Biofuels, decarbonizing planes, electric race cars and the Meaning of life
January Review
If you're a new subscriber to my newsletter I'm Theodore, a 15-year-old passionate about alternative energy. Focusing actively on EVs and lithium-ion batteries.
My life changed drastically in January, and I was able to get a lot of work done, as well as challenge how I think. Let's review what I accomplished this month.
Creating content
Posting content has been one of my most effective actions this month. Although creating content about myself may seem insignificant, it has allowed me to demonstrate my expertise and led to some amazing opportunities.
I created a video and an article to demonstrate my in-depth knowledge of batteries, outlining four different levels of difficulty for lithium-ion batteries.
Lithium-ion batteries are explained in four levels of complexity in this article: https://medium.com/@grethermurray.theodore/5ae2306712c9
Video:
I also got an opportunity at a lab and captured my learning in this article and video.
Article: https://medium.com/@grethermurray.theodore/how-i-built-a-lithium-ion-battery-in-a-lab-47da093b4eae
Video:
I’ve been talking to people working at innovative companies such as Tesla, Lion Electric, Beta Technologies, Enbridge, Polaron etc… All because I was sharing my learning through content which interested these very busy people.
Electric Race cars 🏎
Electric Race cars are cool… Building electric race cars is even cooler!
M.F.E (McGill formula Electric) is a team of students from McGill university building their own electric race car. This month I was able to go see what they’re up to, taking notes on the engineering behind the race car!
SAE’s formula electric competition, is an event hosted every year by the Society of Automotive Engineers for undergraduate engineering students, where 75 international universities compete against each other to make the best electric race car.
M.F.E has won these competitions for the last couple of years and is getting better and better at manufacturing their cars.
They told me that they want to win this year as well, I wish them the best of luck!
I really want to say thank you to the whole team, they were kind enough to answer my questions.
P.S: I plan to write an article sometime soon on electric race cars :)
VoltAir
This month I also took part in a global hackathon hosted by the knowledge society (TKS). It was awesome! My team and I came up with an idea that could be realized a few years from now.
Using solid-state batteries (a developing battery that is still in the research phase, which is way lighter and more energy dense than normal lithium-ion batteries) and a hybrid engine that would use the combustion of biofuel during the take-off and batteries during the cruise phase of the plane.
This was maybe a bit of a far-fetched idea (considering this would cost a lot) but I’m very proud of my team and how we came up with this in less than 24 hours!
Funny anecdotes from the event:
Since we were making electric planes, we decided to ask Chatgpt to give our “company” a name, it came up with “Elevate Electric” and “VoltAir” as well as a bunch of others I forget.
We decided to name the idea VoltAir, not only cause it sounds cool but also because it’s similar to the name of the famous french philosopher Voltaire who revolutionized democracy.
We also asked Chatgpt to come up with some puns for our pitch, this is what it gave us:
“The aviation industry is flying high with electrifying energy!”
“The future of flight is looking bright, thanks to electrifying advances in battery technology.”
“Electric planes are taking off, leaving fossil fuels behind.”
“The aviation industry is now soaring on the wings of electricity.”
“The industry is now electrified and ready for take-off”
This was our pitch deck (if you’re interested):
Decarbonizing planes and looking into biofuels
After my hackathon experience, I realized that I wanted to look deeper into decarbonizing planes. My hypothesis, for now, is that biofuels or a hybrid engine would be the best solution to this problem (although I don’t know for sure yet). My goal for this month is to look into biofuels and biofuel engines and after that look into other ways of decarbonizing planes such as hydrogen and lithium-ion batteries.
Takeaways from the month
My school has a tradition where every year we have a week off of school where we work on theatre all day to build the sets and memorize the lines. We decided to work on Macbeth by Shakespeare. All this time off of school and working on building the sets gave me time to listen to podcasts and reflect on my life. Before I was constantly on the go and never had time to have a deep analysis of where I was going.
Here are my takeaways from this time alone with myself.
The Meaning of life
The Meaning of life was always a dull and useless question to me. It always seemed like a complete waste of time to ponder it. If there was actually a purpose to our existence, then everyone would just be mindless slaves working towards the same goal. That seems like the dullest existence in the world.
Since you can create your own meaning, life becomes dynamic. Everyone has their own goals and their own dreams, and this is what makes life fun. When people ask this question they’re actually looking for an answer to a different question “How to live a good life”.
A good life to me was always just accomplishing the things I wanted to accomplish. Getting that high mark, winning that race, doing those push-ups, publishing that article. One thing I realized this month, was that feeling of accomplishment goes away and now I’m racing to the next golden thing that will make me “happy”.
After listening to a podcast with the cofounder of TKS (Nadeem Nathoo) and my brother (Tobias Grether-Murray), the parameters for a good life have changed for me.
Nadeem’s practical answer to the Meaning of life:
Reducing the amount of friction you feel between your current state and your natural drivers
If you are a curious person (natural driver being curiosity) but you are not learning anything new (your current state) you are going to feel friction. If you are an ambitious person but you’re not working on anything big you are going to feel friction.
The way to live a good life is to decrease the friction between what you love and what you do. If you live in a frictionless system you lose no energy, meaning you're not wasting time and you’re enjoying life fully.
What’s next?
Writing a review paper on biofuels and biofuel engines
Working on my electric plane idea
Getting a tour of the Lion Electric facilities in Saint-Jerome
Working on TKS consulting challenge
See you next month!
Thanks again!