Bush Could Usher in Hydrogen Age as Kennedy Did Space Age

glennsacks.com ^ | Tuesday, January 28, 2003 | Glenn Sacks

[harpseal]

Compared to just about any other means of cheap transportable energy like say an internal combustion engine or even steam turbine it is massively efficient. I do not recall any of the other means of energy production and storage that even approach this level of efficency perhaps you could enlighten me

[SAJ]

Never bother dreamers with details...tch, tch. (sigh)

[goldstategop]

This from the same people who announced space flight was impossible. Tch, tch, tch... :)

[Constantine XIII]

BUt the H won't be stored in a simple presurized tank, it will be suspended in a substrate, which will limit the fuel's exposute to air.

That's what I've heard, anyway!

[The Old Hoosier]

Yeah--currently the nuke plants' power is basically wasted at night, since you can't just "turn it off." It could be used instead to separate hydrogen from oxygen.

[Moonman62]

The oil companies wouldn't go out of business. They'd simply get into the hydrogen fuel market.

Not necessarily. Many fuel cells run on fossil fuels. They have an advantage because investors and entrpreneurs in the private markets see an advantage to using an already existent, robust distribution network.

[Moonman62]

The market just needs a shove and the technology will be there in a form consumers will want to buy. It simply has to produce the stuff.

The market is already producing the stuff. It's the government that needs a shove.

The Soviet Union tried for decades to tell the consumers what they wanted to buy. It didn't work out.

[Fabozz]

"[C]urrently the nuke plants' power is basically wasted at night, since you can't just 'turn it off.'"

Nukes, like all other base-load plants, never "waste" power—the difference between peak and base load is much less than you think, because air conditioning and interior lighting (which make up the bulk of that difference) are very efficient these days. Sources like nuclear, hydro and big coal plants pretty much run at capacity just to serve the base load; it's only the natural-gas and oil plants, and not even all of those, that get to idle down off-peak.

There is no magical pool of idle generating capacity ready to electrolyze large amounts of hydrogen. If there were, believe me, the utilities would be doing exactly that already. Peak-load plants are the most expensive ones per megawatt to build and operate, and utility companies will do anything to smooth out the load. Shifting to a hydrogen infrastructure will require a huge expansion of base-load capacity, and unless we're willing to burn more coal and oil that means nuclear power.

[hove]

Where does Bush propose that we get all this hydrogen. Oh yeah.....fossil fuels.

[HiTech RedNeck]

When I heard him make reference to a child born today could leqarn to drive in a hydrogen powered car I immediately thought of JFK's challenge to ge to the moon before the end of the 60's.

And we did go to the moon, but now what? It's not as if we have American Moonlines flights leaving O'Hare every day.

[Dark Knight]

You are exactly correct and a working model, with a test done in Death Valley, was in Car and Driver last year.

http://caranddriver.com/xp/Caranddriver/features/2002/august/200208_feature_natrium.xml?keywords=hydrogen

It's not pie in the sky and there are several safe and waiting technologies just waiting to separate us and OPEC. If they did not sell us oil, how much do you think they would be asking for sand?

DK

[ppaul]

:

The Hydrogen Age.....

:

[Tom D.]

Kennedy's primary motovation for the space program was to create an infant market for what are now computer chips. While going to the moon was a big deal, it pales in comparison with what we are now doing with silicon waffers.

[The Wizard]

I agree

[hopespringseternal]

Oh, great. Another parade of morons who don't know the difference between energy production and energy storage.

[MichaelP]

(5) Funds to find and perfect the optimum method of hydrogen fuel production.

Check out Hydro Enviro at OTC HYVR.OB

Mike

[Petronski]

An excellent post, mrsmith. Hydrogen is only a battery, and not a panacea. Insofar as hydrogen use could bring a rebirth of nuclear, I'm all for it. But Hydrogen produced with coal-powered electricity is a wash, enviromentally speaking.

[Jhensy]

Someone clue this non-scientist in: Wasn't the dirty little secret of electric cars that air-conditioning was impossible? Same thing with these hydros?

[republicanwizard]

Maybe that isn't such a bad idea. :)