[new cruelty]

Food for thought.

[GalvestonBeachcomber]

This is how I know it was a great speech:
Speech This is a RealPlayer file.

[Contra]

Speaking of hydrogen - remember what happened to the Hindenburg. Oh the humanity!

[mrsmith]

This article is definite socialist Kook bait.

TANSTAAFL!!!!
You only get out of hydrogen the energy you put into seperating it in the first place.

That said,
I found this the silliest part of Bush's speech- BUT>
It could lead to building atomic energy plants- as atomic energy is the only affordable way of powering a "hydrogen economy".

[The FRugitive]

I'm a big supporter of hydrogen power, but this is for private industry, not government.

[Moonman62]

The president may have the backbone to stand up to Iraq, but not to the eco-terrorists. He's taking the easy way out by firing up another multi-billion dollar government program.

Private companies have been working on this for years. All the government will do is keep throwing more and more of our tax dollars at it, if the market rejects it.

[pgkdan]

When I heard him make reference to a child born today could leqarn 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.

[capt. norm]

"hydrogen, the most abundant element in our world"

It's the most abundant element in the universe.

on Earth:
atmosphere: nitrogen.
crust (by weight...believe it or not): oxygen.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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

[hove]

Where does Bush propose that we get all this hydrogen. Oh yeah.....fossil fuels.

[ppaul]

:

The Hydrogen Age.....

:

[The Wizard]

I agree

[hopespringseternal]

Oh, great. Another parade of morons who don't know the difference between energy production and energy storage.

[MichaelP]

(5) Funds to find and perfect the optimum method of hydrogen fuel production.

Check out Hydro Enviro at OTC HYVR.OB

Mike

[Jhensy]

Someone clue this non-scientist in: Wasn't the dirty little secret of electric cars that air-conditioning was impossible? Same thing with these hydros?

[Uncle Miltie]

Hydrogen fuel moves the emission from the tailpipe to the smokestack.

Electricity is required to separate hydrogen, and in the U.S. we get it from coal, gas, oil, nukes, and hydro. Each of these has its less-than-desirable ecological impacts.

To elminate emissions from the tailpipes, which of the former list of electricity production capabilities do you propose we expand?

[Paradox]

I am against government subsidies to industry in general, for philosophical reasons, as well as practical ones. However, in this case, I think as we have seen, that this could be a National Security issue. The sooner we can tell the camel boys to kiss our a$$, the better and safer off we will be.

As for those who remember the Hindenburg, what actually did the most damage was the burning of the SKIN, not the hydrogen. Hydrogen, in and of itself, doesnt "burn", nothing burns by itself, it needs oxygen, so if you were to go into the middle of a tank of hydrogen and light a match, nothing would happen.

As someone else posted, Gasoline is a far more dangerous substance.