Dreams and Magic

meet Arthur C. Clarke

It is hard to get a handle on how small these cars were as the world adjusted to the QUADRUPLING of oil prices in 1974. The wheels were 12” in diameter. A current, “sporty” Honda Civic has 18” wheels. An 18” wheel is more than twice as large as a 12” wheel. I know Americans have become fatter and perhaps a little taller, but wow.

Returning to being part of Substack is fun for me, at least in the abstract. When I took a break from writing and some other things I just felt I needed a break, lacked the right mindset, etcetera. I think/hope my batteries have been recharged. Getting back into it, I started with what I encourage all of you to do. That is, find something you like, and read it when you can. After reading for a while, just that can become the fuel to start writing again. Today, that is the result. I hope you enjoy my first post in a while.

I still consider myself a novice at writing (a newb in the parlance of my children in their youth) — perhaps now I am merely old. Anyhow, I happen to enjoy a couple of newsletters, one from each coast. They both make me laugh. They are clever and such writing, besides entertaining me, exercises my mind. I read a weekly Newsletter that presented the trials of our hero the author having a catalytic converter (CC) stolen out of his Prius in his driveway.

I would think that if I only shared that the two Newsletters I referenced are written in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, it would be pretty easy to figure out which of the coastal authors wrote the story. One of the observations in the tale was that CCs have become easy crime targets. They are pretty expensive to replace and pretty easy to steal. I decided today to be inspired by the tale and talk about one of my favorite expressions as a result.

In 1962, in his book “Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible”, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated his famous Three Laws, of which the third law is the best-known and most widely cited: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. I copped this phrase in one of my previous posts but it bears repeating. We live in this modern world and are surrounded by the amazing — it has just become natural to take these things for granted.

Shortly after I began writing, I gravitated to sharing a song or two tied to the theme of the day. Before I knew it I had referenced a lot of songs. I took a shot at “magic” by sharing my music references in a post provided below:

Music and Houdini

If you are not interested in the post but rather want to poke around for some music, here is the way:

A CC is a good example of magic I think for most of us. It is easy to be frustrated at what they cost, how easy they are to steal, etcetera. I also think those angles can be more entertaining than where I am going I am afraid. I will try to keep it light, and educational, and share some fun tidbits about it. First of all, let’s start with a picture. In the 1970s, large American cities looked like the photos we all associate with China and India these days. In 1970, when there was some stuff that Republicans and Democrats agreed upon, the United States ushered in The Clean Air Act. Why go back this far? It just goes to show how when we become divided how bad things can get!

The 1970 Clean Air Act was focused on saving us from pollutants that were dangerous to human health. Back in those days, power plants and cars had great difficulty burning coal and gasoline efficiently. As a result, we had lots of smog, irritants, and incomplete combustion products in the air. Step one was figuring out how to burn a little cleaner.

The recent Supreme Court docket backloaded all sorts of interesting takes on the law be it guns, abortion, and clean air. This included a conclusion that the EPA cannot regulate how gases that result from combustion are produced that affect the environment and can impact human health. Here is a hint for those of you on the fence and unsure about their “hot take”. EPA stands for Environmental Protection Agency. As we’ve learned from other reasoning by the SCOTUS, I guess the Founders never saw fit to mention the word molecule in the Constitution so take that America, enjoy a little more original intent of the Founders. I wish that one of the Founders had been a chemist. Their conclusion was ‘screw the 1970 Clean Air Act’ and leave such matters up to judges and Congress who we all know are loaded with well-educated scientists. Yikes.

A CC is a cool example of this. Catalysts are amazing substances that make chemical reactions proceed more efficiently. The wild thing is the catalyst only makes things go faster and easier, the catalyst itself is not consumed! CCs are expensive mostly because they contain exotic metals like platinum, palladium, and rhodium. The spot prices for each of these are in the links and I am sure they will amaze some of you. Luckily, all the magic of a CC only requires a VERY SMALL amount of these materials. When I wrote this, the prevailing price for rhodium was about $14,250 an ounce. The most advanced of modern CCs contain 6-16 grams of “exotic metals”. For those with eagle eyes, there is VERY LITTLE rhodium in a CC since it costs over $450 per gram.

Incidentally, some of these metals are often referred to as rare earth metals. So many of the wonderful products of our modern world need them to work like cell phones and portable speakers. When I was a kid growing up, it was a rite of passage for adolescent and early 20s males to outfit their stereos, and this included speakers as large as wardrobe boxes for moving. They were heavy and became the dominant forms of furniture in first apartments. Most of the size was due to the iron (ferrite) magnets. Iron is quite a common element and mildly magnetic. Did you ever wonder how your iPhone can sound so good from its little speakers? The answer is rare earth metals that happen to be magnetic.

So now we know why they are so expensive. The earliest CCs in the 1970s were already reducing smog and soot from the air by about 75%. Modern units, with better controls, approach a 99% reduction of the stuff in the air that can kill us TODAY. That is the focus of the first CCs. Now it is time to let the scientific method enter the conversation.

There is NO DOUBT that the development of the CC has saved a lot of lives and improved the quality of life in large metropolitan areas. The stuff that was leaking out of tailpipes and smokestacks was directly shortening lives. The EPA did its job. An interesting effect was that by cleaning up the unburned stuff, modern cars produce even more CO2. As we have learned from our continuing study of the climate, CO2 is also a challenge. While it is just fine for cleaning up the sky, the CO2 is trapped in the upper atmosphere and affects the climate (and may eventually kill many of us humans).

This is why Congress and the EPA pivoted as smog became better managed to regulate CO2, another gas in its recent actions. That is the mission of the agency that the Supreme Court has decided they lack either the mandate or expertise to do.

Science is complex and is built on improved understanding based on experiments. It would be silly, it seems to me, to place government legislators on the path to this better understanding. Here is a fun example of there being more than one way to do things. Way back when in the early 1970s, there was a mad scramble to install CCs ahead of the government mandate. The world’s automakers concluded that there was only one way to meet the regulation and that was to install CCs in the tailpipe. The CC worked a little bit like a second chance at burning stuff after leaving the engine. For those of you wondering what that small car photo at the top of the post is about, we are finally there!

A rather small automaker in Japan had a different idea. They thought why don’t we modify the engine and install a way to start the combustion of fuel early and then put it into the main engine? They figured they might be able to make an engine so much more efficient, that it wouldn’t need a CC. That was 1972 and the company was named Honda. Honda called that engine the CVCC. This is probably how the Civic got its name! The engines were so efficient and flexible, that as America struggled to move away from leaded to unleaded fuel, there were shortages everywhere. There was a tiny vehicle that was the most fuel-efficient car you could buy in the early 1970s and it could even burn leaded fuel! The first versions of the Civic were available for $1415.

When I was writing this story, I found this fun historical article. Most auto companies (Ford and Chrysler for example) licensed this new technology. The notable exception was General Motors who arrogantly snubbed its applicability. Since this was before Twitter, instead of saying something snarky in a press release, the response of the founder of Honda, Soichiro Honda was pretty amazing. Here is the link for those that are interested.

I think all innovation starts with dreams. For a long time, Honda has marketed the firm with the guidance of “The Power of Dreams”. Maybe, instead of viewing technology as magic, perhaps all magic technology starts with a dream. Here’s a song that fits my conclusion. To my writing friend on the left coast, I hope it helps to think that thieves were trying to steal a little magic from your driveway.

Did any of you either own or have one of the original Honda Civic CVCCs? One of the Honda dealers in my community, when they renovated the dealership, acquired a vintage Civic and have it on display. To see a car of that size is a sight to behold. BTW CVCC is short for Compound Vortex Combustion Chamber. I like Civic better :)

Here, is one of the early Honda advertisements, although it was for the replacement of the original Honda Civic. As Americans struggled to find unleaded, this was an easy sell.

For those of you that enjoy learning how things work, here is one of my favorite videos I have ever seen. It is a commercial for launching a Honda Accord in Europe and the theme “The Power of Dreams”. It is about dreams and imagination at some level. Alas, the world is FULL OF CONTRARIANS (you know who you are — (1) I know better, (2) I can’t resist correcting you, (3) there is no way that is real). If you just can’t simply enjoy the link, calm your mind, and see the backstory also. For those of you that savor a great advertisement, this is merely the rest of the story.