Bush Could Usher in Hydrogen Age as Kennedy Did Space Age

glennsacks.com ^ | Tuesday, January 28, 2003 | Glenn Sacks

[harpseal]

In terms of physics the efficency of electrolosis of water is relatively high. What is needed is a cheap method of producing the power that splits the water. As of today the only method that seems to have any chance of getting that done is nuclear power as the source. For you and all the other energy buffs out there Whyc ouldn't one build a very long lived source of DC electric power by putting an Alpha radioactive particle source on one side of a circuit and a Beta emmitter on the other side? Such would be a very good use for a whole lot of radioactive waste. this direct current could be used separating the hydrogen and oxygen of water for fuel. The waste heat could be used to generate further electricity. Of course the enviro-wackos would go crazy.

[new cruelty]

When I heard him make reference to a child born today could learn to drive in a hydrogen powered car I immediately thought of JFK's challenge to ge to the moon before the end of the 60's.

Kennedy: "We choose to go to the moon! We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

Odd, I thought of Galaxy Quest...

FRED (ON SCREEN)
Hey Commander. Listen, we found some Beryllium on a nearby planet. We might be able to get there if we re-configure the solar matrix in parallel for endothermic propulsion. What do you think?

JASON
We’ll do that!

[Wondervixen]

Why not? Susan Sarandon already ushered in the Helium Age before the SOTU address tonight & her head didn't appear to go down any from the leakage.

[goldstategop]

Yup. Though one can't explain why the enviro wackos think biological waste products are good whereas man made waste products aren't.

[goldstategop]

LOL.... Much be all that hydrogen leaking to her brain from those two blimps on the front of her humongous chest. ;-)

[Clinging Bitterly]

Interesting column. And fitting the occasion of the President's statement early in tonight's speech.

My understanding of the current state of development is that "fuel cells" are well developed and economically feasible to produce, but the hurdle in the process is in developing efficient ways to produce hydrogen in useable form from it's most obvious source, water.

I have dreamed for years of being "off the grid" for my personal and family energy needs, but I recognize that there are entities that wouldn't be at all happy if even 10% of the market were able to do so.

Don't get me wrong, I don't subscribe to the tinfoil theories of 200 MPG carburetors having been bought and buried by the oil companies, but I have long been aware of what can be possible if our energy economy were based on this most plentiful of fuels, and that this new technology is just over the horizon is a believable thing.

But the energy distribution infrastructure currently in place represents a huge investment, probably larger than in any other industry. The existing oil rigs will not pump hydrogen, the refineries will not refine it. The ships and tanker trucks and gas & oil pipelines will not transport it, and the electric power plants will not burn it. The people who hold pieces of the current action aren't going to like seeing it go away.

It'll be way too obvious that the compact fuel cells powering electric motors to propel cars could just as well power our households and factories, and "the grid" would become obsolete very quickly.

The only thing that would preserve the stations of the powers that be would be some sort of marketing flim-flam. But there are people who own Ti-Vo units and pay monthly fees to a company that does nothing but periodically transmit a few bytes of code, the electronic key without which those otherwise self contained devices will not function. I refuse to buy into that sort of idiocy, but sometimes I feel like the Lone Ranger.

Dave in Eugene

[goldstategop]

Yeah and right now Bush is Tonto in the latest matinee serial. Stay tuned for the next chapter. :-)

[MeekMom]

LOL
...not that I wanted to see Hildebeast, but, you didn't include her in "panning the morons."

...my son and I watched it on Fox and had to avert our eyes for fear of going blind!

[cinFLA]

The only significant problem with electricity from fuel cell generators is its cost, which is roughly two to three times that of conventional power.

I didn't read the whole article. Did he say where the H2 would come from?

[hedgetrimmer]

I hope he ushers in the age of Martian exploration before Inda, China or Russia gets to it.

[hedgetrimmer]

Thats India, not Inda!

[Nephi]

The technology is there, but some claim that powerful forces are suppressing the technology. Gee, at forty cents or more per gallon of gasoline in taxes, who could that be?

Hyrdogen carburetor?

Water into fuel?

www.hydrogen-boost.com

[new cruelty]

The entire article is posted in this thread. I inadvertently checked the 'this is an excerpt' box.

[mgstarr]

Early hydrogen fuel cell

[cinFLA]

In terms of physics the efficency of electrolosis of water is relatively high.

If you don't mind losing more than 30% of your energy.

[cinFLA]

I think many "conservatives" of today would have written off the Wright brothers, Henry Ford, Fulton, and many others as socialists, simply because they had new ideas.

You have no idea what conservatives think.

[Nephi]

Don't get me wrong, I don't subscribe to the tinfoil theories of 200 MPG carburetors having been bought and buried by the oil companies...

Oil companies aren't the only ones who stand to lose if 200 mpg carbs come to market. Have you noticed the taxes per gallon?

The basic theory of high mileage carbs is based on a phenomenon that most car drivers have experienced at one time or another - flooding. It wouldn't be possible to flood a car motor with fuel if it were designed to be run on liquid. They're designed to be run on vapor.

History of vapor carburetors.

[Moonman62]

The market may have no choice but to go along.

And that's the problem. We don't know what the best technology will be ten years from now. Hybrid vehicles seem to have some market acceptance already. Combustion engines are getting cleaner. Batteries are getting better. I've read stories about safe nuclear batteries. The bottom line is president Bush is pro-government and anti-market. Buying votes is difficult when the market is allowed to work.

BTW, I did like the Iraq part of his speech.

[goldstategop]

The oil companies wouldn't go out of business. They'd simply get into the hydrogen fuel market. Its too good a thing for them to pass up the day selling fossil fuel is no longer an economically viable proposition for them.

[goldstategop]

I don't see it as a problem. The market just needs a shove and the technology will be there in a form consumers will want to buy. It simply has to produce the stuff.