Here I am in Nazaré again, this time with two wonderful grandsons, David and Aaron. On the ferry trip to Bilbao the weather not so sensationally good this time, but it was still very pleasant. I love the opportunity to just relax; it's all the better with no internet and a spot of sea-motion! This time David did most of the driving, and I arrived in excellent shape, back to contortions in the Anna M.
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| Bertha |
It's been a great pleasure to be working with the two boys, and finding them very effective. Now we have most of the steel floors in place, and the old boat feels as if she is beginning to come alive again. We also have Alec's hydrogenny in the car, even if it is only in a fish box in the back. Alec hadn't the time to fit it properly, before he went off to the Canaries to do a delivery trip to Ireland. He needs some sea-time, having had his head addled this last year with the coronvirus problems. I shall have fun getting someone to fit the thing properly back home.
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| Hydrogenny |
We did have it running on a bench in Alec's workshop. It is simple enough, though not without its subtleties. He has been 3 years messing around with the concept, and seems to have it down to a tee. It produces plenty of hydrogen for the Citroen from about 10amps,- too much if the electrolyte is too strong, as it was at first - which meant it was producing too much hydrogen and using too much electricity, and running rather hot. Once it is installed, with a non-return valve on the supply to the engine and an ampmeter, we shall soon find out how well it works.
I have a log of the petrol that I have used for over a year and the kilometers travelled. A preliminary bit of arithmetic is showing 10.1 litres per kilometre, or 45.7 mpg, but I shall get a better head for figures on the job, and we shall soon know what the hydrogenny can do, which is very exciting. Alec claims about 30% better mileage in his Ford transit van. He says the saving comes primarily from better combustion; normally a petrol engine is only about 30% efficient, so that much of its energy in lost in heat and exhaust. Another advantage of the hydrogen is of course a cleaner engine with much cleaner emissions.
How the roll-out of electric cars is supposed to enable us to meet the ambitious targets for CO2 reduction beats me. The infrastructure of charging points is rudimentary; even if the people could afford to buy the cars, they are far from meeting the needs of people living in remote places like the West of Ireland. Then what would the carbon footprint of manufacturing all those cars be? Hydrogennies might plug the gap, enabling us to continue to drive old bangers for another while, and meantime to reduce their pollution very considerably; also to afford the sky-rocketing price of petrol.
Fiona and I did live very happily for 5 years with no car, but it does severely limit what one can do. When it comes to building projects or working on a boat, or doing anything but living the simple life, it becomes very difficult indeed. However when it comes to having real grunt in a truck or a fishing boat, I am inclined to think that hydrogen powering electric motors via fuel cells will be the answer, but there is a huge amount of work to be done on the distribution and storage of the gas.
As regards the Anna M, I am hopeful of getting her in the water again next year, with an electric motor and just enough battery power for a couple of hours' endurance. It will make for a very interesting kind of cruising. I shall be hoping to test/demonstrate and sell Alec's concepts up and down the Gannetsway!
Besides finance, it will all depend on some kind of normality returning to our troubled world; not that I am expecting too much, for when were the times ever 'normal'? This world is always a dangerous place, though occasionally there are periods when it is a bit easier to pretend that it is otherwise. The trick is to keep our heads amidst the welter of false consciousness. I recommend keeping one's inner gaze fixed firmly on the Lord,- in fact I can't see any other possible way of keeping our bearings, much as images from sea-faring for instance may help.
Modernity of course thrives on those illusions. All our contemporary confusion about truth is built into the deal. By relegating such questions as whether or not there is 'life after death' to that unimaginable future tense 'beyond the grave', awareness of which is for the most part systematically repressed anyway, we moderns tend to effectively dodge the issue of whether there are any absolute realities at all. Truth, beauty, justice are accounted as basically whatever you want yourself, though in 'normal' times some kind of uneasy consensus about them prevails.
In the absence of such concensus, the world becomes increasingly dysfunctional and neurotic. Governments, the media, all kinds of nutty ideas and false gods rush in to plug the gap. I find that it does help to respond by doing one's own bit to address the practical issues; the necessary interaction with natural reality helps to ground and focus our efforts, while willy-nilly we encounter the Creator; in this way we may in fact discover transcendent meaning in all we do, right here and now. I may be where I am for practical reasons, but being here is all the better for that!
