thing blows over. We agree to disagree.
But lately, I've been getting emails from someone named Tyler Harris. Good kid, probably. But somewhere in our past, our emails crossed.
I didn't know until recently that Tyler is a BYU student. That's not his picture, by the way, working on his laptop. I found it on the BYU website and, for now, that'll be my image of him.
My educated guess is he probably was upset with something I wrote about ... who knows what. He found it online. He emailed me to complain. I wrote back. Then my email address got stuck in his address book.
I hate when that happens.
Until this week, the only other person I knew from BYU was Robbie Bosco. I covered his 1984 game, when the Cougars knocked off Michigan in the Holiday Bowl and eventually claimed the national championship. I then covered Steve Young for a couple of years when he played for the L.A. Express of the old USFL. Pretty cool guy.
But anyway.
Fast forward to last week.
Tyler CCd me on an email he wrote to some of his school pals, informing him that he had "some bad news. I got a grade 2 kidney tear on Saturday ... I've been in the ER and having cat scans and blood drawn and all that stuff that's associated with hemorrhaging. I peed blood and stuff, so basically I haven't been feeling all that well" ...
Hey, hey, big guy. Too much information. You coulda stopped at kidney tear.
The reason for his worries, it turns out, is he had a paper due for his Biology 100 class, but since he was recouping at his parents house in Centerville (I didn't make that name up), he emailed the essay to Annie to finish up.
"I"m really sorry about all this," Tyler said.
Hey, bud. Take it slow. We need you later for that intramural cornhole tournament.
This morning, I got another misguided email from Tyler's computer. The paper was done. "Sorry it is soo late it was the earliest i could get done," he wrote. "I should be awake around an hour before class, so if you think something absolutley needs to be changed call me after 9 A.M. and I'll see what I can do."
OK, man. I think we're cool with it.
Below is the paper Tyler cranked out while in a lot of pain. You'll know there's another co-author named "Tom," who probably was supposed to be CCd on this email, but it came to me out of Tyler's address instead. I only wish I could get the "real" Tom this paper. He's probably pretty upset with Tyler right now for hanging him out to dry the last week.
So, what's the lesson in all this?
Be careful who you email ... Naw, too easy.
Make sure your address file is cleaned out because you never know what jerky, insensative, too-much-time-on-his-hands Los Angeles sports writer will get your school essay and then put it on his blog?
You're getting warmer.
My guess is that if any college kid out there needs a paper on the virtues of hydrogen fuel, he could easily ... uh ... borrow this. There's nothing I can do about it. It's a good, tight, well-written. Gets right to the point. Unlike this top of the blog.
Whatever I can to do help higher education. And sorry, but I have no experience in repairing torn kidneys.
Running Head: Hydrogen Fuel
Team Research Project Paper
Tyler Harris, Charolette Carter, Daniel Findley, Tom Preston, Brittany Linde
Brigham Young University
Biology 100, Section 052
TA: Annie Layton
November 20, 2006
To many politicians, environmentalists, manufacturers, and consumers, the powering of cars is a major issue. There may not be any debate over whether or not a more efficient, environmentally friendly method of creating fuel is a good thing, but there are plenty of opinions about how to do it and who is responsible for making it happen.
Hydrogen powered cars may be the solution that we are all looking for. Hydrogen emissions are clean and can provide the power that car manufacturers desire. According to research by Mercuri, Bauen and Hart (2002), internal combustion engines consume about twice as much energy as hydrogen fuel cells and are thus highly inefficient. Internal combustion engines also produce carbon dioxide, an environmental toxin, and filling up at a hydrogen fuel station, as opposed to a regular gas station, would be much more environmentally friendly. However, studies by Maclean and Lave (2003) show that fuel cells would not be much better than internal combustion engines without an effective way to produce the hydrogen.
There are major issues that still need to be worked out in producing the amounts of hydrogen we would need to drive the world to a cleaner automobile. There are three viable production methods: fossil fuels, renewable energy sources, and nuclear power. Three criteria, efficiency, earth friendliness, and cost effectiveness, can be used to assess the merits of each of these methods.
The first possible production method is using fossil fuels to create the hydrogen. The infrastructure of large oil companies is already set up for the harvesting of fuels, and a cost effective system of transport is already in place. Thus, the use of fossil fuels to create hydrogen is both economical and efficient. However, according to Dr. Walters, Dr. Wade and Dr. Lewis (2002), using fossil fuels to produce hydrogen would generate just as much carbon dioxide as internal combustion engines. Therefore, there would be no real environmental benefits.
With fossil fuels out of the question because of their environmental implications, renewable resources may seem be a viable option. Renewable resources such as wind and solar power can create the heat necessary to produce hydrogen. However, renewable resources also have some significant drawbacks when considering large-scale production.
Calculations by Dr. Walters, Dr. Wade and Dr. Lewis (2002) show that using renewable resources to produce enough hydrogen to power all the cars in the nation would require an impractical amount of space and money. In order to produce the hydrogen with wind power, it would take 640,000 windmills occupying 71,000 square miles of land. To use solar panels, the cost would be $4.8 trillion dollars and take 3,000 square miles of land. For both of these scenarios, the required cost and land is neither efficient nor economical, though both are environmentally friendly.
Overall, nuclear power may be the best possible option for producing the power necessary. For the amount of power that one nuclear plant can produce their costs are relatively low. Nuclear plants are also extremely efficient. One pound of uranium (about the size of a baseball) in a power plant is equal to the producing power of one million gallons of gasoline. And with the rise in understanding of nuclear fission the energy producing possibilities are only getting better. But perhaps the greatest positive aspect of nuclear production of hydrogen is that it is environmentally clean. Nuclear reactors emit no more radiation than is typically in the air. Also, the reactions that take place within the reactors have no harmful byproducts that could be spewed into the atmosphere. Nuclear power plants truly meet all of the requirements to being a feasible method to producing hydrogen.
The combination of nuclear power plants to produce hydrogen and hydrogen powered cars would help clean up the environment in numerous ways with even more benefits. In cities as large as Chicago, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles or others where a lot of CO2 is emitted daily, the benefits of zero emission vehicles would be amazingly helpful, as well as the areas nearby. For instance, New York's pollution negatively effects nearby states like Vermont for the worse, despite Vermont's environmental nature.
Hydrogen powered automobiles is a step in the right direction for the U.S. and world ecosystem to deter the self destructive path that we put it on. Getting a usable, practical hydrogen producing network in route is the first step in making this dream come true. Nuclear plants are the only hydrogen manufacturing method that is efficient, clean, and cost effective.
Any change in a major fuel source poses a major issue for American businesses, consumers and all other parties involved. There is no easy way to solve this problem. While nuclear power may be the best solution, it won't be easy by any means. However, we cannot afford to continue to be the biggest harm to our environment. We need to be a more clean and efficient nation, and while it will be difficult in any situation, it is absolutely vital. Hydrogen power can help us get there.
Bibliography
Dr. Walters, L., Dr. Wade, D. & Dr. Lewis, D. 2002, 'Transition to a Nuclear/Hydrogen Energy System', The Nuclear Engineer, vol. 43, no. 169-175
Mercuri, R., Bauen, A. & Hart, D. 2002, 'Options for the refuelling hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in Italy', Journal of Power Sources, [Online], vol. 106, no. 1-2, pp. 353-363
Maclean, H. & Lave, L. 2003, 'Life Cycle Assessment of Automobile/Fuel Options', Environmental Sciences of Technology, [Online], vol. 37, no. 23, pp. 5445-5452