Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper

by Robert Bryce

  How the Beatles undermined the Iron Curtain was the subject of the 2009 documentary How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin. The Beatles woke up “an entire generation of Soviet youth, opening their eyes to 70 years of bland official culture and rigid authoritarianism.”21 Created by the veteran British filmmaker Leslie Woodhead, the documentary contains numerous interviews with now-middle-aged Russians who discuss the importance of the Fab Four. One of them says simply, “It’s all thanks to the Beatles. They helped destroy the Evil Empire.”22 (In 2013, Woodhead released a book with the same title as the documentary.)23

  The Soviet authorities weren’t alone in worrying about rock and roll. In 1964, the Israeli government refused a request to have the Beatles play in that country after the group was deemed “liable to have a negative influence on the youth.”24 In 1975, East German authorities prohibited the musicians who belonged to the Klaus Renft Combo, a rock and roll group, from performing, telling them that the lyrics to their songs “had absolutely nothing to do with socialist reality . . . the working class is insulted and the state and defense organizations” had been “defamed.” Rather than stick around, one member defected to the West. Other members of the group were briefly imprisoned by the East German authorities.25 In the 1980s, East German authorities also banned the British punk rock group The Clash.26

  The outlawing of rock and roll groups didn’t end with the fall of the Iron Curtain. In 2012, members of Pussy Riot, an all-female punk rock group, were jailed in Russia after they performed a demonstration against the country’s strongman-president Vladimir Putin at Moscow’s main Orthodox cathedral. Three members of Pussy Riot were convicted and imprisoned on charges of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” even though their antics in the church were plainly aimed at Putin’s repressive government.27 It’s remarkable that Putin and his band of Kremlin-based kleptocrats are so threatened by a group of young women armed with nothing more than Fender Stratocasters.

  The vacuum tube allowed musicians to be heard as individuals, and in doing so liberated millions of people. Lee De Forest, the Alabama-born inventor who perfected the vacuum tube, would eventually win more than three hundred patents.28 But none of his other inventions would ever be as important as the vacuum tube.

  THE AK-47

  Mikhail Kalashnikov made killing Cheaper. That’s hardly an achievement for which most people would want to be known. Nevertheless, Kalashnikov, a former tank mechanic for the Russian military who died in December 2013, deserves a place in history for designing the AK-47, a weapon that one writer has called the “most effective killing machine in human history.”29 Kalashnikov’s design was effective because it was Smaller Lighter Cheaper than other assault rifles.

  In his 2010 book, The Gun, C. J. Chivers, the sharp-eyed war correspondent for the New York Times, described the key attributes of the AK-47, “shorter and lighter than traditional rifles but larger than submachine guns.” The AK-47 “could be fired either automatically or a single shot at a time. Their smaller, intermediate-power cartridges allowed soldiers and guerrillas to carry more ammunition into battle than before.” In addition to the increase in firepower, the rifle was “an eminently well designed tool—reliable, durable, resistant to corrosion, and with moderate recoil and a design so simple that their basics could be mastered in a matter of hours.”30

  This entry could be devoted to firearms in general, as the development of firearms changed the balance of power among nations. The mass production of firearms, which began in earnest in the early nineteenth century, was a driving force during the early days of the Industrial Revolution. The need to produce large quantities of precisely machined parts led to major advances in manufacturing techniques that quickly spread to other industries. Therefore, any number of other firearms, including the Kentucky rifle, the Gatling gun, or the Colt M1911 .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol, could be listed here as a game-changing weapon.31

  But I’m sticking with the AK-47 because of its ubiquity and price. Since it was developed in about 1947, as many as 100 million Kalashnikov rifles (both the AK-47 and AK-74) have been produced. (The American-made M-16 is a relative laggard, with about eight million copies). In 2006, Amnesty International reported that in some parts of Africa, an AK-47 could be purchased for as little as $30.32 In addition to its low cost, the AK has gained renown for its simplicity and ability to fire under almost any conditions. The rifle has only nine parts and can fire up to six hundred rounds per minute.33 Numerous videos available on YouTube show that the Kalashnikov can be fouled with water, dirt, leaves, and other debris, and yet it still operates.34

  The AK-47. Source: Wikipedia.

  In 2005, the BBC called the Kalashnikov “an icon of violence in the 20th Century.”35 The outline of the AK with its distinctive curved magazine is on the flag of Mozambique as well as the flag of Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group that has long been backed by Iran.36 In The Gun, Chivers deems the AK-47 as a “stubbornly mediocre” firearm.37 That may be true. But that mediocrity has almost certainly resulted in hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions, of deaths.

  Politicians and terrorism experts often focus on the risks associated with weapons of mass destruction, including ones that are chemical, biological, or atomic. But firearms like the AK-47 are the real killers. Up to 90 percent of all civilian casualties in conflict zones are caused by small arms like the AK-47. (The definition of small arms includes assault rifles, pistols, mortars, landmines, and grenades.)38 By some estimates, small arms are involved in more than a thousand deaths every day.39 Of course, there’s no way to know how many of those deaths can be attributed to the use of the AK-47. But as one of the most common of all small arms, Kalashnikov’s rifle has surely resulted in enormous human losses.

  THE HABER-BOSCH PROCESS

  There will always be arguments as to which invention is the most significant. But when it comes to basic human survival and the ability of people to have sufficient food on their tables, the Haber-Bosch process stands alone. As one author put it, no invention has “had such an impact on our civilization as did the synthesis of ammonia from its elements.”40

  In the Haber-Bosch process, natural gas and atmospheric nitrogen are converted into nitrogen fertilizer. To understand the importance of the process requires a modicum of history, chemistry, and math. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, farmers were desperate for more nitrogen-based fertilizers because nitrogen is an essential plant nutrient. The problem was that the world’s primary source of raw material for fertilizer production was a large deposit of guano (bird poop) located on the Chilean coast. (Guano was also retrieved from other sources, including local bird roosts and bat caves.) Mining and hauling the guano from such a remote location presented many logistical problems, which made fertilizer expensive.

  Two Germans, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, made fertilizer Cheaper by inventing a method of manufacturing that pulls nitrogen out of the atmosphere and combines it with hydrogen atoms that are usually derived from natural gas (CH4). The process, for which Haber won a patent in 1911, uses high temperature, about 500 degrees C, as well as high pressure (about 200 times normal atmospheric pressure), and an iron catalyst. The product is ammonia (NH3), a substance that is superior to guano when used as a raw material for fertilizers. It’s also essential to the production of nitric acid, which is used in the production of explosives. That last fact undoubtedly explains why Haber and Bosch had to wait years for proper recognition. Haber was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1918 “for the synthesis of ammonia from its elements.”41 Bosch won the same Nobel award in 1931.42 While the importance of their invention was not questioned, the two were also blamed for giving Germany the capacity to produce more explosives, and therefore prolonging World War I. While the history and chemistry are important, it’s simple math that explains why the Haber-Bosch process is so important. About two out of every five people on earth are now getting the protein in their diets thanks to the Haber-Bosch process.44

  W
orld Fertilizer Use and Grain Production, 1961–2011

  Source: Earth Policy Institute.43

  The dramatic increases in global grain production that have occurred over the past few decades are a direct result of the Haber-Bosch process. As the graphic above shows, these increases have occurred in tandem with increasing use of fertilizer.

  The father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, fully understood that higher productivity on farmland was due to fertilizers produced with the Haber-Bosch process. In 1970, in the speech he gave while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Borlaug declared, “If the high-yielding dwarf wheat and rice varieties are the catalysts that have ignited the Green Revolution, then chemical fertilizer is the fuel that has powered its forward thrust.”45

  THE DIESEL AND THE JET TURBINE

  Regardless of where you travel on this planet, it’s unlikely you’ll be very long out of earshot of the familiar rattle of a diesel engine. Flying anywhere on a commercial airline almost certainly comes with the familiar whine of a jet turbine. Together, the diesel and the turbine have made transportation Faster Cheaper.

  In his 2010 book Prime Movers of Globalization: The History and Impact of Diesel Engines and Gas Turbines, Vaclav Smil declares that those two machines are “more important to the global economy than are any particular corporate modalities or international trade agreements.”46 Smil continued, writing:

  The human quest for a higher standard of living, profits, and power and the human propensities for long-distance trade and exploration have been the key motivating forces. But without the two prime movers [the diesel and turbine], trade would not have achieved its truly planetwide scope or have done so at such massive scales, at such rapid speed, and at such affordable costs.47

  The centrality of diesel engines to the modern economy can be demonstrated by one fact: more than 80 percent of all the freight moved in the United States is conveyed on machines powered by diesel engines.48 The key advantage provided by the diesel engine is its efficiency, which is 25 to 40 percent higher than comparable gasoline engines that use spark-ignition systems.49 Some of that efficiency comes from the higher energy density of diesel fuel, which contains about 17 percent more heat energy by volume than gasoline.50 But it’s also true that the engine’s creator, Rudolf Diesel, born in Paris in 1858, was consumed by the desire to create engines that were Cheaper to operate.51 While in school at the Munich Polytechnic, Diesel learned that only about 10 percent of the heat energy used by steam engines was turned into useful work. He saw an opportunity. Diesel wrote that his desire to create a more efficient engine “dominated my existence. I left the school, went into practice, had to win a position in life. The thought pursued me incessantly.”52

  By 1897, Diesel wrote that he had created “a thoroughly marketable machine.”53 As we now know, Diesel succeeded. Or rather, his belief in the need for an efficient, compression-ignited, internal-combustion engine did. On a personal level, Diesel was ruined. By 1913, he was heavily in debt and distressed by criticism from colleagues who claimed his engine wouldn’t work. In September 1913, while aboard a ship crossing the English Channel, Diesel apparently jumped overboard. His body was found about two weeks later.

  Although Diesel didn’t live to reap the rewards or the accolades, his name has become synonymous with motive power. Some of the world’s biggest engines use Diesel’s idea. Finland-based Wärtsilä is now selling diesel engines that weigh about 2,100 metric tons and have power outputs of more than 94,000 horsepower (70 megawatts), which are for use in large container ships.54 While those numbers are certainly Bunyanesque, those ultra-large engines are also among the most efficient ever built, with thermal efficiencies of 50 percent or more.

  While diesels are driving surface-based trade, jet turbines have made global air travel into a routine experience. Six decades ago, passenger airliners relied on piston-driven engines that used high-octane gasoline. In the 1950s and 1960s, piston-driven airliners gave way to jetliners. Jet aircraft became dominant because they can fly about three times as fast and twice as high as their gasoline-powered cousins. That means that passengers can save huge amounts of time and do so while flying in the upper reaches of the troposphere, which is usually above the levels where weather and air turbulence is a problem.55

  The effect of the jet turbine can be seen by looking at the astounding growth in air travel. In 1950, the total volume of global air travel measured in passenger-kilometers was 28 billion.56 By 2011, that figure had increased to 5.2 trillion passenger-kilometers, a 186-fold increase.57 Today, we take for granted the ability to fly to Paris, New York, and Guayaquil. And while we curse the crowded airplanes and the sometimes-grumpy flight attendants, it’s easy to forget just how much Cheaper and more convenient air travel has become. In 1946, TWA offered flights between New York City and Paris for $675 per person.58 In today’s money, that fare would be close to $8,000.59 That’s a huge sum of money considering that a recent search on Orbitz found half a dozen airlines offering fares of less than $1,000 for a round-trip ticket from Newark International to Charles de Galle airport in Paris.

  Today’s flights are not only Cheaper, they’re also Faster. Back in 1946, one of the most popular long-range aircraft was the Lockheed Constellation, which was powered by four large piston-driven engines. The trip from New York to Paris took about twenty hours, with two stops for refueling. Today, that same trip is done nonstop and takes about eight hours. Nevertheless, the twenty-hour travel time must have been attractive in those pre–Jet Age days, as it was about five days Faster than traveling the same route by ocean liner.60

  The history of the diesel and turbine reflects the never-ending quest for Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper.

  Conventional piston-driven engines generally rely on combustion that happens in four precisely choreographed stages. These four-stroke internal combustion engines—which are also known as Otto cycle (for the German inventor Nikolaus Otto)—are found in everything from automobiles to lawnmowers. The devices operate in four stages: intake, compression, power, and exhaust. Jet turbines are different in that they allow concurrent and continuous combustion. The introduction of fuel, along with compression, ignition, combustion, and exhaust of hot gases, occurs continuously in different sections of the machine. This design, also known as the Brayton cycle (named after American inventor George Brayton, who was born in 1830 in Rhode Island), was first tested in military aircraft in 1939. The first combat airplanes to use the turbines went into service in 1944, and the first turbine-powered commercial aircraft, the British Comet, began carrying passengers in 1952.61 At that time, the thermal efficiency of the turbines (that is the amount of heat energy turned into useful work) was about 18 percent.62 Today’s turbines are far more efficient. And while efficiency is certainly important, turbines are also Denser than piston engines; that is, they have higher gravimetric power densities. The ongoing push for higher power-to-weight ratios can be seen by looking at aircraft engines.

  In 1903, when Orville Wright changed history with his short flight aboard the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, he and his brother Wilbur were relying on an engine that produced 116 watts per kilogram. Forty-two years later, in 1945, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress used to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was powered by four giant air-cooled radial engines (the Wright R-3350), each of which had gravimetric power densities of about 1,354 watts per kilogram.64 In other words, the power densities of B-29’s engines were nearly 12 times greater than that of the Wright Flyer engine. By the 1950s, commercial jetliners were using turbines with gravimetric power densities of about 4,000 watts per kilogram, or 34 times greater than what had propelled the Wright Flyer.

  Cheaper Airfares: The Declining Cost of US Domestic Airfares, 1979–2011 (In constant dollars, fees included)

  Source: Airlines for America.63

  Today, thanks to advances in computer modeling, fluid dynamics, carbon-fiber composites, and other manufacturing techniques, the pinnacle of jet turbine d
esign may be General Electric’s GEnx-1B, which powers the Boeing 787. The new turbine’s gravimetric power density is nearly 15,000 watts per kilogram. That’s about 130 times the power density of the Wright Flyer engine. In addition to its enormous power density, the GEnx-1B is about 30 percent quieter than the turbine it is replacing, and it consumes about 15 percent less fuel.66 (For more on gravimetric power density from humans and horses to steam engines and jet turbines, see Appendix C.)

  The GEnx-1B is among the latest designs in aircraft turbines. Its power density is about 15,000 watts per kilogram. Source: General Electric.65

  Today, jet travel has become so routine as to be almost boring. On an average day in 2011, some 7.6 million people boarded commercial airliners. By 2016, the airline industry expects that number to climb to 9.8 million people per day.67 Of course, the jetliners crisscrossing the globe are carrying more than humans—there’s fresh fruit, flowers, mail, and dozens of other types of cargo. At those planes’ destinations, the vast majority of that cargo will be unloaded onto diesel-powered trucks.

  The diesel and the jet turbine made travel Faster Cheaper and in doing so brought us modernity, along with pollution and sprawl. Diesel trucks and stationary diesel engines belch millions of tons of air pollutants and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. Jetliners are allowing us to travel Faster, but in doing so, they are also allowing the spread of disease. An outbreak of cholera that began in Haiti in late 2010 killed more than 7,500 people. The disease, which hadn’t been seen in Haiti in more than a century, was traced to a camp of UN-assigned Nepalese soldiers who had flown to Haiti.68 The Nepalese were housed in a camp that had inadequate latrines. Feces from the latrines leaked into the Meye River, which in turn, flows into Haiti’s main waterways. From there, the disease spread throughout the country, which is plagued by inadequate sewerage and freshwater-distribution systems.69