The Technics of Decentralization

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For automotive purposes where lack of a high-capacity accumulator makes electrical power impracticable alcohol would appear to be the ideal biotechnic fuel. In many ways it is superior to gasoline—it burns more cleanly, it is adapted to high compression, its heat loss is less, etc. On the day when the rising cost of petroleum extraction makes gasoline cost one-third more than alcohol distilled from starch crops (the ratio necessary to make alcohol on a par with gasoline in price per horsepower hour), its use will become commercially feasible. Since the production of alcohol is dependent on farming rather than mining, its use will incline the economic machine more toward an agrarian, although not necessarily a decentralized, mode of operation.

The direct utilization of solar heat is in a highly experimental state, although it has been made to run steam engines, operate refrigerating units, and generate gas for cooking and heating. The most practical device for its use so far is the domestic solar hot-water heater in wide use through the South—a device which, in spite of its simplicity, absorbs power at the rate of one or two kilowatts from the sunlight and furnishes hot water with no consumption of fuel. Interesting developments may be expected in this field of solar heat utilization, especially in various domestic and industrial processes requiring heat energy rather than mechanical power. It is noteworthy that Mr. Charles Kettering, who as General Motors' principal research engineer is acutely aware of the power problem, has expressed great interest in research on chlorophyll, the substance by which plants "imprison" sunlight in useful compounds. Mr. Kettering believes that an understanding of this process will lead to the efficient utilization of solar energy. Any discovery of this nature would obviously make a "technics of decentralization" more effective and desirable.

POWER PERSPECTIVE

In any discussion of power sources outside the traditional mineral fuels, one is apt to be struck by the apparentmeagerness of the available energy. Since the Industrial Revolution we have been conditioned to a seemingly bound less flow of power-the profligate liberation o f vast stores of energy accumulated through ages of geologic formation. This power has been synonymous with progress. James Watt could write, a Century and a half ago, concerning his newly developed engine: "At present the velocity, violence, magnitude and horrible noise . . . give universal satisfaction to all beholders." Arthur Pound, spokesman for today's industrialism, can write in 1936: "Ever since the mists of antiquity dissolved, the most important business of mankind has been that of ... putting the power of fire behind wheels ... man has undergone all through the ages a great and driving imperative to put power, more power and ever more power, behind wheels for the increasing convenience and prosperity of society."

One cannot help but feel that this philosophy represents not the maturity, but the infancy, of the age of science. Sheer mechanical power, in itself, is merely the most obvious, and by no means the most important, product of scientific knowledge. Even in pure engineering and technology we are growing to depend more and more on refinement in design than in increase of force, and the practice of evaluating the degree of advancement of a society by the amount of horsepower it has at its disposal is faintly barbaric.

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