The rest of the morning proceeds along the usual schedule following the big news. Dad and I look over the hy-gens, taking readings and checking the lines, but it seems to go a lot quicker. Even the extra task of replacing electrodes doesn’t seem to take any time at all. Then I get an interesting history lesson which I’m willing to listen to under the circumstances.
“You know,” Dad starts out handing me the replacement part, “if it wasn’t for these things, this hydrogen economy we’re developing wouldn’t be half as efficient.”
“Why’s that?” I ask. He has completed shutting down the cell and is unbolting the cover to the tank. I’m watching more than listening.
“Back at the beginning of this century, all kinds of research was being done on how to best separate hydrogen and oxygen from water. It takes a lot of energy to do that, and at first it seemed like it might take more power than it yielded. It wasn’t until some university down south made a chance discovery that defective nanotubes can perform the process very efficiently.”
Nanotubes? Sounds like a description for the stuff I was looking at in the microscope yesterday! I try not to sound too excited. “So you’re telling me that all of these plates that we’ve changed out over the last couple of years are made up of nanotubes?”
“Yep. It was one of the breakthroughs that brought this country back into good standing with the rest of the world.” Dad knows his history pretty well. “We no longer needed to rely on other countries for our energy. The downside was, they no longer had the benefit of our money from buying the oil.”
My history class had covered the modern day problems in the Middle East, so I know a little about it. When the oil money started to decline, the governments, whether democratic or theocratic, could no longer offer their citizens what the oil money had provided. Some of them were still having a rough time of it after more than ten years, but once the technology had been developed, they began adopting it quickly. Some are just beginning to have enough energy to develop other aspects of their economies. The world has known a little peace for a while as a result.
“That was one of the best things we ever did as a country. It’s just too bad we didn’t do it a little sooner,” Dad concludes as he gives me the old plate and plugs the new one in.
“So, what’s going to happen to all of these plates now?” I ask, still trying not to sound too interested.
“Oh, sooner or later somebody will find a use for them,” he answers, tightening the bolts on the cover. “I hope somebody figures it out soon though, because I’ve got boxes of them stored in back.” He jerks his head in the general direction. “They’re piling up from work, too.” Then he flips the switch to start the current. Almost immediately we can see the gauge jump to indicate that electrolysis has begun. “And you know, the best thing about this is,” he concludes, “at least for our part, we use electricity generated by the...”
“…by the photovoltaic panels on the roof,” I cut in to finish his sentence, “so it’s entirely clean energy.” He looks at me and smiles.
“I guess you know most of this stuff by now, don’t you?”
“Yeah Dad. I’ve only been helping out here for the last four or five years.”
He slaps me on the back. I can’t remember the last time he was this happy. “Well, I guess we’re done here. What have you got going for the rest of the day?” he asks.
“Not too much. Thought I’d look at some more stuff under the microscope,” I comment. Then, trying to sound almost bored, “would it be okay if I took this old plate and looked at a piece of it?”
“I don’t see why not. They’re just going to sit around collecting dust for a while.” He wipes the water and residual black grime from his hands, then throws the rag on the workbench. “I’m going to go check on your mother now.” He hurries out the door.
I pick up the plate from the hy-gen and look at it closely. It looks like a hard, solid surface except for tiny, patterned indentations. It is still quite damp so I dry it off as much as I can and take it upstairs to sit in the sun on the window sill while I set up the microscope.
At first I think I might be able to look at the plate directly under the microscope, but as I get it set up, quickly determine the plate won’t fit underneath the lens. “I’ll have to break a piece off somehow,” I conclude.
I look inside the desk drawer at my choice of tools. I select a sharp hobby knife and a small screw driver for my first attempt. Picking up the magnifying glass, I push the chair in front of me and head over to the window. I figure the bright sunlight will help me see the fine detail.
I sit down. It’s a little awkward. The sill is high enough and flush with the wall, so that I have to balance myself on the edge of the chair. I pick up the plate, which is warm and pretty dry now. Then I bring it into focus under the magnifying glass.
I can barely see them; row after row of nanotubes, though I wouldn’t have known what they are if Dad hadn’t told me. They look more like solid cylinders. Unlike the ones I looked at yesterday, these are solid black. Moving the glass around, I focus my inspection on the electrode which connects the plate to the power source. The base plate appears to be a solid piece of thin metal, probably copper or an alloy, about twelve inches square. The nanotubes are somehow attached perpendicularly on both sides.
I look up and out the window, calculating. There has to be thousands of tubes on each plate! I reach for the screwdriver and look down into the magnifying glass, quickly realizing, just like yesterday, I don’t have enough hands. I wish Jen or Kylie were here to help.
But I know what to do and have the magnifying glass attached to its stand in no time. I also determine that if I am going to detach any tubes, I need some way to see them and keep them together once I get them off the plate. I retrieve a single sheet of paper out of my printer and take the two items back over to the window sill.
I secure the paper under the stand which I place on my left. It is a little crowded on the narrow sill, but will work well enough. With the plate in my left hand and the screwdriver in my right, I bring everything together under the magnifying glass. At least I don’t have to look at it upside down and backwards.
The screwdriver looks huge against the tiny tubes. I place the tip against the base of the outer-most row and wiggle it back and forth. The tip is way too big. I set the screwdriver down and pick up the knife. It looks even larger but the blade tapers down to a sharp point resulting in a better chance to slip it under the nanotubes.
I hold my breath to steady my hand, sliding the knife’s point under the outermost tube. I slowly rock the knife back and forth. A couple of tubes pop loose and fall onto the paper. I pry a few more along the same row and when I have harvested more of the tiny specimens than I can count, I set the knife down.
The empty space, exposed by the missing nanotubes, reveals tiny posts under the magnifying glass to which the tubes are attached to the plate. It is really very simple and I guess that the decreased production we see in the hydrogen generators over time is caused by missing tubes which have come loose from the plate. Maybe I’ll try to confirm that later. Right now I want to view these black bits under the microscope.
I gently fold the paper so I don’t lose any. Carefully I move everything except the hy-gen plate over to the microscope. I open the paper, securing it under the magnifying glass stand again. From the microscope case, I get a new slide and cover and, placing the slide under the edge of the paper, look through the glass, using the knife to push a bit over and onto it. When I have the bit trapped under a cover, I sit back, take a deep breath, and relax for a moment.
I think about all those plates downstairs for a moment, and all of the nanotubes they must utilize. It’s mind-boggling. If they could be energized like the bits that came from the shiff, we’d be able to lift quite a few pounds using gravity power. That would be way cool. My mind starts to envision some of the products that would be possible, like that hover-board from that one old movie Gramps watches every so of
ten. Or cars, or even cities that float in mid-air. What kind of world would that be like to live in?
I move the slide into place on the microscope stage and turn the light on. Peering into the eyepiece, I move the black bit into view and bring it into focus. What a mess this thing is! It looks slimy, covered with black oxidation from its function in the fuel cell. Not at all like the pretty one from the shiff.
I sit back, disappointed. I guess I had hoped to see at least some life from these things. What a waste of time this has turned out to be. The boxes of plates downstairs turn back into a pile of junk waiting to be recycled. My fantasy bubble has burst. I guess my physics teacher was right about another thing; there would be a lot of disappointments.
I take another quick look, and see nothing different to encourage me. Turning off all the lights, I head outside. It’s bright and sunny, but I’m not able to enjoy it. I hope it’s around noon and that we are having something good for lunch.
Willie shows up shortly after lunch just like Gramps said. I’m back up in the loft searching the internet for information about nanotubes when I hear his Beast pull into the parking area outside. I get up and walk over to the open window. I hear the door close downstairs as Gramps comes out of his shop to greet Willie.
“Hey young fella,” Gramps calls out.
“Afternoon Tom,” Willie replies, heading over towards the shop. “How’s that clutch working out for ya?”
“Real good, thanks. Just like new I think, but I can’t remember back that far.” They both chuckle at the joke. “I see your still driving that monster truck. Do you ever think twice about the noise, smoke, and expense?”
“Nah,” says Willie, taking no offense. “I got a bumper sticker to put on it that says ‘My other car pisses water’. Hopefully nobody will think too bad of this one. It does have antique status you know. How else we gonna remember the bad ol’ days?”
“I guess there’s some logic in there somewhere,” Gramps agrees, shaking his head at Willie’s reasoning.
“And I don’t drive it much anyway. Costs a lot for the gas and probably always will. It’s getting scarcer, ya know.”
“I’ve noticed that too, when I go out cruising on my bike,” Gramps confirms. “But I’ve also heard that there’s a way to convert to that bio-fuel, so even if real gas goes away, we may still be able to run our old vehicles once in a while.”
“I hope so,” Willie replies.
“Well, I got the rest of your money in here,” Gramps informs Willie as he turns to head back to the shed. Willie follows.
I head down the stairs to join them in the shop. I’m pretty anxious to hear Willie’s report on the gray bit. “Hey Willie,” I greet as I reach the bottom of the stairs. “What’s up?”
“Hi Ty,” Willie answers. “Not too much, I guess. I’m just really glad school’s out for the year. Each year seems to get a little longer and I’m ready for it to be over.”
“Don’t be too anxious to be done,” Gramps suggests. “There’ll come a day when you’ll wish you were back in school. Believe me.”
“I hope not,” I say.
Gramps turns away from his workbench and the box where he keeps his ‘fun money’. “Here you go, Willie,” he says handing over a wad of bills. “I think this makes us square.”
“Thanks Tom. If you need anything else done for that piece of art,” he gestures towards the motorcycle, “you just let me know. I enjoy a challenge once in a while.”
“I’ll do that. Thanks.”
“Well,” Willie says, after a short pause to put the bills into a pocket. “Are you two ready to hear what I found out about that weird, floating metal stuff?”
Gramps and I nod.
“Doing the test was more difficult than the results were surprising,” Willie starts out, becoming a little more animated. “I lost the first bit into the air. It’s on the ceiling of the shop at school. I doubt it’ll ever be seen again. First I had to make sure nobody was around. That took a couple of days and it wasn’t until Thursday night that I was alone. I told Barger I wanted to clean some stuff up for one of my projects at home. He’s always encouraging his students, so he had no problem with me staying a little late.
“Anyway, to make a long story short, I had to figure out a way to invert the sample plate. Then it was so small I didn’t think I’d have enough of a sample for getting any really good readings, so I fried all bits at once.” He stops and reaches into his hip pocket, pulling out a folded up piece of paper. He opens the paper and reads; “97.5% carbon, 2% copper and .5% unknown.”
“Unknown?” I questioned. “What does that mean?”
“It means the spectrometer can’t figure out what it’s looking at,” Willie says stating the obvious. “It just doesn’t know.”
“Is that somewhat common?” Gramps asks.
“About 5% of the samples we do during the school year turn up something unknown. Most of the time it’s just contamination of some sort. Particularly after lunch.” He grins. “But I suppose it could always be something new,” he adds.
“Did you see anything else unusual?” I ask.
“Nope, but then I didn’t have too much time to do what I had to do,” Willie says. “It would have been nice to look at them a little closer.”
“That could probably be arranged,” Gramps says. I look at him quickly. I’m still not sure how much we should share with Willie. “Tyler? Can you set up a slide for Willie?” I guess it doesn’t matter now.
“Cool!” Willie exclaims. “You got a microscope here?”
I start for the stairs. “Tyler’s mom works at the hospital. A couple of years ago they upgraded and she was able to buy one of the old scopes,” Gramps answers as they follow.
“Wow! I wish my folks were like that!”
“I used to think that way about you, Willie,” I confess, “having a welder and that drill press. I always thought you were pretty lucky to be able to build almost anything you could think of.”
“Well, that’s what my dad does. I guess I just kind of picked it up from him,” Willie responds.
“Everybody develops his own talent,” Gramps injects philosophically.
“I guess,” I agree. We cross over to the table where the microscope is. I take out the envelope containing the gray bits. “The only problem I had looking at them yesterday was they were flat on the slide. I think it would be interesting to look at them from the top down.” I look over at Gramps and Willie.
“Why don’t you build a slide cage?” Willie suggests. “I did that a couple of years ago in biology when we were looking as some tiny worms.”
“A slide cage?” I ask. “What’s that?”
“Do you have any double slides in that case?”
Without waiting for a response, Willie starts looking through the microscope case. “Here’s some. Got any tape?”
I pull the tape out of the desk drawer and set it on the table. I’m a little annoyed about him taking control but also curious about what he is doing. He quickly takes three regular slides and two of the double-wide slides. One of the regular slides he breaks in two between his thumbs.
“Careful there!” Gramps says sharply, but the break is pretty clean and even.
Willie smiles at him, then continues putting the pieces of glass together. On top of the double-wide, he places one half of the broken slide at one edge, with two regular slides touching the opposite edges of it. Then he puts the second double-wide on top to create his ‘cage’ in the center, leaving one side open.
“Could you tear off a couple pieces of tape Ty?” he asks me. “Now for our purpose today I think I’ll let part of one of the double-wides overlap the other. That way it should be pretty easy to trap one of those floating bits.” It seems like he’s talking mostly to himself but the slide-cage is ready. “Should we load ’em up?” he asks, turning to me.
The magnifying glass is still set up from my morning activity, so I only have to put the mirror in place to get ready. Willie holds
the cage while I prod a bit onto the envelope flap with a toothpick. It takes a while to orient myself with the mirror. “Steady. Here she comes,” I quietly inform Willie. We both watch in the glass as the bit floats up from the flap and is caught by the overhanging glass of the slide-cage. Willie tips the slide slowly and the bit rolls into the cage. Then he slides the other half of the broken slide to encase the bit.
“Well done, gentlemen,” Gramps congratulates us.
Without another second passing, I remove this morning’s slide from the microscope stage and Willie mounts the cage in its place. I turn on the light and look at Willie.
“Go ahead,” I prompt. “It was your idea to build the cage.”
He smiles and immediately puts his eye to the scope. “Wow,” he says after centering and focusing the view. “I had no idea it was doing that.” A few more seconds pass before he looks up at me. “It’s pulsing,” he says with astonishment before leaning down for another look.
“Pulsing?” Gramps questions.
“I guess I didn’t mention that yesterday, did I?” I apologize, somewhat embarrassed. “But yeah, it pulses.”
“Can I take a look?” Gramps asks.
“Sure. Sorry,” Willie responds, backing away from the microscope. Turning to me he continues. “I wonder how it got that way?”
“That’s amazing,” Gramps quietly states a moment later. He has a very serious look on his face when he looks up. “Any idea how it’s doing that?”
“Not a clue,” I answer. “But I think I know what they are.”
“What?” Willie quickly asks.
“Nanotubes from a hydrogen generation plate,” I state questioningly.
“What makes you think that?” Gramps asks.
“Well, I was looking at some from the plate Dad and I replaced this morning and they look almost exactly the same.”
“Yeah? Can I see?” Gramps asks.
I carefully replace Willie’s cage on the microscope stage with the one I had prepared earlier in the morning. Gramps is first to look at it. “You might be right, Tyler. They do look somewhat the same.” He steps away to let Willie take a look before continuing. “So you think they replaced a hy-gen plate on the space station and somehow, something triggered that pulsing action?”
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