The Bussard Collectors are what gives the warp nacelles the red glow in the front, these Collectors gather hydrogen to be used for fuel. If the Federation can do it, so can the USA!!!
Posted on 05/07/2003 11:54:50 AM PDT by Jack of all Trades
I would hope the engine is still in good shape after 100k miles. I had an olds with a v8 diesel for a few months. If it had been a better build engine it sure would have been something. The car was so over powered and had a lock in transmission that it refused to drive below 60. There was no way to push the throttle soft enough to keep it under about 68 on the highway.
The reality is that it's a systems engineering problem: what engine/fuel/infrastructure combination is the optimal solution, considering physical and political (=economical) constraints. The cost of just about any physical device is almost entirely driven by production volume barring the necessity for some wildly difficult material cost (which IS a consideration for some fuel cell devices, but not necessarily the critical one).
As far as access to oil goes, let's see now...$55 billion and 300 American lives for Gulf War I....eventually $200 billion for GWII....did I forget 3000 people dead on 9/11? How much DOES it cost for us to be involved politically and economically in the Muslim world? And what would it be worth to get off oil as the primary fuel?
And one last. Why is it that people who have no problem believing that me and my fellow Aerospace Engineers can build a Space Based Strategic Defense System to knock down incoming nuclear re-entry vehicles (which we most certainly CAN do), but believe that we are incapable of coming up with a transportation system that gets us off of oil?
The reality is it's a physics problem. You get less energy out than you put in.
Does your car burn raw crude? No? Then refining capacity is an issue. All the oil in the world won't help if it can't be turned into something useful. The EPA is forcing the export of our refining capacity overseas, often in parts of the world that don't particularly like us and export terrorists back to thank us for the favor.
The Bussard Collectors are what gives the warp nacelles the red glow in the front, these Collectors gather hydrogen to be used for fuel. If the Federation can do it, so can the USA!!!
Wow. Great argument: the energy balance doesn't work out because...because...we might have to use electricity from nukes to crack water? So? So big deal. Beat's the crap out of what we're doing now.
Space Based Strategic Defense System? I believe it can be done, but bragging about it beforehand is a little out of place.
Neither would I find calling myself an aerospace engineer a point of pride given the lack of any meaningful space transportation infrastructure.
And if you think Hydrogen is the ticket off oil, no wonder our space industry is non-existant. Where do you think the hydrogen will come from?
Maybe the Easter bunny can fart it out.
Oil. That is why it is called "energy production". You get more out than you put in.
Wow. Great argument: the energy balance doesn't work out because...because...we might have to use electricity from nukes to crack water? So? So big deal. Beat's the crap out of what we're doing now.
Fine, when does the reactor construction start? I assume congress is repealing all the laws making nuclear power economically unfeasible as we speak? The great irony: These idiots pining away for hydrogen cars who are violently anti-nuke.
Uhhh....millions of years of solar energy. And your point is???
Wow. Great argument: the energy balance doesn't work out because...because...we might have to use electricity from nukes to crack water? So? So big deal. Beat's the crap out of what we're doing now.
Well, you're the first green to push for more nuclear energy, good for you. Nuclear is the only thing that makes sense to make hydrogen fuel.
Lot's, but that doesn't change the fact that Hydrogen is not a primary fuel.
Space Based Strategic Defense System? I believe it can be done, but bragging about it beforehand is a little out of place
If you don't think that significant portions of it are already in place, or at least being tested (successfully, I might add), then you ain't paying attention.
Neither would I find calling myself an aerospace engineer a point of pride given the lack of any meaningful space transportation infrastructure
Don't blame me for NASA and Congress' problems. My satellites work just fine, as do the Launch Vehicles that loft them! By the way...what part of American Aerospace do you have something to do with, and can you point to another country with a significantly better one?
Where do I think the Hydrogen will come from? Lotsa places. Just gotta pick the right one.
It's easier to extract hydrogen from oil than from gas and coal. That's why these articles tend not to mention them. Typically the anti-hydrogen articles pick on loopy wind-energy strawmen. Almost uniformly they call people foolish, quote "engineers", and talk about "energy inputs" avoiding the "energy inputs" converting oil into gasoline, and transporting the heavy fuel to markets.
We could build an artificial black hole in space and grab the hydrogen it attracts before it reaches the event horizon.
That's true with nearly every energy source. Internal combustion energy efficiency is what? Something less than 50%. A conventional coal-fired boiler is something less than 45%. Even the latest gas turbine co-generation plants a pushing it to get much above 50%.
The measure is what you put in versus the value of what you get out, and H2 as a transport fuel could have great "value" in the future. Gasoline has been a "great value" for transport fuel, but it would be way too expensive for use in generating electricity for the grid. It's the application of the fuel that determines it's value.
Wind and solar energy are not only too expensive for generating electricity for the grid, but they are far to unreliable. Their low availability rates means that they really don't displace any of the conventional means of generating electricity. They are not much more than a nuisance for grid operations. But they could be very valuable used as an energy source for generating H2. Don't attach them to the grid --- when the wind blows or the sun shines, send their power directly to the cracking plant.
Granted, there are a number of other technical challenges in creating an H2 transport system, but this "it takes more energy than what it contains" mantra is not a reason to back off.
And this reduces our dependence on oil how????
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