How holy a grail can rhubarb really be?
Does a term borrowed from Arthurian legend get maybe too much of a workout in the news media?
Harvard professors are using organic chemicals to develop the enormous storage batteries needed for large-scale renewable energy systems. They have studied the way energy can be stored in a class of organic compounds called quinones. One of the first sources of quinones the professors worked with was rhubarb.
John Nordell
Storage: It鈥檚 a big deal in the renewable energy sector. Had the movie 鈥溾�� been set in 2017 instead of 1967, that one-word bit of unsolicited career guidance its hero, Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), received might well have been not 鈥減lastics,鈥� but 鈥渟torage.鈥澛�
Developers of solar and wind energy are keen to find ways to store electricity for use when the sun isn鈥檛 shining or the winds aren鈥檛 blowing.听
Which is how we get to the rhubarb battery.听
told how some Harvard professors are using organic chemicals to develop the enormous storage batteries needed for large-scale renewable energy systems.听
They have studied the way energy can be stored in a class of organic compounds called . One of the first sources of quinones the professors worked with was rhubarb 鈥� yes, as in pie.听
鈥淭he press picked up on that and called it a rhubarb battery,鈥� one of the professors interviewed said with a laugh. 鈥淲e prefer to call it an organic megaflow battery.鈥�
We pesky news media 鈥� we鈥檙e always looking for cute names for things. But why would we call something a rhubarb battery when we can call it an organic megaflow battery?
In fact, the professors have moved beyond rhubarb to test other compounds 鈥� tens of thousands of them. And they are 鈥渉ot on the trail鈥� of a quick, cheap, and safe storage system, 鈥渃onsidered the renewable energy holy grail,鈥� the report said.
鈥淚 think we have a fighting chance of delivering on that 鈥榟oly grail鈥� within a decade,鈥� one of the researchers said.
Do we need a more apt clich茅 here?
The Monitor stylebook used to have a rather tartly worded note to the effect that use of holy grail should be confined to a 鈥渟piritual quest鈥� of some sort.听
By inference, it was not to be an all-purpose synonym for 鈥渢he most important goal in whatever field we鈥檙e talking about.鈥�
That guidance has since been relaxed. In its latest iteration, the stylebook merely cautions against capitalizing the term when it鈥檚 not 鈥渢he cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper,鈥� which, in my experience, does not come up in the news very often.
The lowercase聽holy grail, though, shows up in all kinds of contexts: 鈥淣vidia鈥檚 first HDR G-Sync monitors are basically the holy grail of PC displays,鈥� .听
ran a piece on Christmas Eve headlined 鈥淭he Search For The Holy Grail Of Investing.鈥� It was accompanied by a photo of an actual grail (chalice) of the sort familiar to those who know it as part of Arthurian legend, as depicted, for instance, in the wonderful .听
Irony? Who knows?
even ran a piece recently characterizing a fisherman鈥檚 enormous catch as a 鈥渉oly grail cod.鈥�
Well, at least they didn鈥檛 capitalize it. But what would think?