Posted on 03/24/2002 2:09:05 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
I rather doubt these hybrids will ever make it into widespread useage without the imposition of draconian measures forcing their adoption. The problems with highly fuel efficient automobiles are cost and utility. You can buy cars today that get high gas mileage. Most sit unpurchased on dealer show rooms. Algore was found of saying in the debates that automakers was eager to make 80 MPG cars. The problem is that consumers aren't eager to buy them. They're small and underpowered.
Sometimes, however, renewable technologies can be employed locally for good effect--low head hydrodynamic is the best example which pops to mind.
Let's see. This was said prior to WW II. It gained popularity during the Carter oil "crisis."
It now surfaces on FR, where I thought most people knew better.
It is nothing but "Barbara Streisand."
What they didn't mention was the wind's variability and unreliable nature.... among other things.
I certainly don't oppose alternative types of power generation, I just know from 30-plus years of watching it that it's usually too costly, too unreliable, or too complicated to compete with oil, gas, hydroelectric or nuclear power on a large scale.
Another urban legend.
One reason nuclear power has been not our main meansd of producing electricity (aside from the kooks in birkenstocks waving signs saying "split wood not atoms") is that every nuclear reactor operating in the US is a one off design.
France, which produces some 20% of its electricity from nuclear power, used a basic single design for its reactors. Yes, there were improvements in succeeding models, but the basic engineering is much the same for all plants. This allows for better training of operators and lower construction costs.
Current computer assisted design technology and state of the art engineering could allow the production of very efficient, easy to operate and SAFE nuclear plants. However, the required mountain of government paperwork and the environmentatist wackos making every attempt to block the construction of nuclear plants will keep us chained to fossil fuels for a long time.
Back in the late '70s a rather wealthy fellow put up a wind generator just off 45th St. and a block off the seawall in Galveston behind his home. Nice breeze most of the time. It proved to be so ineffieicnt that it is no longer there.
I think part of the desire for renewables is the desire to be free of the monthly utility bills; in my case ,the government allows me to use a large enough land area that wind-driven generators, biomass gas converters, alcohol stills, solar panels, and low-head hydroelectric turbines COULD provide ALL the energy my family could use. Of course, the initial costs of construction of all these things would be many times more than the cost of purchased energy.
I say , allows me to use, BECAUSE, if I do not pay property taxes every six months on the land and improvements like buildings and energy gathering devices, the gov't will send a man with a gun toi take it away from me. (This is why property taxes are a great evil;I pay tax on my earnings,tax again on my purchases, and yet more tax for permission to keep my purchases.)
The problem, as cod aptly points out in post #9, is the storage and transport of hydrogen is problematic at best and frought with danger. Hydrogen is very light (it makes good dirigibles, except for the transport thing) so it is hard to carry enough poundage to get significant range.
Except, of course, using breeder reactors, which are even more 'evil' than the ordinary sort. Just ask Jimmy "Nu-cu-lar" Carter.
--Boris
Hydrogen is just a big storage battery--which must be charged by electrolyzing water using fossil fuels or nuclear plants.
Forget the middleman and go directly to all-electric vehicles as a thought experiment. No longer can you load-balance with, e.g., hydrogen production. The extra generating capacity you would need to supply all of the vehicles in the U.S. is 500,000 megawatts, roughly 500 brand-new 1,000 megawatt nuclear plants. With hydrogen, the situation is WORSE, since electrolyzers run at ~70% efficiency (tops) meaning you would need ~714,000 megawatts.
--Boris
Possibly, but all of the feasible hydro sources are already fully exploited, and Mr. Clinton did blow up a few.
--Boris
Don't forget that it is 11 times less dense (as a liquid) than plain old gasoline. It delivers 3 times as much energy per pound but that still leaves you 11/3 = 3.6 times LESS efficient (volumetrically) than gas. In other words, for the same range your fuel tank must be almost 4 times larger.
If you try to use compressed hydrogen gas, it becomes even more absurd.
--Boris
Only in the rural areas is the land to people ratio likely to make home power practical ; I think it was that way before FDR.Someday Americans may realize just how much of our nation he destroyed.
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