Cecilia Payne’s hydrogen discovery reshaped astronomy forever
SA’s EV push ignores grid limits and hydrogen alternatives
On-board hydrogen kits could cut fuel use and boost jobs in SA
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By Chuck Stephens
Cecilia Payne is not a household word, but it should be. For when she wrote her PhD thesis in 1925, she announced a shocking discovery: the Sun—along with most stars—is made almost entirely of hydrogen, the lightest element in the universe. This challenged what every expert believed at the time. Using spectral data, she cracked open the sky. Henry Norris Russell was her senior. He told her not to publish. When he confirmed her findings four years later, he got most of the credit.
As a woman, this intrepid scientist had already overcome the odds just to get that far. The University of Cambridge declined to award her a degree because of her gender. Thus, she left England and moved to Harvard. Where she earned the first doctorate in astronomy from Radcliffe. Her thesis has been called the most brilliant ever written in astronomy.
Cecilia’s work became the foundation for nearly everything we now know about stellar composition. In due course, she was promoted to be Harvard’s first-ever woman professor from internal advancement. Later, she became the first woman to chair a department. But when she died in 1979, it was lost on the media. There was no memorial. Just hydrogen – everywhere.
South Africa’s energy and transport policies are following the same path into oblivion. Both converge on a nonsensical plan for 2030 or 2035. They say that the internal combustion engine (petrol or diesel) will be replaced with a battery powered future – brought to us by EVs.
Do they also believe in Santa Claus? One only has to wonder, what have the policymakers in these two departments been smoking?
Transport has seen a world-wide shift to EVs in recent decades. However, of the 1.6 billion automobiles on the planet, only 58 million are EVs. That is a global average of 3.5 percent. Not even 4 out of 100 as of yet. Whereas in South Africa, the proportions are more like 2 out of 1000 automobiles. Increasing this proportion is predicated on rolling out more charging stations hither and yon. There are also implied changes to the assembly lines that manufacture automobiles and the 100 000 jobs in that industry.
