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To: Carry_Okie
Most of which require more energy than they produce, especially photovoltaics.

Most of which? Alright then lets look at those which produce more energy than they produce. Let's begin with Aluminum Fuel Cells. Unless you have something else you'd rather we look into.

84 posted on 11/10/2001 8:54:10 PM PST by d4now
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To: d4now; snopercod
I was watching experiments in aluminum-air technology in the late '70s (I'm fuzzy on the date). LLL had a running car and took it to LA, requiring only added water. I was impressed at the time, until I learned more. (See? And you thought I hadn't thought about it...)

It takes large amounts of electricity to refine aluminum. The energy for the necessary, highly-purified water doesn't come cheap either. That's why it costs $900 per kilowatt, even for a stationary system (the current goal is $800). Oh, and go get that copper mine and how about the rare-earths for the magnets? (Then there's the $50,000 baseline for a car. I guess you just don't care that much about the little people, they can ride mass transit into their sustainable development hell-holes.) I don't think you are going to get a lot of takers unless gasoline is far more expensive and the system far more developed (which is of course what the people who are pushing both simultaneously want). The alum-air portable power packs currently in development are perhaps a good application.

I think you'll see cars and rural stationary electric generation running off propane fuel cells first, and that is with platinum catylists. Propane has higher energy density and is much safer to transport and store. It has existing distribution. Ballard has a long head start and a lot of backing from the same pack of crooks. BTW, where are you going to mine all that bauxite, copper, and rare-earth minerals? Russia? China? Where? Our mines have been shut down by those self-same RICOnuts, unless the owners are Europeans.

IMO, the ONLY reason you will see such technologies is that the crooks in charge of manipulating the body politic make more money on them. They could never compete with nuclear on cost unless the lawyers they have in their pay were making it uneconomic. To justify those alternatives they had to make electrical power a LOT more expensive because the industry kept finding all that nasty oil and prices were too low for their taste. Hence the California Power Crisis, and yes, it was the same batch of clowns that made it happen. As a result, $900/KW is starting to look like something less than a complete boondoggle. Have you ever wondered why John Bryson was running SCE?

90 posted on 11/10/2001 9:51:16 PM PST by Carry_Okie
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