Until about 200 years ago, if you wanted to go to, say, America, you only had to get into a boat and unfurl the sails. The wind would take you to your destination — cheap and clean. Nowadays, things are a bit different. You can’t go to America without spilling tonnes and tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Comfortable, yes, but not cheap, and certainly not clean. Indeed, every activity of ours today mauls the atmosphere and Nature is sure to take revenge.
So, why not go back to the age old days and ply ships and aeroplanes on the wind? On the face of it, it sounds crazy. But if you think a little deeper, why not indeed? The only reason you wouldn’t do that is — time. Sail-ships would take months to go from India to the US, and gliders years. Not practical.
But, then, aren’t we forgetting something? There is solar too. Today, in the age of solar photovoltaics, it wouldn’t take months and years to go half way across the globe.
Solar-powered plane!
You may have heard of Solar Impulse — the solar-powered plane. In the second project of Solar Impulse — dubbed Solar Impulse 2 — the two engineers who built the plane vowed to go around the world in it. Unfortunately, the plane developed a snag.
Its lithium ion batteries overheated, requiring some repairs, and the plane is, right today, grounded in Hawaii, but not before it shattered records by flying one single leg of 7,212 km from Nagoya, Japan to Kalaeloa, Hawaii, spending an unprecedented 118 hours in the air.
Solar Impulse is inspiring, apparently. For, even as it recoups in Hawaii, another group has come up with another novel idea — a race.
Racing the sun
The race will begin in Paris, France, in summer 2016. Teams will begin their journey around the world and the winner will be the one that comes back first. Racers are free to take any route across the globe, so long as they touch the 15 or so cities mentioned in the rules.
What is ‘novel’ about this, you may ask. Well, the entire journey around the world should be undertaken without using a drop or speck of fossil fuels. Choose any mode of transportation, take any vehicle, it’s ok, but remember, no fossil fuels. That is — no petrol, or diesel, or LPG or coal.
The theme of the adventure is ‘80 day-race’, inspired by Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days. The organisers of ‘80DR’ intend to make it an annual fixture. Only, in the first year, the ocean-crossings will be taken care of by the organisers, who will presumably use a very low-carbon means of mobility. From the second race onwards, the racers will have to wind themselves across the oceans.
Perils of global warming
The inventors of Solar Impulse and the organisers of 80DR have one common purpose in mind — highlight the perils of spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the exciting possibilities of non fossil-fuel-based mobility.
As you find in the section titled ‘Earth in Peril’ of this column, the concentration of carbon-dioxide (and five other greenhouse gases) is bad. They prevent some wavelengths of reflected sunlight from radiating back into the atmosphere, thereby trapping heat and warming the planet. Warming of the planet will have terrible consequences and, as such, avoiding further warming is the matter of intense international discussion and debate.
Burning fossil fuels adds CO 2 to the atmosphere. If the warming of the earth has to be limited to a ‘safe’ level of 2 degrees above the temperatures that existed around the 1850s, then, scientists say, you may at most let out 565 Giga tonnes of CO 2 into the atmosphere. In contrast, the CO 2 you would emit if you burnt all the fossil fuels known to exist today will be 2,795 Giga tonnes.
Increased risk
The more you burn fossil fuels, the more you enhance the risk of smoking your children and grandchildren to extinction. Solar Impulse and 80DR are baby-steps in fossil fuel-less mobility.
Project this trend into the future. Ships that will be built 30-40 years from now are likely to be completely different from the today’s vessels. As soon as they are pulled out of the harbour by the tug boats, guess what they will do?
Unfurl their sails.