Future fuel unlimited

from The Christian Science Journal

Jeffrey Hildner talks with physicist Michael Antal

Jeffrey Hildner: The convergence of waning global oil production and what many see as waxing global warming has intensified the scientific community’s focus on renewable energy research here in the opening chapter of the 21st century. But you’ve focused on renewable energy for over 35 years now. Why did you get interested in renewable energy so early?

Michael Antal: There are two answers to that. The first answer revolves around issues of physics, and the second answer revolves around issues of metaphysics.

As to the physics side of the equation, my interest goes back to my time at Dartmouth, where there’s a tradition of interest in global energy. Dartmouth was a magnet for people who were concerned about the environment and the future of energy. And then in 1973–74 the energy crisis surfaced, echoing the predictions of limits to growth. I was at Los Alamos at that point, and the scientists at Los Alamos had a big interest in energy and different ways of satisfying our country’s energy needs. I was encouraged to devote some of my time to the renewable energy area even though I was in a group concerned with thermonuclear weapons physics.

When you say “predictions of limits to growth,” what do you mean? Could you unpack that?

Well, the term limits to growth goes back to the big interest in renewable energy that emerged from research at MIT, specifically from Donella Meadows, a pioneer in environmental science who later taught at Dartmouth. In 1972, when I was a graduate student at Harvard, Meadows published Limits to Growth, a classic book modeling the impact of a rapidly growing world population and finite resources. She and her husband, who collaborated on the book, used very sophisticated numerical models to predict the future. And 36 years ago they predicted that around the turn of the century, right now, there were going to be real problems, difficult times.

And the second answer as to why you got interested in renewable energy so early—the metaphysical factor in the equation?

I don’t accept the general concept of limits to growth.

As a metaphysicist, I don’t accept the general concept of limits to growth, even though as a physicist I know that these limits with respect to fossil fuels are very real. It seems to me that innovation and creativity—even radical scientific breakthroughs—will be required to circumvent those limits.

You know there’s this Adam-and-Eve curse that we have on us that says we must till the ground from whence we are taken. At least that’s the belief. And one aspect of tilling the ground is mining the earth for coal and oil and natural gas, so I see this process as part of the curse. Another aspect of the curse is this sense of limitation that comes from it. In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy defined serpent as “the first lie of limitation” (p. 594). So the sense of limitation has been with humanity from the get-go.

Look also at Mrs. Eddy’s line in her definition of Eve: “that which does not last forever” (Science and Health, p. 585). So again you get this sense of limitation associated with a false, Adam-and-Eve account of creation. You get this sense of material things ending, which is what is approaching as far as our fossil fuel resources are concerned. That which does not last forever. They are running out. We will live to see it.

I also like Mrs. Eddy’s definition of Euphrates. It’s a long definition, but toward the middle of it there’s this: “a state of mortal thought, the only error of which is limitation” (Science and Health, p. 585).

Limitation is the very first error that appears in mortal consciousness.

So this sense of limitation is the very first error that appears in mortal consciousness. It’s the root error that is the source of all the other errors. And to me, it seems like events are forcing us to escape from this Adam curse. I’ve always seen my research into energy sources, which take the lid off this limitation, as potentially contributing to this escape.

Mrs. Eddy has a wonderful quote, “Spirit acts through the Science of Mind, never causing man to till the ground, but making him superior to the soil. Knowledge of this lifts man above the sod, above earth and its environments, to conscious spiritual harmony and eternal being” (Science and Health, pp. 520–521). Christian Science naturally causes us, I think, to look elsewhere than the soil for our resources and our well-being.

It sounds to me that maybe you see yourself as a kind of servant-scientist. How has your study of Christian Science helped you in your research and your quest for innovation and breakthroughs that will help the world?

Well first, I think divine Mind has shaped my career and guided me to wonderful opportunities to fulfill my sense of purpose of, as you say, being a servant-scientist. Take my being here in Hawaii. It turns out that Hawaii is an excellent place to conduct my research because Hawaii has no fossil fuel resources. It’s entirely dependent on imports of fuel, so the mentality in Hawaii is to naturally look for sustainability and independence, because the moment there’s any global energy problem, Hawaii is the first to feel it. Also, global warming is causing the sea level to rise. The rise has been measured, and there are predictions about how much rise will occur. This is a great concern to the islands in the Pacific because some islands that are inhabited will completely disappear. Others will lose shoreline. In our case, 50 years from now Waikiki will be quite different than it is today. We will lose a lot of our shoreline. So this is another reason that in Hawaii there’s an outlook similar to Europe’s.

Christian Science has helped me break through various limitations along the way.

Second, Christian Science has helped me break through various limitations along the way. For example, my work is extremely interdisciplinary. It not only involves many engineering and science fields but also involves economics, because our energy research needs to be competitive in the marketplace. Christian Science has helped me cut through resistance among university departments to their having faculty do this kind of work, and has helped me push past limitations that the ordinary educational establishment might impose.

And, of course, my whole area of research, Flash Carbonization, involves breaking through limitations, for the very reason that the research is still considered radical.

What is the Flash Carbonization process?

I have to give you a bit of a primer on fossil fuels to answer that question. The world uses three types of fuels: solid, liquid, gaseous. The big three are coal, oil (gasoline), and natural gas.

For each of these fossil fuels there is a renewable equivalent. The renewable equivalent of natural gas is hydrogen. The renewable equivalent of gasoline is ethanol and biodiesel. The renewable equivalent of coal is charcoal. These fuels are viewed as renewable because they’re obtained from a renewable biomass, such as agricultural crops or trees.

My research focuses on charcoal, the renewable energy substitute for coal. Now coal is basically carbon, and charcoal is a very pure form of carbon. Charcoal has no mercury. It has no sulfur. It’s virtually a pure carbon. So charcoal is very environmentally friendly.

We use charcoal for barbecue, and for us it seems cute. It seems fun. We can’t imagine it being an important fuel, but we appreciate its qualities because we enjoy cooking over it. Why do we cook over it? It’s clean. It’s clean for cooking, and it imparts a special flavor. Now it turns out that charcoal is used for cooking by more people in the world than any other fuel. And in Hawaii, all of the water we drink is treated using activated charcoal.

Until recently, the viewpoint about charcoal has been that it’s inefficient and slow to produce. So nobody ever took charcoal seriously. Basically, in my work we learned how to make charcoal very efficiently and very quickly. We can make charcoal much more efficiently and quickly than you can make ethanol from wood or grain. So our breakthrough was learning how to make charcoal efficiently and quickly.

How has Christian Science helped sustain your maverick research?

Christian Science has helped me trust that my research is valid and to expect that answers to renewable energy might well come in unexpected forms.

You know when Moses supplied the manna to the Israelites on their Exodus from Egypt, the people were starving [see Ex. 16:2–15]. Did they expect to receive manna as their food when they prayed? In other words, when they looked at the manna, did they know immediately that this was bread they could eat? As I recall, they didn’t know what it was; it wasn’t familiar to them. It came in a form they didn’t expect, and at first they doubted what it was. But they discovered that this manna was nutritious, and they were able to eat it. And it sustained them.

One needs to have a flexible thought, an open thought, an expectant thought.

All I’m getting at is that we’ve been enculturated to expect that our fuel will be a liquid or a gas. So if someone comes forward and says, “No, the fuel that will be the best for you is solid charcoal,” people might respond, “That makes no sense” just as the Israelites said about the manna, “We don’t know what this is. It doesn’t make sense.” So one needs to have a flexible thought, an open thought, an expectant thought—a thought that doesn’t outline how our supply will come.

Christian Science has also helped me to make hard choices. The hardest choice that I had to make was around the year 2000. My laboratory had published the highest yields of hydrogen from biomass ever obtained in the literature. And with Professor Lee Lynd at Dartmouth College, we published the highest yields of ethanol ever obtained in the literature. We also had published the highest yields of charcoal ever obtained in the literature. So at that point I could have given emphasis to any one of these areas. But I chose this charcoal route, the path less traveled. And I think it was the right choice.

How would you define renewable energy as seen through the lens of Christian Science?

Mary Baker Eddy wrote about the vitality and the vigor of Mind, echoing the Bible passage, “They that wait upon the Lord [Mind] shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isa. 40:31). Mind doesn’t feel any sense of exhaustion, any sense of depletion, any sense of limitation. And I think the desire of the renewable energy community is to somehow get closer to that in our immediate experience.

Jeffrey Hildner is a senior writer for the Journal and creative director of the Journal and Christian Science Sentinel.