Republicans Plan a Hydrogen Economy—at Your Expense

Village Voice ^ | 5/28/03 | Mark Baard

[pcx99]

On a sunny Saturday morning 30 years from now, you may decide to take your family for a ride to the country. You'll still be driving a car, and you may still get stuck in traffic. But that's OK, because the only thing you'll be breathing in is water vapor from the car in front of you.

[pcx99]

The article isn't as bad as the lead headline would indicate. While there's a standard liberal anti-nuclear slant to the article there's a lot of good talking points.

I do take umberage with the quote that all the world's nuclear waste could fit in a two story building the size of a basketball court, as you can see from this picture of just one storage site the problem is a bit more pronounced: http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0207/feature1/zoom4.html

National geographic also did an excellent investigation called "half-life" which, unfortuantely, is not available on-line although you can get a snipit of the article here: http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0207/feature1/index.html

Additional (and sometimes informative) information can be found on a slashdot thread here: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/28/149239&mode=thread&tid=134

[Arkie2]

Please correct a possible misconception I may have. I believe water vapor is the greatest greenhouse gas. If that is so the "hydrogen economy" is a mirage. I believe I must be wrong but it seems I've heard this multiple times.

[lelio]

That's an interesting picture from Paducah, KY.
Its hard to gauge the size of each container, happen to know the physical size? Each holds 14 tons of depleted uranium, meaning that it would take over 500k of them to hold all our 770,000 tons of DU. Course you could use some of that to make bullets.

Not to start a flame war, but both Paducah, KY and Columbine, CO (Rocky Flats) are next to nuclear faclities. Coincidence that they were the site of high school shootings? Who knows. I know I wouldn't want a nuclear waste facility in my backyard.

[narby]

Scientists have not yet designed a nuclear facility whose safety and efficiency trumps that of gas or coal.

Oh, really? So how many people die in coal mining accidents? How many people get cancer from the radon gas from the coal? How many people die in gas drilling accidents?

Nothing is risk free.

Any greenie who is against nuclear is either uneducated, or is just a commie in green clothing.

[narby]

. I believe water vapor is the greatest greenhouse gas.

It is. But how much will be generated over and above what the sun already does with the 2/3rds of the earths surface covered with water? And how fast will it condense in rain?

I don't know these answers, but I would guess that the extra water is microscopic compared with natural water vapor.

[Arkie2]

That doesn't stop the Greens from complaining about other trace gasses that man puts out that nature exceeds by a large amount.

[Steely Tom]

Nothing is risk free.

Ummm...

You've got two choices. Build some nuclear plants to generate energy, or keep sending billions of dollars a month to people who are sworn to wipe us off the face of the earth.

Which is the lower risk?

(steely)

[narby]

Not to start a flame war, but both Paducah, KY and Columbine, CO (Rocky Flats) are next to nuclear faclities. Coincidence that they were the site of high school shootings?

I guess man made radiation locked up in a remote waste storage area(as different from the huge amount of natural radiation we all get every day) is some kind of bad karma or something.

[narby]

I've got to agree. Facts never slowed down the left before.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[rightofrush]

I'm glad that I had the patience to read your analysis or I would have really unloaded at you.

That all depends, of course, on how you define "cleanly." To extract hydrogen from water—to get the H out of the H2O—you first have to make steam. The modular nuclear plants would do that without polluting the air, but would also leave behind radioactive waste.

Nuclear waste is an oxymoron! Fuel rods use, at most, 10-15% of their fissionable component, and contain plutonium 239 that is a fissionable by-product as well other isotopes that are useful in medicine, medical and biological research, with the rest providing a source of heat that could be used for fish farming, etc.

[WFTR]

It would be better if people were allowed to make real money from generating power. Then companies would invest their own research dollars in order to enjoy the rewards of their own good ideas.

WFTR
Bill

[Ten Megaton Solution]

You've got two choices. Build some nuclear plants to generate energy, or keep sending billions of dollars a month to people who are sworn to wipe us off the face of the earth.

You forgot the third option: Kill the people who are sworn to wipe us away and take the oil they won't be needing anymore.

[Ten Megaton Solution]

Nice article. I forget the left used so many cliches when in it's anti-nuclear panic mode. And now there's the "terrorism" angle to scare even more of the ignorant masses that have kept lawyers rich and oil companies happy since 1979.

Oh, yeah, the NIMBY's will be out in force if the industry ever tried to install "thousands" of mini-nuke plants around the country.

Perhaps the power companies could get together and take all their nuclear generating facilities off-line simultaneously, just for a day or so? Lets see how the NIMBY's like watching a dark TV by candle light.

[Ten Megaton Solution]

What? Have companies sell bonds and repay them through profits? Letting the investors take the risk that maybe the venture would fail? What an EEVIL capitalist notion for an EEVIL insdustry.

Certainly all good green socialists would hate the success of capitalism even more than nuclear power, and would demand that taxpayers be nailed to the wall to pay for it, if it has to be done.

The one thing a greenie hates more than a non-greenhouse gas emitting non-acid rain causing fuel self-regenerating high density power source is PROFIT. Socialists hate PROFIT more than anything else.

Unless it's a stock they own, of course.

[Dr Warmoose]

What? Have companies sell bonds and repay them through profits?

Some of the reasons why energy companies aren't investing in nukes are an anti-nuclear culture, over litigous and superstitious society, irrational public, and the plain fact that fossil fuels are relatively cheap, plentiful, and an infrastructure to handle it already exists. Some of you folks believe that Bush walks on water, but I fail to see him pulling off the miracle of silencing the watermelons, trial lawyers, NIMBYs, BANANAs, and creating ex nihilo cheap nuclear material and the wealth of security that must guard such installations, and don't forget R&D, hiring and training, and the all important insurance.

I can see why abandoning fossil fuels is something the powers that be are seeking. Foremost is political advantage, second is that while the united States transforms into a third world nation, India and China are emerging powers with a soon to be realized insatiable appetite for energy which is practically at their back door. As the US turns into a powerless nation, it will damned hard to get past +2 billion people who are getting used to their new prosperity and improved standard of living.

The only redeeming thing about this is that after implementing this new technology, we can demand a revisting of the Kyoto agreements and threaten to shut down China and India's powerful industrial machine. Of course, China will tell the world to F--- off and the US will be forced to give them the technology free of charge.

[nathanbedford]

Wasnt carson or her huby a certified communist? Do you have anything on this?

[Ten Megaton Solution]

I suspect, before its all over, that the United States will be burning its most abundant fuel to keep the lights on - lawyes and their paperwork.,P>We might use them up by making them blow on windmills. That should be reliable source of wind.

[rightofrush]

We might use them up by making them blow on windmills. That should be reliable source of wind.

Teddy Kennedy could double their output all by himself.

[cartoonistx]

"Scientists have not yet designed a nuclear facility whose safety and efficiency trumps that of gas or coal."

More people have died in coal mines and gas explosions than in nuke plant disasters with the exception of Chernobel, a criminally run Progressive/Soviet Rube Goldburg contraption devoid of safety controls normally found in facilities operated by sane companies.