In my first of two semesters of chemistry, that was part of an engineering curriculum decades ago, the word hydrocarbon, like all compound molecules, evoked a sense of wonder at how everyday items worked, how they were put together, and where they all came from. At the chemistry level, hydrocarbon was not the Darth Vader of materials - far from the super-villain that it is portrayed today, remotely the effigy that environmentalists would like to string up as a protest banner against much of what is wrong in the world. To be fair, hydrocarbon is not the exact word used. It is oil, coal, gasoline, plastics, etc - all within the hydrocarbon family.
Chemistry was not an easy course for those pursuing majors other than chemistry or chemical engineering. Even premed students struggled. I struggled but how I wish I was then able to look at chemistry the way I view it now. The hours and hours laboring over electron valences and the complexities of the formation of chemical bonds, etc. could have been a little more engaging or even fun.
Here's how carbon and hydrogen look to me now. If the universe were a dance hall, carbon and hydrogen are like bachelors and bachelorettes who at first gaze and longing eye contact could not peel away from the sudden and unstoppable embrace that follows. They connect right away as if they were meant for each other, soul mates to the nth degree even though they were not social equals. Hydrogen is needy with a bare minimum of assets to speak of: one proton and one electron, a very meager existence, indeed. Carbon is easily upper middle class with assets of 6 protons, 6 neutrons and 6 electrons. There was only one problem.
Carbon could not keep a monogamous relationship. The bare minimum it would settle for is to be with at least four hydrogen atoms, if it were to enter into one basic union. That tight embrace - one carbon and a concubine of four hydrogen atoms - turns into a chemical class called methane. As a social class they are known and organized as members of a larger group called hydrocarbons.
Such a relationship, however, is not a stable one. In the company of other methane, the union is fine. But, once they meet up and socialize with another element - oxygen - it would only take a tiny spark for the relationship to be explosive.
The combustion and release of energy broke up the union of the elements with predictable results. Some are good, others not so good. Energy is produced which is good; pairs of hydrogen atoms eloping with one oxygen harmlessly become water vapor; but then one carbon hooking up with one oxygen is not so good because enough of them can wander about to become carbon monoxide on a mission to do mischief; or if one carbon goes on its polygamous bent and connect with two oxygen atoms, they take on an identity we know so well as carbon dioxide. The case of a broken union, the dissolution of a relationship would end up with results that often become a problem. Greenhouse gases, pollutants and smog are all because a chemical marriage is broken up. And thus begun the uneasy and often unrelenting hatred for these chemical classes of compounds we come to regard as abhorrently bad stuff for the environment. By the way, carbon too can form gangs with other carbons, snag a lot of hydrogen atoms, along the way. They become the heavier molecules of diesel, gasoline, kerosene, grease, and more. The heavier the molecules the more they resemble chain gangs of hydrocarbons, and when they're broken up, the mess they create is equally complex.
But then this takes us to a quote with an acronym, "TANSTAAFL" or "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
The expression was supposedly about salons in the Old West offering free lunch to customers who ordered at least one drink. The meals were so salty that somehow induced customers to order more drinks than they originally intended had there been no free lunch. A more academic application to the cliche is touched on below:
"The phrase and the acronym are central to Robert Heinlein's 1966 science-fiction novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, which helped popularize it. The free-market economist Milton Friedman also popularized the phrase by using it as the title of a 1975 book, and it is used in economics literature to describe opportunity cost. Campbell McConnell writes that the idea is "at the core of economics".
Hydrogen and carbon - the two most abundant elements in the entire universe - are the raw materials, the main ingredients, of the physical world. In fact, life as we know it would be impossible without those two elements. Life could not have begun, could not have flourished, could not have been so diverse, if not for these two.
This is not to defend oil and plastics but to offer a different perspective so that perhaps we could come up with a way to deal with them in some rational way that will actually work. Let's be honest. We've benefited from the family of hydrocarbons for over two centuries now and we're waking up to the realization that, like a lot of things we use all around us and what society had provided for us, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". It is truer more often than not.
Let's take a quick staccato trip of backward steps. Hydrogen and carbon had been around for billions of years. They're why we have trees and rain forests and kelp and algae, etc.
Both elements survived in millions of years of layers upon layers of decaying vegetation only to re-form and reemerged as compounds of hydrocarbons - bound together still. It was because of them that we saved the whales from extinction when we no longer needed to boil their blubber to make oil for our lamps and lubricants for our machinery and tools. We saved trees and forests when we no longer needed them to heat our homes or run our rail cars. We shrunk the world around us when planes and cars and ocean liners run on hydrocarbon fuels. We made light and durable materials out of them to manufacture all kinds products for our use and convenience. Hydrocarbon survived every transformation they were put through because, well, the universe is practically made of them. They are 99% of the physical universe. Our sun and every star (all trillions of them) are all made of pure hydrogen and carbon takes over at the end of every star's life when hydrogen runs out, then compacted by gravity into heavier elements that included carbon, iron, etc. The rest of the chemical elements we see and use today were at one time in the belly of stars, as hydrogen. Every molecule of gold, silver, titanium, pizza and lasagna, t-bone steak, us, and every living thing, all at one time existed as a hydrogen atom. We are carbon based creature, carbohydrates sustain us, proteins that build our muscles are mostly carbon and hydrogen, etc.
So, we just have to manage hydrocarbon at every level of its existence, at its every transformation and configuration, because, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
If there is just one thing we can learn from this: Long after we're all gone, when the solar system no longer exists, when much of the universe had expanded itself wide and sparse into a density of just a handful of stuff per cubic mile, the family of hydrocarbons will still be around.
This is not to defend oil and plastics but to offer a different perspective so that perhaps we could come up with a way to deal with them in some rational way that will actually work. Let's be honest. We've benefited from the family of hydrocarbons for over two centuries now and we're waking up to the realization that, like a lot of things we use all around us and what society had provided for us, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". It is truer more often than not.
Let's take a quick staccato trip of backward steps. Hydrogen and carbon had been around for billions of years. They're why we have trees and rain forests and kelp and algae, etc.
Both elements survived in millions of years of layers upon layers of decaying vegetation only to re-form and reemerged as compounds of hydrocarbons - bound together still. It was because of them that we saved the whales from extinction when we no longer needed to boil their blubber to make oil for our lamps and lubricants for our machinery and tools. We saved trees and forests when we no longer needed them to heat our homes or run our rail cars. We shrunk the world around us when planes and cars and ocean liners run on hydrocarbon fuels. We made light and durable materials out of them to manufacture all kinds products for our use and convenience. Hydrocarbon survived every transformation they were put through because, well, the universe is practically made of them. They are 99% of the physical universe. Our sun and every star (all trillions of them) are all made of pure hydrogen and carbon takes over at the end of every star's life when hydrogen runs out, then compacted by gravity into heavier elements that included carbon, iron, etc. The rest of the chemical elements we see and use today were at one time in the belly of stars, as hydrogen. Every molecule of gold, silver, titanium, pizza and lasagna, t-bone steak, us, and every living thing, all at one time existed as a hydrogen atom. We are carbon based creature, carbohydrates sustain us, proteins that build our muscles are mostly carbon and hydrogen, etc.
So, we just have to manage hydrocarbon at every level of its existence, at its every transformation and configuration, because, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
If there is just one thing we can learn from this: Long after we're all gone, when the solar system no longer exists, when much of the universe had expanded itself wide and sparse into a density of just a handful of stuff per cubic mile, the family of hydrocarbons will still be around.
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