Posted on 11/14/2002 4:43:46 AM PST by BigWaveBetty
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) - Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (news - web sites) released a "roadmap" Tuesday for putting fuel cells in the nation's cars and trucks, further committing the United States to a hydrogen-based transportation system.
"Creating the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle of the future presents complex technical challenges," he told business leaders at the Global Forum on Personal Transportation in the hometown of Ford Motor Co. "Overcoming them will take an intensive and equally complex effort — but it will be worth it because the stakes really are so high."
The Department of Energy (news - web sites) and the nation's leading car and oil companies began work one year ago on a "National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap," Abraham said.
Abraham was holding a closed-door meeting later Tuesday with the heads of the chief executives of some of the nation's leading businesses, including Ford, General Motors Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp., as well as the leaders of American, Northwest and Southwest airlines.
Fuel cells use a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity. When pure hydrogen is used, the only tailpipe emission is water vapor.
The technology could have two big benefits: sharply cutting America's dependence on oil imports from an unstable Middle East and reducing the production of greenhouse gases widely blamed for global warming (news - web sites).
But fuel-cell technology is not expected to be widely available until the end of the decade at least.
Critics say the Bush administration and auto industry are using fuel cell research as a way to fend off calls for vehicles that get more miles per gallon.
"The whole business about fuel cell vehicles is just political theater," said analyst David Healy of Burnham Securities.
He said a much better way to reduce oil consumption is through gas-electric vehicles, some of which already are on the road.
"WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD: BILL CLINTON'S HARLEM" passes by the Schomburg Center, the Apollo Theater and the former president's office. Meets tomorrow and Sunday at 1 p.m. on the southwest corner of Malcolm X Boulevard and 135th Street. Fee, $12. Information: (888) 377-4455.
I visited San Francisco once - when will they to name a walking tour in that town after me?
_________________
More on the pathetic pile of sawdust that used to be AlGore, including this bizarre description of what it was like to be Al Gore on Sept. 11, 2001:
Gore's daughter Karenna was in Manhattan. The Internet experts patched him in to a remote phone connection with Tipper, who told him Karenna was okay, and then the two of them sat, thousands of miles apart, and watched the horror.
"Al, those towers are going to collapse," Tipper said.
"No, they're not," Gore told her.
The towers collapsed. And then, like so many people, Gore felt the need to call people. He called New York Gov. George Pataki, he called Mayor Rudy Giuliani, he called Sen. Hillary Clinton, he called Sen. Charles Schumer. He tried to call Bill Clinton, who was in Australia, but couldn't reach him. And then he set about trying to get back home.
"It became like 'Groundhog Day,' the movie," says Gore. "Every morning I would get up and start the routine of trying to get out."
All flights to the United States were grounded, so Gore asked his hosts, which included the Austrian government, to get him to North America. Eventually he got on a flight to Canada, where the Mounties drove him over the closed border into the United States.
In Buffalo, he and an aide rented a car, intending to drive to Washington for the service at National Cathedral. Along the way he tried to give blood, but was turned away. There was a surplus. There was nothing--not even plasma [Or, in his case, sap] --his country needed from him.
While he and the aide were driving, Bill Clinton called. He'd been flown to the United States on military transport, and was now at home in New York. Bush was sending a plane to take him to National Cathedral. Why didn't Gore drive to Chappaqua and fly down with him?
Clinton gave him directions to get to the house, so that's where Gore went, arriving in the middle of the night. Clinton had waited up. He was doing some renovating, with the result that there was a refrigerator on the front porch.
"Al arrives at about 3:30 in the morning, sees the refrigerator on the porch, and the first thing he says is, 'I see you've managed to bring a little bit of Arkansas to New York,' " Clinton recalled in a statement for this article. "And I knew that after all he'd been through, he hadn't lost his sense of humor." full story, WashPost.
I don't know. I've never seen such a collection of losers and whiners.
I love FR, even if I am FReepin' a lot less than I used to, but it isn't my life!
It's such a unique phenomenom, people who leave FR because they are either booted out or get disgusted by it, go elsewhere and spend all their time talking about what's going on in FR!!!
Anyway, I stopped in to congratulate The Guild on this incredible power you all wield, and to ask you for a favor.
Could you all use this influence and power to make Gore just go away and shut up?
Thanks.
Your wish is our command. However, this will be no easy task. It will take at least until September '04 if we're lucky, November '04 if we're not.
Either way he'll be toast by Jan. 20, 2005.
Working hard for you!
There was a post election pool party? Nobody invited me! It wasn't at my house, I had just finished giving you a birthday pool party. Wahhhhhhh! Nobody likes me!
Me, me, me, it's all about ME!
I don't think I'll be going on the cruise... don't like the big boat thing. You all take lots of pictures though and bring something back for ME. ;-)
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