hydrogen fuel is more expensive and just as harmful as gasoline. hybrids/electrics are the way to go. 91 octane is $2.46/gal here in northern cali.
Darryl, I like all your ideas and visions. They are all winners except possibly for one. The windmills are friggin ugly man. There was just a blurb on the news last night about a farm in England where they put these things up and people are sueing because it's so ultra obtrusive. I mean, it reminds me of the steel high tension structures on the New Jersey Turnpike. From when I was a little kid, I used to call them "Godzillas." :grin: Anyway, I know nobody lives in the desert for the most part, but the landscape would be forever destroyed. (No I'm not a tree hugger) but the solar power, now that is more appealing to me. Huge solar panels do not have to be 350 feet high. There was even talk of putting those gigantor windmills out at sea off Massachusettes I think. They superimposed a pic of a sea of these things out in the ocean and it was fugly at best, not to mention a seaman's navigation hazard. Planes? Well, if Ted Kennedy ever gets in the cockpit, I guess it wouldn't matter if the windmills were there or not. :laugh: Either way, the whole idea sounds plausible. It is definitely something to pass along to your senator, but also stress that you are a musclecar fan and that your interests also lie with being able to continue to enjoy that. I would just maybe add some links to some of the facts you are citing.
ken im no expert on pollution but i remember reading that hydrogen powered cars use the hydrogen to power the cars and what comes out of the exhaust is carbon dioxide? or somthing to that effect. basically the experts say that if hyrdrogen powered cars where as widely used as gasoline engines they would produce enough green house gasses to pollute just as much as gasoline engines.
Start here: http://www.phoenixproject.net/ Nothing I have said is new news, nor is it un-known to our elected officials. The true problem lies in the fact that big business, particularly oil, has it's hands sooooo deep into the governments pockets.... For god sakes, where did 'Prez Bush's money come from in the first place????? OIL!!!!!!!!!
To get back on topic, gas prices will only ever rise. 39 cents will never ever happen. that idea would work only on the thought that all of the gas has been pumped and is sitting in storage, then there would be a set supply and as demand fell (as a ratio to supply) then price ould indeed fall. But, the price is set by a fluctuating supply. Ie when less is needed less would be pumped keeping the price the same. In fact as demand fell,Gas would become a "specialty" item, much like say GS grills, there by inflating prices. Nice idea, but it won't work. With ANY electric only car, they would be hampered in the winter due to decreased power in cold weather.
Hydrogen and oxygen only produce water Sorry but the information you read must of been in error or for some other fuel. It's impossible to create Carbon dioxide from Hydrogen. The only byproduct from burning hydrogen is Water. Lets break it down so you can understand what I mean... Hydrogen (H) is the simplest known chemical element. An atom of hydrogen is one electron (- charge) orbiting one proton (+ charge). Hydrogen is found in all organic compounds, and a whole bunch of minerals too. In deep space, hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe! Its pure form is hydrogen gas, H2, a colorless, odorless, invisible gas. Hydrogen gas is much, much lighter than air. It's also highly flammable in the presence of oxygen - hydrogen burns to form water (H2O), which without question is the most important hydrogen compound on Earth. So Hydrogen naturally occurs as two Hydrogen molecules hanging out together. (kinda like roommates) Oxygen (O) is made up of 8 electrons orbiting 8 protons and 8 neutrons. This is the most common form of Oxygen floating around. But Oxygen is a very lonely atom and it will eagerly shack up with many other atoms very quickly with no reservations and with almost no engagement period. For example when Ms. Oxygen meets Mr. Iron the two will quickly move in together to form Ironoxide, otherwise known as RUST (oxide means oxygen). Whenever you drink Water your drinking "dihydrogen oxide". What exactly is dihydrogen oxide you say? It is the immoral marriage of 2 Hydrogen atoms with 1 Oxygen atom, otherwise known as "WATER". So to my point, when you "burn" Hydrogen, your actually just combining it (in an accelerated rate) with Oxygen, and they form WATER. Now, In order to have Carbon dioxide (CO2) you need to have a Carbon atom. Where do you suppose Mr. Carbon comes from? Nowhere! Since there is no Carbon atom present. Carbon just doesn't pop out of thin air. So the information about hydrogen fueled cars putting out carbon dioxide as exhaust is TOTALLY fictitious. There are no hydrogen atoms in carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is made up of 1 carbon atom and 2 oxygen atoms. Just for giggles and FYI, Carbon monoxide(CO) is made up of 1 carbon atom and 1 oxygen atom, but this team is not very happy and so they eagerly look for one more oxygen atom to join them to make them happy Hence your Catalytic Converter, which is kind of like a online dating service and priest combined; but much more effective. Did you (meaning anyone) realize that people and all animals are MAJOR producers of carbon dioxide pollution? How do they get away with that? Maybe we should write our congressman to put a stop to all this CO2 pollution. This is an outrage!! How can we live with ourselves? I would question your "experts" Bryon, it sounds like they are not too informed, or they could be employed by Shell, or Exxon, or maybe even Chevron????? :spank: You know they would be TOTOALLY impartial and if you believe that I have some oceanside property in Arizona I'd like to sell you. :Brow: Of course I mean this only in a friendly, just-to-poke-fun-and-laugh-with-me way. :laugh: :beer :beer :laugh: :TU:
Darryl- I'm no expert, but I have done a fair bit of reading on the subject of alternative fuels. I for one would love to be able to drive a 500 horse hydrogen-powered car that I can refuel in my garage. Heck, I've even priced out solar panels for the south-facing roof on my garage. I can tell you too are passionate about the subject, and you make some good points. Based on what I have read, however, there are two real problems with Hydrogen's use as a motor fuel that haven't really ever been addressed: 1) Most hydrogen gas is commercially produced by cracking it from fossil fuels such as propane and butane using steam. So, even if your car is just burning H2, odds are that a lot of C3H8 or C4H10 was consumed to make that tankful, and a bunch of CO and CO2 was produced in the process. 2) It also takes a lot of energy to get that tankful of H2 in the first place; far more than the tankful of H2 itself is capable of producing. Part of this is due to the energy needed to produce the H2, and part is due to the transportation and storage requirements of the fuel. In that sense, H2 is both costly and inefficient. It takes a lot of energy to make a tankful of gasoline too, but there is a net gain at the end because it takes less energy to make the gasoline than the gasoline itself produces. Until we can come up with cheap ways to produce Hydrogen directly from the air or the seas, I can't see it becoming a viable everyday fuel like petroleum. As a footnote, problem #2 is one of the biggest reasons why Solar energy has not taken off too. It takes more energy to make an efficient photovoltaic solar panel than the panel is capable of producing over its lifetime. Until we figure out ways to make efficient cells cheaply and without using much power, Solar probably won't take off either. - Freed
Hope yall don't mind me chiming in but I was checking a few years ago and complete hybrid solar systems were going for around 10k to power a medium sized house over 90% of the time. The rest of the time the system switched back to the normal grid. With regular maintenance the only thing that should be wearing out is the storage cells and with an average 125$ a month electric bill it would take around 6 and a half years to recoup the initial 10k investing in the system minus maintenance costs. Thats assuming that there is not over useage output getting fed back into the grid. People have told me you get paid for this but I dunno. Of course I'd rather have a hydrogen reactor in the basement powering the whole block. Fryes has a hydrogen power kit for bout 100 bucks that powers a little model kit and also aren't there quite a few city busses using hydrogen power? Thanks
Hey saw this site, check out this electric car-http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_home.htm
Darryl, Think about what you have stated above. It costs US billions to keep the "gasoline monster running" and that the oil companies "are not losing money on anything" So my question would be, if there are PEOPLE (We, Us) paying to keep the current system running and the OIL COMPANIES are making billions upon billions in profit from US, why make the shift? They aren't stupid. If it ain't broke (for them) they aren't going to invest one dime to fix it. WE, US the PEOPLE will continue to buy their product regardless of the cost and they know it.
I'v been sitting in front of my computer for the past 15 minutes thinking of a "good come-back" to that line.... I'm probably going to loose some sleep tonight thinking of a better way I "could have" answered this, but,,,, Here goes: You are absolutely right.... After all, why should we bother to seek out new innovative low cost "clean and green" energy solutions when we've got good old dirty overpriced oil in the drivers seat right now????? All of the petro industry fat cats are getting richer by the barrel, and were footing the bill..... It aint broke, so why should THEY fix it.... Re-read that last line of my quote.... "Visionary leadership"...... That's exactly what it's going to take..... Either that, or $5.00 a gallon pump prices. Once we get either of those two, hydrogen will take off in a big way!
You DO get paid for the energy you feed back into the grid, but federal law requires you to carry a $1 million insurance policy to cover any damage you may do to their system.... Most people who have these PV systems feeding back onto the grid do not carry the liability coverage however, and are refered to as "pirates" Funny thing is, there has never been a single case of damage done to the grid caused by one of these systems,,, The energy companies force this issue however to keep people from getting a "free ride" while at the same time lowering their electric bills. :af:
Re: Hydrogen and oxygen only produce water That was a beautifully, well thought out post... You have been doing your home-work.... And you will be getting an A+ for this course:laugh: However, to pe perfectly fair, there IS infact a polluting by-product of burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine OXIDES OF NITROGEN Mr Cole, would you care to step to the front of the class, and tell us exactly what those are... And more importantly, if there is some sort of catyletic converter that could be used to eliminate this problem??? [hint-hint]
That's one way of doing it... But there's an easier way...:Brow: Simply run an electrical current thru plain simple water... While this is not the most economical way, it is infact the simplest. If we used large scale wind and solar to produce the energy required to produce hydrogen directly from water, both problems #1, and 2 are solved.
Freed, that's not quite true... PV systems are actually quite cheap to produce, but suffer from "other" set-backs that keep them from gaining large scale acceptance... More to the point however, as a child, did you ever use a magnifying glass to start small fires????? So are PV's the ONLY way to harness the solar power of the sun???? How about this one: Remember those big 10 foot diameter satellite dishes that were soo popular back in the 1980"s What if you shaped a 10 foot diamater mirror like a satellite dish, so it would focus all of it's solar power on a single point a few feet in front of the dish... Then, you put a pressure cooker just like granny uses to make canned gren-beans out there at that "focal point"... Next, you hook a tube to the top of that presure cooker to transfer all of the steam down to an old fashoned steam engine, just like an old steam powered choo-choo train,,, only much smaller. Do you follow where I'm going with this one???? OK, then... Instead of just one "sattelite dish", how about 40 or 50 of them feeding steam into one GIANT steam engine, or even a modern steam turbine just like they use at modern fossil fuel burning power plants. GET THE POINT?????? Now, seriously... Anyone living in the desert southwest with a couple of acres of land could set up one of these solar power plants, and being innovative and creative, could do it for just a few thousand dollars... All they would need is a computer program that would make the "satellite dishes" follow the sun all day, and a supply of a couple thousand gallons of water a day.... Or dont even use water, how about an expanding gas like freon??? OK, I'v said enough... I'll give someone else a turn
Darryl, THEY do have to fix it. My point was that as long as THEY are cashing in there is no incentive for them to change their game plan regardless of what the consumer thinks. This is true of all businesses. Why don't we see the car makers putting some real pressure on the oil companies? Remember WE buy gas to feed what the automakers produce. And what are we feeding? Big honkin 4WD SUV's that never leave pavement. And why do we own them? Because it's to keep up with the Jones next door. Greed breeds greed. It doesn't make all of this right. Regarding the price of gas, until we perfect the utilization of alternate sources, the tree huggers of this country better wake up and realize that we could be tapping into more of our own resources within our own borders. If not then we will continue to be at the mercy of OPEC. By the way, in the big oil business "visionary leadership" is an oxymoron. You don't need vision as long as what you are peddling makes money and the public keeps taking the bait. As P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute".
It seems to me there has to be a way to use magnets as a primary source of energy. My dream car uses magnetic force to spin each wheel as well as slow them down. No friction or emissions, just smooth, "effortless power" that is also silent. Magnetic charges could also be used for steering assistance. I think the two biggest problems would be (1) isolating the charges from interfering with other functions and (2) too much weight. It's, perhaps, a pipe dream at best.
That roots.. The MAN is trying to keep us down. i've read some pretty cool technical articles about the feasibility of a co-op type energy generation thats completely decentralized from any main grids. Kind of akin to the WiFi networking that has gotten so popular in silicon valley using inexpensive packet radio retransmitters. When I was a kid I always wondered why there wasn't some way to charge up a battery in your car while your out driving around and then be able to come home and plug it in to your house for use there. Mostly because I thought car batteries were allot more powerful than they really are. However lead acids in a bank of 6 connected to an inverter and being charged by several inline hi output car alternators spun by a windmill would be a pretty sweet low tech way of going about it. Operating costs would likely exceed any savings but it would still be neat. Maybe the shift will have to be more cultural than technological to occur since any existing alt power sources currently require careful monitoring, maintenance and even consumption limitations. Hard to beat the convenience of the current ' plug n pay ' system.
