Fusion- Confusion!

AI Generated conceptual fusion reactor 

Flex fuel; hybrid and EV! Words pretty common these days. We are all aware of the current challenges with the fossil fuel. There is still a lot of it but wars, tariffs and muscular economic policies by the 'haves' nations have put serious challenges to the public; specially the "have nots"!

 

Electric motor was invented in 1821 by Michael Faraday. Yes; that was 200 years ago ! A battery was invented even earlier in 1800 by Alessandro Volta. An electric light was not  created until 1879 . Of course you know from that primary science book - it was Thomas Edison! That was really the turning point. Electricity increasingly became critical to human society. We now need it for ...... everything. From waking up to an alarm and using a battery tooth brush to toasting your bread and making coffee and iron your shirt. From Using your laptop for work  and cellphone for communication ; to using X Ray and other medical devices for health care ...... even those red, green and amber lights at every intersection. All things need electricity. Your gas pump needs it , municipal services need it to manage waste and pump clean water into your home. Your HVAC systems run on it. It was only time before personal transportation became dependant on it.

 

I am at an age where I have collected a treasure trove of stories. So here is a true personal one. It happened on 14th August 2003, exactly one year after I arrived in North America . The big blackout unfolded - largest power outage in history occurred ! Electric grid tripped and over 50 million people were without electricity. I was kind of used to this in India except I was no longer in India. Soon We realized that not only can we not drive anywhere because  there was mayhem on the roads without any traffic lights; we can not even sit at home and sip coffee! Why; because the coffee maker will not work and the stove and oven you are wondering about was........you got it. It was electric too. Fridge died; milk and other cooked food spoiled in the august heat and I had two little kids to feed. 

 

I walked across the street to the big grocery store in the strip plaza. They were open but not really open for business. I picked up a bunch of banana and tried to pay for it; the high school dropout cashier refused to sell it to me because her weighing  scale and the connected cash computer was no longer powered! She did not know how to complete the sale.  My mind was racing and my over active imagination was  dramatically picturing my kids crying of hunger! I went  up to the store manager, explained the situation and then proceeded to tell him how he can continue operation. Just use the manual spring scale hanging at every produce stall to weigh; multiply the weight by the price on a piece of paper like a grade 3 child  and ask for exact change from the customer. simple elementary task!  A light went on in his head. He thanked me profusely  like I was Einstein come back to life. Of course I got that banana bunch! Can you even imagine how cripplingly  dependent we have become on electricity? Some people can not even wipe their back side without it!  Hello! I am joking; everyone can !

 

Coal burning  power generation is seriously problematic. Hydro electric power is a lot better but its environmental impact and the high  dependency upon monsoons as well as Dam safety considerations are not insignificant. For stable sure power It is clear that we need to go nuclear. I know ,I know you are thinking Chernobyl ! Well there is risk in crossing the road too! We do it anyway by standing well behind the zebra crossing and wait for pedestrian lights to come up and then quickly walk across before it turns red.

 

Currently all nuclear power plants are fission power. What it means is that the reactors split the  unstable atom of a fissile material like uranium or plutonium resulting in the release of  massive energy which is then converted to electricity. Of course it comes with the problem of the need for long term secure storage of radioactive waste. Long term is really long term. Some isotopes have a half life of 2.5 billion years! No, I am not joking here. There is also the real danger of a nuclear meltdown when the process become unstable. Something like what happened in Chernobyl. It is not a lone incident. A number of other accidents, mishaps and misevents of various intensity have occurred already. 

 

What are our options then? Fusion is one. So what happens in a fusion reactor is that unlike fission reactor we combine two lighter nuclei into a single nucleus. Combining actually produces thrice the energy of a split. The good thing is it relies on hydrogen isotopes Deuterium and Tritium  instead of uranium. If you remember your basic chemistry you know water is 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen; H2O. We can get a lot of hydrogen rather easily and then extract the isotopes. I am making it sound easy only because this technology already exists. Fusion reactors also produce helium as a waste. It is harmless. These reactors can not melt down. if the process malfunctions the reaction just stops.

 

There is currently one fusion power  plant and it is far far away.  There are a couple of technologies being perfected  for the reactor design including magnetic confinement and accelerated plasma. They are not yet ready to be operational. Every country that has the scientific resources is really working hard to get there. A few private players are pursuing the inertial confinement reactor design as well. No one has had complete success yet. A commercially viable fusion power plant is a work in progress .

 

Did I not tell you that there is  one plant far away? Yes there is one and it is called Sun! The sun ; our sun is a fusion power plant. Elon Musk is a pretty smart fellow and he believes we are unnecessarily trying to replicate on earth something which is already happening so efficiently in our neighbourhood. We should be trying to use the power radiated by sun instead! A good point I do not entirely disagree with. We should invest in efficiently harnessing power from sea waves; windmills as well as solar panels. Work on improving efficiencies of solar panel technology; power storage and distribution etc. etc. But there should be no confusion on the need for a fusion reactor.

 

I would like to have another sun! Wouldn't you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Aah, Taj!

Taj by moonlight. AI's interpretation.

It is quite mysterious how Taj Mahal came to be the most known symbol of India. India is hard to define, harder to describe and hardest to brand!  On top of everything, asking for one single image to encapsulate it all.....somebody; most likely an alcoholic British colonial halfwit chose Taj Mahal and it has stuck.

Of all the amazing masterpieces of architecture India has; they had to pick this! Why had they not heard about the largest monolithic structure in the world; the kailasa temple? A 107' high building  site, two times the size of Parthenon at Athens; carved out of a single rock?

Part of the Taj story is the romanticism associated with the building. A king apparently got it constructed to bury his fourth wife Mumtaj ......oh; was it the third. Ok, 3rd then! There is no knowing how many wives, concubines, keeps and other subjugated women passed thru the royal chambers! Islamic love is hard to keep count of !

ShahJehan, according to popular belief  killed Mumtaj's husband to marry her. The evidence is a bit weak on that but it is historically proven that Mumtaj bore 14 children in the 19 years they were together and she died in childbirth! None of this 'permanently pregnant' status sounds like love to me!

I visited Agra first time on a grade 2 school trip. I do not remember much except the bus ride and the fact that a teacher scolded me for something which I do not recollect. There is no picture. I wanted to have my picture taken, since so many other people were getting clicked by the commercial photographers. I do not think we had a camera along. We were so little and it was more than half a century ago. It is pretty hazy! It was a day trip, we returned late evening and my mother collected me from school.

A couple of years later my maternal uncle tagged me along on a trip to Agra. This time we stayed overnight with a friend of my uncle. They were both completing their M.D. at Delhi. We did not see the Taj at night. This friend had a RolliFlex  film camera  and I asked for my picture to be taken. I posed , they clicked. It was a pretend click just to humour a child.  No individual picture ever got produced. You should never deceive a child! Being honest is not hurtful, it shows that you trust them with information. Simplify it, but tell the truth! It is also helpful if you can provide another option while denying one. It is very humiliating when you lie! Children know you are lying; as I did! Deception has a negative effect on a child's innocent mind! You are teaching them it's OK to lie! It is not!

One of the most beautiful sights in the world is a laughing child. One of the most satisfying thing in this world is being the reason for that laugh!

There is a B&W group picture from this trip somewhere that features me. It is somewhere but also etched on my heart. A young boy in shorts standing at an angle to the camera.  You see they could have easily told me this. " We will get a picture of everyone together", There, see how easy saying the truth was! I would have been happy and would never have remembered this bad lifelong experience of subterfuge! I do have a clearer idea of this trip. I remember sitting on a stone bench and eating. I was still too young to understand 'love' and that this place was the lover's ' Mecca'! 

As an adult I did see it in moonlight - eventually! A friend accompanied me on this occasion. We boarded a slow train and travelled on the upper berth from nizamuddin railway station to Agra. I liked this trip better because of the company. Although there were a few anxious moments and some disagreements. Not sure why! Anyway I saw it in moonlight and God knows I did not feel any romance in the cold building at all. Once you know the history of things , it is not possible to unknow it! It will colour all of your experiences going forward. Especially if that history was not exactly kosher!

Aga Khan award for excellence in architecture is prestigious and is held every three years. I designed the built part (there was a performance part too) one year it was held at Agra. There were a few different sites for different elements like seminars/workshops and winning design showcase exhibition ; in addition to the main award ceremony site; which was an open ground at a hotel called Taj Khema.  You can see Taj from its grounds. We used that view as a background  for 'no design high creative appeal' effect. Incorporating the free view into overall design / planning  did go rather well with the client's brief. It actually sold our project design.

I have to admit that Taj looks shimmering in moonlight from a distance.

I did travel a few times to Agra before that event for client meetings; site measurements; design presentations, contractor selections etc. however I never set foot inside the Taj premises. Even during the build process at various venues I just did not bother to visit. There was no time either and nothing was scheduled at the monument premises anyway. You might have guessed by now that I am probably the only person on this earth that is not a fan of  Taj.

Last time I visited though was so  very different from my previous subpar experiences. My daughter was set to go to university and her complaint was that she has no experience of 'India'!  "People think I am Indian. They ask me and I am blank. I have not even been to Taj Mahal", is how she put it. So we promised to show her a bit of India before she heads out to the uni. This time I went like a 'not Indian", which I certainly am not. I am not a not Indian. We booked an Agra  package. A vehicle  would pick us from our home in Delhi. We got a guide and we bought queue free express entry in Dollars. Guide tells you a lot of rehearsed non sense but it kind of makes the commentary nuanced. This was the  best Taj trip for me because my children enjoyed it. I skipped the gory history, as did the guide.

Remember what I said about bringing a smile to children! The  experience was made greater because the travel agent my son had booked online with had also included  a lunch in the price. Something we did not realize till our vehicle stopped at the restaurant.  It was one of the best meals I have ever had and trust me I used to work for Hyatt and for two and half years I only ate five star lunches everyday; and dinners too;  quite so often! I know what good food tastes like! 

That travel agent had done a good job with our booking. I met the guy at his inlay souvenir  factory. He was old money with several pies in the oven. This travel thing was one of his sons extra curricular activity. Old money are class- mostly; nouveau riche are crass -mostly !

 

No, I still do not see Taj as even remotely romantic. Firstly it is mislabelled. Taj Mahal means Crown Palace! It is an effing graveyard! Palace, are you serious! How on earth do you build a palace  on the foundations of dead bodies? You can only erect a grave stone on the buried. It is a big white Grave Stone with inlay work!  Who in their right mind would wander off to romance in a cemetery? Really who? Love and romance is associated with warmth, colour and exuberant joy! Not with a cold, white, barren marble tomb; made to mourn the loss of a beloved ! I do not blame the builders though! They designed it for the mourning king and to that extent it is doing its job. Their intention for it was never  to be a palace, much less a mecca of romance . It is a mausoleum. Would you ever use a mortuary building as a marriage hall ? 

 

Remember this in life too! You can not laugh by making others cry! You will never get peace by robbing others of theirs. A deceiver will get deceived in time! Karma is real. It may take a long time and it maybe one  lone person pointing at the  king that has no robes on; but some day, someone like me will come along and say it out loud!

'' The palace you made is your grave"! It is a grave! It is! It is!