Finally a national magazine has come out with the truth about the disaster of Ethanol. Unfortunately, it has grown so big on an international scale that it's going to take years to fix...if it even can be fixed. Read it and weep. Stupidity and greed does it again. Where is Al Gore when we need him?
The Clean Energy Scam
Walter
Time Magazine Cover Story
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In Memory Walter K
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Thanks for posting that article Walter, it was a good read.
Another example of the rewards of stupidity so astounding that it's hard to believe its all happening. Those "scientists and researchers" who had spent all that time figuring out ways to advocate ethanol, and who are now so surprised at these results, should be publicly hung
Another example of the rewards of stupidity so astounding that it's hard to believe its all happening. Those "scientists and researchers" who had spent all that time figuring out ways to advocate ethanol, and who are now so surprised at these results, should be publicly hung
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In Memory Walter K
- Senior Member
- Posts: 2912
- Joined: Jun 30th, '06, 21:25
- Location: East Hampton LI, NY
- Contact:
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In Memory Walter K
- Senior Member
- Posts: 2912
- Joined: Jun 30th, '06, 21:25
- Location: East Hampton LI, NY
- Contact:
Well. well, well...now some of the "talking heads" on the financial programs are calling our governments Ethanol policy "a disaster". Wonders never cease. Will we ever hear the words of Gilda Radner's Emily Litella..."I'm sorry"! Not till after the election, if ever. Governments don't apologize, they just need to find a way to save face. Walter
Well I guess the diaper is full. Time to throw out these politicians, so they can blame the old ones for this mess, and so we can get some nice fresh bullshit.
Sadly I don't think that anybody will dare say or do anything against the farmers until after the elections, but it's good to see momentum start to build on this particular issue.
I still say that the development electric cars are the answer to this particular problem. The distribution system is already in place, and there are many more ways to make electricity than there are to make petrol fuel. Save the petrol for our boats. However, hydrogen powered bombs on wheels will probably be the next folly to fill the diaper
Sadly I don't think that anybody will dare say or do anything against the farmers until after the elections, but it's good to see momentum start to build on this particular issue.
I still say that the development electric cars are the answer to this particular problem. The distribution system is already in place, and there are many more ways to make electricity than there are to make petrol fuel. Save the petrol for our boats. However, hydrogen powered bombs on wheels will probably be the next folly to fill the diaper
Here it comes, the Hydrogen Fuel folly.........
Hydrogen Cars Are Here.
Now We Just Need A Fueling Infrastructure.
03/12/2008 - Wired
Hydrogen cars and their promise of a zero-emission, petroleum-free future are no longer the stuff of science fiction. Automakers have the technology largely nailed down and say vehicles like the Chevrolet Equinox FCEV and Honda FCX Clarity are poised to take us beyond gasoline. There's just one hitch.
Where do we get the hydrogen? There are 36 hydrogen fueling stations in the United States, and two thirds of them are in California. Increasing that number in any meaningful way remains the biggest - and most pressing - challenge keeping us from traveling the hydrogen highway.
"The reality is, we cannot wait," says Paul Brubaker, head of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration for the federal Department of Transportation. "We have to figure out what to do to reach critical mass and create the infrastructure to get these cars on the road sooner than later."
If Brubaker's got any thoughts on the matter, he kept them to himself during Hydrogen Drive 2008, where 40 or so experts from the government, the auto industry and academia said we need a Manhattan Project level of commitment - and spending - to improve the technology and develop the infrastructure.
How much money are we talking about?
The federal government has spent $1.2 billion on hydrogen in the five years since President Bush announced an initiative to develop a national hydrogen infrastructure. We'll need a whole lot more than that if we're to meet the president's goal of replacing fossil fuels by 2040.
Hydrogen advocates like the National Hydrogen Association say we could put 70 percent of all Americans within 2 miles of a hydrogen fueling station for $10 to $15 billion. They like to point out that's half the cost of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (in today's dollars) and about what we're spending each month in Iraq.
That figure seems optimistic - perhaps wildly so. Royal Dutch Shell, which created the Shell Hydrogen subsidiary in 1999, says supplying 2 percent of America's cars with hydrogen by 2020 would cost "around $20 billion." Wired, in "How Hydrogen Can Save America," argues we can make the switch to a hydrogen economy for $100 billion. And a 2002 analysis by Argonne National Laboratory found "the hydrogen delivery infrastructure to serve 40 percent of the light-duty fleet is likely to cost over $500 billion."
That's a wide range of numbers, but they all show switching to hydrogen won't be cheap. "Until we put billions or even trillions of dollars into this, it just won't happen," says Paul Williamson of the University of Montana College of Technology. Others agree the tab will be high but say we won't need a nationwide infrastructure for decades, so let's start with major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles. The California Fuel Cell Partnership says 40 stations would put most L.A. residents within five minutes of a hydrogen source. "In the near-term, it can be accomplished for what we're spending on other priorities," said Joan Ogden of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has mapped out just that kind of approach with his "Hydrogen Highway" agenda. Four years ago, his administration proposed spending as much as $11 million a year to bring 100 hydrogen stations online by 2010. We have 25 so far, and a solar-powered facility that will use electrolysis to produce hydrogen opens next month in Sacramento (most stations use hydrogen produced by steam reformulation of natural gas). The California Air Resources Board expects to finance 10 more stations within the next two years. Progress has been slow, spokeswoman Gennet Paauwe told the Sacramento Bee, because advancements in fuel cell technology have been slow and there are only 200 or so fuel cell vehicles on the road in California.
"We're not going to open stations if there aren't vehicles to fill," she told the Bee.
But automakers say they can't make the technology commercially viable - they've still got to boost range, improve durability and bring down costs - until there's a fueling infrastructure broad enough to support the cars. It's a classic catch-22 - we can't get the stations until we get the cars, but we can't get the cars until we have the stations.
Hydrogen Cars Are Here.
Now We Just Need A Fueling Infrastructure.
03/12/2008 - Wired
Hydrogen cars and their promise of a zero-emission, petroleum-free future are no longer the stuff of science fiction. Automakers have the technology largely nailed down and say vehicles like the Chevrolet Equinox FCEV and Honda FCX Clarity are poised to take us beyond gasoline. There's just one hitch.
Where do we get the hydrogen? There are 36 hydrogen fueling stations in the United States, and two thirds of them are in California. Increasing that number in any meaningful way remains the biggest - and most pressing - challenge keeping us from traveling the hydrogen highway.
"The reality is, we cannot wait," says Paul Brubaker, head of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration for the federal Department of Transportation. "We have to figure out what to do to reach critical mass and create the infrastructure to get these cars on the road sooner than later."
If Brubaker's got any thoughts on the matter, he kept them to himself during Hydrogen Drive 2008, where 40 or so experts from the government, the auto industry and academia said we need a Manhattan Project level of commitment - and spending - to improve the technology and develop the infrastructure.
How much money are we talking about?
The federal government has spent $1.2 billion on hydrogen in the five years since President Bush announced an initiative to develop a national hydrogen infrastructure. We'll need a whole lot more than that if we're to meet the president's goal of replacing fossil fuels by 2040.
Hydrogen advocates like the National Hydrogen Association say we could put 70 percent of all Americans within 2 miles of a hydrogen fueling station for $10 to $15 billion. They like to point out that's half the cost of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (in today's dollars) and about what we're spending each month in Iraq.
That figure seems optimistic - perhaps wildly so. Royal Dutch Shell, which created the Shell Hydrogen subsidiary in 1999, says supplying 2 percent of America's cars with hydrogen by 2020 would cost "around $20 billion." Wired, in "How Hydrogen Can Save America," argues we can make the switch to a hydrogen economy for $100 billion. And a 2002 analysis by Argonne National Laboratory found "the hydrogen delivery infrastructure to serve 40 percent of the light-duty fleet is likely to cost over $500 billion."
That's a wide range of numbers, but they all show switching to hydrogen won't be cheap. "Until we put billions or even trillions of dollars into this, it just won't happen," says Paul Williamson of the University of Montana College of Technology. Others agree the tab will be high but say we won't need a nationwide infrastructure for decades, so let's start with major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles. The California Fuel Cell Partnership says 40 stations would put most L.A. residents within five minutes of a hydrogen source. "In the near-term, it can be accomplished for what we're spending on other priorities," said Joan Ogden of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has mapped out just that kind of approach with his "Hydrogen Highway" agenda. Four years ago, his administration proposed spending as much as $11 million a year to bring 100 hydrogen stations online by 2010. We have 25 so far, and a solar-powered facility that will use electrolysis to produce hydrogen opens next month in Sacramento (most stations use hydrogen produced by steam reformulation of natural gas). The California Air Resources Board expects to finance 10 more stations within the next two years. Progress has been slow, spokeswoman Gennet Paauwe told the Sacramento Bee, because advancements in fuel cell technology have been slow and there are only 200 or so fuel cell vehicles on the road in California.
"We're not going to open stations if there aren't vehicles to fill," she told the Bee.
But automakers say they can't make the technology commercially viable - they've still got to boost range, improve durability and bring down costs - until there's a fueling infrastructure broad enough to support the cars. It's a classic catch-22 - we can't get the stations until we get the cars, but we can't get the cars until we have the stations.
I thought the hydrogen was used to create elctricity and the vehicles wheels were powered by electric motors.
The resultant by product of creating the electricity was water.
One of the problems is actually getting enough hyrdrogen, there was a company in California (think it was there) that was using something similar to a plasma cutter to pull hydrogen fromt the air. (at least thats what I got out of the new fuel technology seminar I went to)
I'm truly in favor of energy that gets us away from petroleum reliance. The bottom line is that hybrid vehicles be them parallel or series systems are a stepping stone and still petroleum reliant. The most effective operating range is below 35mph and then once you get over that the batteries run down and your on a gear driven system or stuck on the side of the road (depending on whose system you use) Ethanol is a joke, is there any pump manufacturer that will certify there units to even move this product from point to point. Much less the fact that we use more hydrocarbons to grow and distill the product then we'll ever save.
Is hydrogen a folly? I'm not sure, its come a long way in just 5 years. I'm willing to hold on to a little hope on this one.
The resultant by product of creating the electricity was water.
One of the problems is actually getting enough hyrdrogen, there was a company in California (think it was there) that was using something similar to a plasma cutter to pull hydrogen fromt the air. (at least thats what I got out of the new fuel technology seminar I went to)
I'm truly in favor of energy that gets us away from petroleum reliance. The bottom line is that hybrid vehicles be them parallel or series systems are a stepping stone and still petroleum reliant. The most effective operating range is below 35mph and then once you get over that the batteries run down and your on a gear driven system or stuck on the side of the road (depending on whose system you use) Ethanol is a joke, is there any pump manufacturer that will certify there units to even move this product from point to point. Much less the fact that we use more hydrocarbons to grow and distill the product then we'll ever save.
Is hydrogen a folly? I'm not sure, its come a long way in just 5 years. I'm willing to hold on to a little hope on this one.
KR
JP
1977 RLDT "CHIMERA"
JP
1977 RLDT "CHIMERA"
Hydrogen would be great if there were an energy neutral way to produce it. Right now it is either produced from hydrocarbons or electrolysis, neither of which gives a positive energy balance. Burning coal to produce electricity to product hydrogen is not an environmentally friendly alternative. Nuclear power would produce it, but we would need a lot of nukes, and they have obvious drawbacks. If we ever get cold fusion, that would be the panacea. Until then, I don't see it being viable.
Rawleigh
1966 FBC 31
1966 FBC 31
The comparison of the two technologies boils down to this:
- where do you REALLY get the energy from
- how do get it to your car, and
- how does your car use it.
Hydrogen fuel cars
You make the electricity at the power plant. You distribute it to the semi-local hydrogen fuel production stations, where they make hydrogen from water. Finally, you distribute the hydrogen to cars via local fueling stations.
Pros of Hyrdogen Cars- well, you have to consider both types:
Hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles: no emissions at the car. These cars convert the hydrogen into electricity using a fuel-cell battery, and the only byproducts are heat and water. Yes these are electric cars. Hydrogen is the battery fuel.
Hydrogen combustion engine cars: mostly innocuous emissions at the car. These cars burn the hydrogen and they emit water and nitrogen oxides (instead of carbon dioxide) that are considered environmentally harmless. But these need to be electric hybrids too, because they can’t hold enough hydrogen to be 100% combustion-driven and have practical ranges. So these are part electric car too.
Simply burning hydrogen is not very efficient when you compare it to the efficiency of converting it to electricity with a fuel cell, and then running an electric motor. So for that reason alone, and if you’re going to bother going through the pain to make a big change, then I say internal-combustion hydrogen-fueled hybrid cars are kind of stupid in general. But they are plausible.
Cons of Hydrogen-fueled cars:
1) you have to use electricity to make hydrogen.
2) there is an unrecoverable loss of energy in the conversion process.
3) whatever emissions you have when making the electricity used make to make the hydrogen, you have to consider them as being associated with the process of burning the hydrogen in the cars (this not a “zero-emission†power source)
4) you have to spend BILLIONS to distribute the hydrogen.
5) whatever you hate about today’s hybrids or about electric cars, you have to hate about these too. Except now add to the hate list the familiar trips to the fueling station, because you can't just plug the thing in when you get home.
Now, how about purely electric cars?
You make the electricity at the power plant. The distribution grid is already in place, piped right into everyone’s homes.
Pros of electric cars:
1) no emissions at the car, same as hydrogen.
2) distribution system is already in place.
Cons of electric cars:
1) you still have whatever emissions you make when making the electricity (this not a “zero-emission†power source either). Same as hydrogen cars.
…………………
So by picking electric cars, you just lost two of the three big drawbacks of using hydrogen as a fuel. Drawbacks that ALREADY threaten to doom hydrogen cars as a viable technology.
Either way you pollute while you make the electricity, but advances in generating electric power at the plants are quickly implemented… not waiting for 20 year old cars to get off the road. Nuke power has a promising and clean future too, if the human race would just get off it’s collective hippie ass and expend some effort trying to further development of it.
Neither pure electric cars, nor hydrogen cars will fit everyone or every need in the immediate future. Trucks and long-distance driving will still need petrol. Many people simply hate alternative fuels and will outright refuse to use them. But attitudes change gradually over time. How many here used to hate computers?
There is a lot of petrol fuel to be saved RIGHT NOW by a lot of people that would be happy to have good electric cars. There exists a proven and unsatisfied market for them, and they could be saving people from burning gas and reducing our need for foreign oil right now, without forcing anybody to do anything.
The General Motors (abandoned) EV1 electric car got a 75 to 150 mile range per charge. They could fully charge overnight in 8 hours, and could charge 60-80 percent in a couple of hours. The EV1 could accelerate from 0–50 mph in 6.3 seconds. The car's top speed was electronically limited to 80 mph. A modified EV1 prototype set a land speed record for production electric vehicles of 183 mph in 1994. There were big advances in battery technology development that were right around the corner to extend range, but development was abruptly abandoned along with the EV1. If these were readily available I would have one for around-town driving.
There was a market for this car. This concept was starting to work. It was developing and it was getting better and better … and yet it was completely abandoned. Now all you hear about is the less viable hydrogen fuel technology.
Maybe I get my tin foil hat now: what you have to ask yourself here is why. This technology is being pushed on the world to divert attention from technology that might actually have a chance of replacing some applications of the petrol-fueled internal combustion engine.
Hydrogen fueled vehicles = Folly.
- where do you REALLY get the energy from
- how do get it to your car, and
- how does your car use it.
Hydrogen fuel cars
You make the electricity at the power plant. You distribute it to the semi-local hydrogen fuel production stations, where they make hydrogen from water. Finally, you distribute the hydrogen to cars via local fueling stations.
Pros of Hyrdogen Cars- well, you have to consider both types:
Hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles: no emissions at the car. These cars convert the hydrogen into electricity using a fuel-cell battery, and the only byproducts are heat and water. Yes these are electric cars. Hydrogen is the battery fuel.
Hydrogen combustion engine cars: mostly innocuous emissions at the car. These cars burn the hydrogen and they emit water and nitrogen oxides (instead of carbon dioxide) that are considered environmentally harmless. But these need to be electric hybrids too, because they can’t hold enough hydrogen to be 100% combustion-driven and have practical ranges. So these are part electric car too.
Simply burning hydrogen is not very efficient when you compare it to the efficiency of converting it to electricity with a fuel cell, and then running an electric motor. So for that reason alone, and if you’re going to bother going through the pain to make a big change, then I say internal-combustion hydrogen-fueled hybrid cars are kind of stupid in general. But they are plausible.
Cons of Hydrogen-fueled cars:
1) you have to use electricity to make hydrogen.
2) there is an unrecoverable loss of energy in the conversion process.
3) whatever emissions you have when making the electricity used make to make the hydrogen, you have to consider them as being associated with the process of burning the hydrogen in the cars (this not a “zero-emission†power source)
4) you have to spend BILLIONS to distribute the hydrogen.
5) whatever you hate about today’s hybrids or about electric cars, you have to hate about these too. Except now add to the hate list the familiar trips to the fueling station, because you can't just plug the thing in when you get home.
Now, how about purely electric cars?
You make the electricity at the power plant. The distribution grid is already in place, piped right into everyone’s homes.
Pros of electric cars:
1) no emissions at the car, same as hydrogen.
2) distribution system is already in place.
Cons of electric cars:
1) you still have whatever emissions you make when making the electricity (this not a “zero-emission†power source either). Same as hydrogen cars.
…………………
So by picking electric cars, you just lost two of the three big drawbacks of using hydrogen as a fuel. Drawbacks that ALREADY threaten to doom hydrogen cars as a viable technology.
Either way you pollute while you make the electricity, but advances in generating electric power at the plants are quickly implemented… not waiting for 20 year old cars to get off the road. Nuke power has a promising and clean future too, if the human race would just get off it’s collective hippie ass and expend some effort trying to further development of it.
Neither pure electric cars, nor hydrogen cars will fit everyone or every need in the immediate future. Trucks and long-distance driving will still need petrol. Many people simply hate alternative fuels and will outright refuse to use them. But attitudes change gradually over time. How many here used to hate computers?
There is a lot of petrol fuel to be saved RIGHT NOW by a lot of people that would be happy to have good electric cars. There exists a proven and unsatisfied market for them, and they could be saving people from burning gas and reducing our need for foreign oil right now, without forcing anybody to do anything.
The General Motors (abandoned) EV1 electric car got a 75 to 150 mile range per charge. They could fully charge overnight in 8 hours, and could charge 60-80 percent in a couple of hours. The EV1 could accelerate from 0–50 mph in 6.3 seconds. The car's top speed was electronically limited to 80 mph. A modified EV1 prototype set a land speed record for production electric vehicles of 183 mph in 1994. There were big advances in battery technology development that were right around the corner to extend range, but development was abruptly abandoned along with the EV1. If these were readily available I would have one for around-town driving.
There was a market for this car. This concept was starting to work. It was developing and it was getting better and better … and yet it was completely abandoned. Now all you hear about is the less viable hydrogen fuel technology.
Maybe I get my tin foil hat now: what you have to ask yourself here is why. This technology is being pushed on the world to divert attention from technology that might actually have a chance of replacing some applications of the petrol-fueled internal combustion engine.
Hydrogen fueled vehicles = Folly.
JP<JP Dalik wrote: there was a company in California (think it was there) that was using something similar to a plasma cutter to pull hydrogen fromt the air. (at least thats what I got out of the new fuel technology seminar I went to)
is this what you were referring to?
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/335674/wa ... led_torch/
While not a panacea, there are some technologies available, that when added to either gas or diesel powered vehicles, have claimed to increase economy by as much as 7-30%. Just by incorporating these bolt on kits (or even build your own) and supplying them with water, they then then break down to form seperate ions of 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen, from each molecule of water to improve the efficiency of the combustion in the engines.
Just search http://www.google.com/ and put "water for gas" in the search panel.
Harv
Sure.
I never said it was perfect, just the better of two not so great alternatives. I just think that, given some time and effort, straight electric cars have a much better chance of actually realizing some measure of success.
The billions of dollars we would spend to set up a hydrogen distribution system would buy a lot of batteries too, and also a lot of battery development research.
We hit the peak of the volume of possible annual production of petrol fuel a few years ago. At this point production volume can only go down. No amount of effort, technology, good politics, or nation-building is going to change that fact. The easy-to-get oil has already been gotten. Supply can only keep going down, while worldwide demand will only continue to rise. Petrol fuel costs can only do one thing: continue to go up. It's midnight, and the party is almost over. We need alternatives, and it doesn't look like one single thing will replace all the myriad uses of so wonderful a thing as petrol fuel.
Add to that, it seems like the fed is only interested in pushing for replacements for gas fuel that are doomed to fail right from the start, such as was the case with ethanol. It drives me nuts when I see them blowing tons of our cash on stupid things.
But they will anyway, and in a few years after it has a chance to shake out... we'll see the hydrogen fuel idea end up looking like this:
And the talking heads will yack about how silly the hydrogen fuel folly was, as they are starting to do about ethanol now.
I guess bullshit makes the flowers grow
I never said it was perfect, just the better of two not so great alternatives. I just think that, given some time and effort, straight electric cars have a much better chance of actually realizing some measure of success.
The billions of dollars we would spend to set up a hydrogen distribution system would buy a lot of batteries too, and also a lot of battery development research.
We hit the peak of the volume of possible annual production of petrol fuel a few years ago. At this point production volume can only go down. No amount of effort, technology, good politics, or nation-building is going to change that fact. The easy-to-get oil has already been gotten. Supply can only keep going down, while worldwide demand will only continue to rise. Petrol fuel costs can only do one thing: continue to go up. It's midnight, and the party is almost over. We need alternatives, and it doesn't look like one single thing will replace all the myriad uses of so wonderful a thing as petrol fuel.
Add to that, it seems like the fed is only interested in pushing for replacements for gas fuel that are doomed to fail right from the start, such as was the case with ethanol. It drives me nuts when I see them blowing tons of our cash on stupid things.
But they will anyway, and in a few years after it has a chance to shake out... we'll see the hydrogen fuel idea end up looking like this:
And the talking heads will yack about how silly the hydrogen fuel folly was, as they are starting to do about ethanol now.
I guess bullshit makes the flowers grow
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In Memory Walter K
- Senior Member
- Posts: 2912
- Joined: Jun 30th, '06, 21:25
- Location: East Hampton LI, NY
- Contact:
The key is/was/and always will be a nation wide distribution system which took the fuel companies 100 years to finally get in place. No alternative fuel system will be successful without it. In order for it even to happen, we have to be prepared to give the fuel companies an incentive to be those distribution points. Unfortunately, the way we work is we hate so intensely, it blinds us to the side effects of the "cures" we come up with...Ethanol being an example, thanks to our hate of the Arab Oil Cartels, which by the way, we created. Presently, we hate the fuel companies. So much so, that most of them became "International" to protect themselves and their profits. They did the exploration, the drilling, the refining etc. and now "we" don't want any of that done in our back yards. The wartime government came up with the Atomic Bomb, which led up to the creation of Atomic energy...again, what we don't seem to want in our back yards. The people we're not so crazy about have been using it safely for years ie: France, India, Germany, etc. Our Aircraft Carriers, Battleships, cruisers and submarines are all atomic powered. I don't see our sevicemen all being maimed by the powerplants in them. Electric cars? Where do you think all that power is going to come from? Right now fossil fuels...and on a grid system that will probably melt if everyone plugs in their cars at night.
Within the past ten years, look at the power EVERY family is drawing as opposed to the past. Every family has at least one computer plugged in 24/7, a printer, a few cell phones charging, a few big screen TV's, computer games, dvd systems, and appliances they didn't have or use before.
My present monthly electric bill is as much as my present fuel oil bill is...the two of them being more than my mortgage payments were. What do you think your electric bill will be when everyone's plugging in cars? We have to get realistic, we have to stop hating and being jealous, and we have to realize that as long as the population of the world continues expanding at it's present rate, we're in a self destruct mode. That doesn't sound nice, but as I said earlier, we have to be realistic. Demand without supply makes for a lot of bad things. (If you're a student of history, you'll discover that the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor because we cut off their fuel supplies as an attempt to control their expansion in Asia). We have to work WITH the fuel and power companies if we want relief in our lifetimes. I like to think I'm a conservationalist, too. It took a UVI to make me see that Oil Rigs in the Gulf BRING fish into an area. There's no free lunch, guys. Everything comes at a price. Walter
Within the past ten years, look at the power EVERY family is drawing as opposed to the past. Every family has at least one computer plugged in 24/7, a printer, a few cell phones charging, a few big screen TV's, computer games, dvd systems, and appliances they didn't have or use before.
My present monthly electric bill is as much as my present fuel oil bill is...the two of them being more than my mortgage payments were. What do you think your electric bill will be when everyone's plugging in cars? We have to get realistic, we have to stop hating and being jealous, and we have to realize that as long as the population of the world continues expanding at it's present rate, we're in a self destruct mode. That doesn't sound nice, but as I said earlier, we have to be realistic. Demand without supply makes for a lot of bad things. (If you're a student of history, you'll discover that the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor because we cut off their fuel supplies as an attempt to control their expansion in Asia). We have to work WITH the fuel and power companies if we want relief in our lifetimes. I like to think I'm a conservationalist, too. It took a UVI to make me see that Oil Rigs in the Gulf BRING fish into an area. There's no free lunch, guys. Everything comes at a price. Walter
The advantage to hydrogen fuel cells is that you don't have to wait overnight to charge the thing. Electric cars are fine about town, but on the road they are handicapped by range and charge time. Something in between that used batteries around town and hydrogen on the road may be more practical (relatively speaking). You are still left with the electricity generation problem either way. Put on your tin hat and go figure out "cold fussion"!! (and, by the way, can you check on the Locke Ness Monster while you are at it?) LOL
Rawleigh
1966 FBC 31
1966 FBC 31
I understand all that you said. And as I said, neither one is ever going to completely replace the petrol fueled automobile. The limited range problem is well known. Despite that, the electric car could replace some gas-powered cars for some people, some of the time, and that is my point. Hydrogen power is going to have a much harder (or impossible) time accomplishing even this little goal.Rawleigh wrote:The advantage to hydrogen fuel cells is that you don't have to wait overnight to charge the thing. Electric cars are fine about town, but on the road they are handicapped by range and charge time. Something in between that used batteries around town and hydrogen on the road may be more practical (relatively speaking). You are still left with the electricity generation problem either way. Put on your tin hat and go figure out "cold fussion"!! (and, by the way, can you check on the Locke Ness Monster while you are at it?) LOL
If they worked well and were available, I would consider buying an electric car to use around town. Most places I typically go are less than 20 miles away. I also would never sell my gas-powered pickup truck, which I would be keep for longer distances and for hauling things. This is how it could be reducing petrol fuel consumption right now.
And where should all this future electric power come from? Nukes.
I sure do wish that my tin foil worked so well that I could come up with cold fusion. I could motor around town all day while burning a banana peel.
BTW the loch ness monster was a hoax. The picture from the 1930's was a toy submarine with a fake head on it. The old man who did it as a kid admitted to it (and proved that he did it) before he died. Very inspiring...
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