Mahboobin 10:00
R06
THE USE OF HYDROGEN AS AN ENERGY STORAGE VESSEL FOR SOLAR
ENERGY.
Shane Taylor (Smt88@pitt.edu)
Introduction
My name is Shane Taylor and I am the lead mechanical
engineer at SunPower Inc. SunPower Inc. is a company that
specializes in solar energy. As lead mechanical engineer, I
oversee the design and testing of new products. One of the
new projects that we have been working on is using hydrogen
as a storage vessel for solar energy. Hydrogen offers many
advantages as a fuel source and our research has recently been
receiving more and more attention. About a month ago, my
company was approached by General Electric, who is very
interested in buying SunPower. When I took this job, part of
my contractual compensation is that in addition to my salary
I have a 10% stake in SunPower Inc. The offer from General
Electric is contingent upon my company being able to deliver
a prototype for a hydrogen fuel cell powered by solar energy
for use in a vehicle. Since I am not overseeing the deal
between General Electric and my company, I’m unsure of the
exact price the General Electric offered, but I have been told
that the offer is in the vicinity of $700 million by others
overseeing the deal. This would give me a $7 million payout
from the buyout. To sweeten the deal, once the company is
bought out by General Electric I would be promoted to vice
president of North American operations which comes with a
large increase in pay as well as a much more prestigious title.
To most people this would be cause for celebration, however,
I’m currently stuck in the hardest and most stressful situation
I’ve ever been.
Dilemma 1
At first I thought this deal would be very smooth sailing
and would present very few problems. That was until I was
given the timeline for when General Electric wanted to have
the deal done by. General Electric wants to have the rights to
the company and our work in less than one month’s time.
While this worried me a little bit, I was not concerned at first
because we already had a working hydrogen fuel cell set up
to an engine. I first started to get concerned when the chief
executive officer of my company came to me one day and
asked about the efficiency numbers. He asked what efficiency
we were at and I told him we were still only at anywhere from
4% to 10% efficient. He told me that part of the deal with
General Electric was that our engines had to be above 7.5%
efficient. He asked why we had such a large range of
operating efficiencies. I told him that we still aren’t sure why,
but new cells always have an efficiency of at least 8% for the
first use. However, after the first use the efficiency of the cells
drops anywhere from half a percent to 3%. He said that he
University of Pittsburgh, Swanson School of Engineering 1
2014-10-27
wants the efficiency after repeated uses to always be above
7.5% by the time of the buyout since our offer is contingent
upon the efficiencies. Before leaving, he told me that we may
have to use a new cell to get the 7.5% efficiency during the
trial for General Electric to secure the buyout.
After working for two weeks, my team was able to get the
efficiency up to at least 6.5% every time after repeated uses
which is still short of the 7.5% required. I knew that we would
be unable to fulfill that requirement before the deadline, and I
know if I had more time I’ll be out to get fixed so I am in
somewhat of a dilemma. If the buyout goes through, it will be
deceitful but after I’m working at General Electric I’m sure
I’ll be able to fix the efficiency problem through use of the
new resources at my disposal. I began to research case studies
in engineering ethics and came across a group of case studies
on online ethics center website. After reading through some
of them and consulting [5] by not saying something to
General Electric I would be violating the fifth canon of the
National Society of Professional Engineer’s code of ethics
which states, “Avoid deceptive acts.” [5]. I also learned that
if I say something to General Electric I might be violating the
fourth canon of the National Society of Professional
Engineer’s code of ethics which states “Act for each employer
or client as faithful agents or trustees” [5]. I might be breaking
this code since I would be harming my current employer by
revealing that information especially since the problem with
the hydrogen cell would be easily fixed after being at the
company.
Dilemma 2
The next dilemma I ran into came to me from one of my
employees. I was in my office one day when I was approached
by an engineer on my team, who was voicing concerns that he
had over some of the materials required to make solar panels.
He stated that some of the materials used to create solar panels
such as cadmium, chlorine, and sulfur can be dangerous, and
the company isn’t doing enough to warn potential buyers of
the dangers posed by these elements [7]. I assured him that I
would look into it and I would let him know if I found
anything. Since environmental damage and related things
aren’t really my field of study I decided to go to some of the
environmental engineers who work for SunPower Inc. I
requested a meeting with the lead environmental engineer and
we had a meeting. During this meeting, he showed me that we
did in fact have a warning label on all of our solar to hydrogen
cells stating that the cells contain heavy metals and were
Shane Taylor
unsafe if broken [7]. In my opinion, I thought that the labels
on the cells were small, but they were visible. I then asked the
broader question of what the environmental engineer thought
about the footprint that the solar panels leave on the
environment. He told me that they’ve all been EPA tested and
showed me the papers which were valid. The one thing he did
mention was that in order to get some of the materials such as
cadmium the mining took a considerable ecological toll on the
earth.
After this meeting with the environmental engineer I again
decide to look up some case studies and this time consulted
the IEEE code of ethics and under article 1 it states, “to accept
responsibility in making decisions consistent with the safety,
health, and welfare of the public, and to disclose promptly
factors that might endanger the public or the environment”
[4]. In the National Society of Professional Engineers’ code
of ethics second rule of practice, the code states, “Engineers
shall undertake assignments only when qualified by education
or experience in the specific technical fields involved” [5].
This clause makes me unsure of whether or not I should take
this concern any farther since it’s not my area of expertise and
I have been told by an engineer in this area that everything
was up to standard.
canon one of the code of ethics since the public would be safe.
However, by keeping this a secret I would potentially be
endangering the lives of workers who are putting the cars
together. Canon four of the National Society of Professional
Engineers states “Act for each employer or client as faithful
agents or trustees” [5]. By disobeying my boss and telling
General Electric of the problems with the hydrogen solar cells
I would be breaking canon four.
Reflection
Before this buyout goes through, I have three major
ethical dilemmas I have to consider. The first of which is that
the efficiency is not where it should be in accordance to the
deal with General Electric and in order to meet that
requirement I would have to be dishonest in my work. The
second dilemma is that this product could be environmentally
hazardous, especially the way some of the materials required
to make this product are obtained. The third dilemma has to
do with the potential danger of islanding in the hydrogen fuel
cells which is uncommon, but could be serious if it were to
happen again. I decided to ask my father what he would do if
he was in the same situation that I am in. He is a senior vice
president of operations for company that deals with glassware
and other kitchen products. He is a mechanical engineer and I
believed that he would have some valuable insights for me.
When I was talking to my father he was impressed by how
much money I’ll be making at the deal and at my new position
with General Electric. With regards to the first dilemma, he
would not tell me what he would do if he was in my situation,
but he would give his opinion on the subject. He said that even
though I could get it fixed after being in the company it wasn’t
truthful to pass something along at 7.5% efficient if it is not
truly. For the second dilemma he said that since the
environmental engineer thought it was okay I should listen to
him since it’s his job to be concerned about the environmental
impact of our product. For dilemma three his opinion was that
General Electric has a right to know about the islanding effect
in solar panels and he was sure they would be understanding.
Even after talking to my dad I still was not sure what I should
do [9]. My dad told me that I should consult my religion. At
first I thought he was kind of joking but I decided to humor
him and decided to sit down with the Bible. I read through the
10 Commandments and surprisingly they gave me some more
insight into my own dilemmas [8]. Commandments such as
thou shalt not lie made me think that maybe the money wasn’t
worth having to be deceitful.
At the end of the day, my dilemma is one with no clearcut answers. On one hand for the first dilemma, I could pass
the cell off as 7.5% efficient and improve it after the deal goes
through which although deceitful, wouldn’t really hurt
anyone long run since still gets fixed. However, I would be
breaking the engineering code of ethics as well as my personal
ethical code. On the other hand, I could tell General Electric
about the lack of efficiency and how I will be able to fix it and
hope that the contractor still goes through. If I chose this
Dilemma 3
My biggest dilemma came about a week ago. I was
working on a fuel-cell to try to increase the efficiency of the
cell when I heard a loud noise come from the basement, which
is where we store our hydrogen cells. I went to investigate and
was told by one of the technicians that one of the fuel cells
had delivered a major jolt of electricity to one of the workers
due to islanding [3]. Luckily, the worker was not badly hurt
in the incident, but it marked the first time the hydrogen fuel
cells had malfunctioned. I didn’t know much about islanding,
so I did some research on it and found it was something that
could happen to grids that relied on solar energy and they are
infrequently occurring but detectable if certain devices are
used [3]. I was very concerned because the deadline for the
deal with General Electric was so close. The problem with
islanding is one that I’m not sure can be solved at all
especially not in a week’s time. The electrical engineers on
my team told me that this is a freak accident nothing to worry
about since it would be inside of the car and would not need
to be handled readily. However, they did say that it might be
in the best interest of General Electric to use machines to
handle the hydrogen cells to prevent anyone else from being
shocked.
I then decided to take this issue to my boss. I was
especially concerned about this issue since someone could get
hurt. I told him that he should inform General Electric about
the islanding affect in some of the solar cells. He agreed it was
a problem but told me that I was not say anything to anyone
from General Electric until the deal went through. The NSPE
code of ethics states in canon one, “Hold paramount the
safety, health, and welfare of the public” [5]. By keeping the
issue of islanding a secret, I would not technically be violating
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Shane Taylor
option, I would still be going against the code of ethics since
I would not be listening to what my boss asked me to do. I’m
leaning towards telling General Electric that the current
efficiencies aren’t up to what their standards are and hoping
for the best since I would be acting deliberately deceitful if I
did anything else. The second dilemma with the potential
environmental hazard presents another problem for me as an
engineer. The environmental engineer told me that everything
was all right as far as the heavy metals in the solar panels go
but was concerned about how they were mined. To resolve
this I could either choose to go to a higher authority such as
my boss and give him the concerns of the technician or I could
just listen to what the environmental engineers telling me and
not worry about it. By going to a higher authority I would be
in line with article 1 of the IEEE code of ethics since there is
the potential for the environment to be hurt in the making of
the solar panels. However, I would be operating in an area that
I’m unfamiliar with which is toeing the line for the NSPE
code of ethics’ rule two since I’m not qualified to make any
decisions about the environment. I am leaning more towards
not saying anything since the environmental engineer believes
it to be fine and since we are abiding by all EPA codes. The
third dilemma is involving the islanding problem in one of our
solar hydrogen cells. The options that I have are to say nothing
and potentially endanger the lives of workers a General
Electric, or to tell General Electric and be disloyal my boss
since he told me not say anything. I’m strongly leaning
towards telling General Electric about the problem with the
islanding since people can get hurt and it’s a somewhat easy
fix and just requires some precautionary measures to be taken.
References
[1] “NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers.” National Society
of Professional Engineers. (online reference)
http://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics
[2] V. Fthenakis. (2013). “Cadmium Telluride Solar Cells.”
Elsevier. (online article) https://app.knovel.com
[3] “IEEE Policies.” Institute of electrical and electronics
engineers. (online reference)
http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html
[4] G. Bayrak. (2014). “A novel anti islanding detection
method for grid connected fuel cell power generation
systems.” Elsevier. (online article)
http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost
[5] “Cases and Scenarios”. Online Ethics Center. (case
study) http://www.onlineethics.org/Resources/Cases.aspx
[6] “Ethics Case Studies in Biodesign”. Stanford Biodesign.
(case study)
http://biodesign.stanford.edu/bdn/resources/ethicscases.jsp
[7] “Public Health and Safety-Delay in Addressing Fire
Code Violations”. National Society of Professional
Engineers. (case study)
http://www.nspe.org/sites/default/files/BER%20Case%20No
%2013-11-FINAL.pdf
Additional References
[8] D. Taylor. (2014, Oct. 24). (conversation)
[9] Holy Bible, New International Version. (1984) Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan House. (print book)
[10] J. Bauer. (2001) 24. (television show)
Advice to Engineers
Acknowledgements
Engineers are constantly faced with ethical dilemmas.
The best way to deal with these dilemmas is to first consult
the code of ethics put forth by the National Society
Professional Engineers and from there try to make a decision
in line with these codes. After that is in the best interest of
the engineer to look at other case studies of ethics to see if
there’s anything like their dilemma and if so how others
would deal with it. The most important thing for a
professional engineer trying to carefully resolve the dilemma
would be to do what they believe is right and in line with
their beliefs. Above all, an engineer should make a decision
that prevents the largest number of people from getting hurt.
Personally, the advice that Jack Bauer said in season one of
24 is advice every engineer should live by, “You can look
the other way once, and it’s no big deal, except it makes it
easier for you to compromise the next time, and pretty soon
that’s all you’re doing; compromising, because that’s the
way you think things are done”. Jack is saying that when
you compromise it makes it easier to do it again so you
should never compromise with your morals. This is a motto
that everyone should live by, especially engineers.
I would like to first thank the librarian who came into
my engineering analysis class and instructed me on how to
properly find, use, and cite sources. I would also like to thank
my writing instructor for helping me to focus my topic. I
would like to thank my dad for giving me advice. Finally I
would like to thank my roommate for giving me feedback
regarding my topic.
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