Posted on 02/19/2003 10:23:56 AM PST by MurryMom
True The correct answer is False. Go back to school. Take physical chemistry and pay particular attention to the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
Thought I read that lH2 was used because of highest available energy for any liquid fuel (by weight).
Thank you. It's worth recalling that when JFK challenged America to put a man on the moon in less than a decade the telephone in your home was a simple rotary dial device with positively ancient technology inside and the highest tech item you owned was probably a laughable (by today's standards) black and white television.
Anyone with half-a-brain or who knew ANYTHING about this subject knows that any hydrogen fuel cell car will use liquid fuels (gasoline or possibly methanol) and will have an onboard reformer to convert the liquid fuel to hydrogen on demand. This would of course solve the problem of infrastructure, who will refuel the car, etc. that the author is so happy to point out.
Any environmentalist whack-o that would tell the truth would admit that such a system will reduce pollution in that a) both fuels will, by necessity, be sulfur-free (no SOx emissions) and no internal combustion means no NOx emissions. Both of these, as I'm sure you already knew, are what cause acid rain.
Factor in the spinoffs which will inevitably occur from the R&D dollars already being expended on this by private industry and I think it would be obvious that this is going to be a winner.
The "stupid cowboy" Bush strikes again.
That's easy, MurryMom, both major political factions of the Republicrat Party have been derelict in their duty to develop a responsible and comprehensive America First! Energy Policy for the last 30 years.
Friends, neither Beltway party is going to drain this swamp, because to them it is not a swamp at all, but a protected wetland and their natural habitat. They swim in it, feed in it, spawn in it.-- Patrick J. Buchanan, "A Plague on Both Your Houses"
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Reflecting their totalitarian, command-economy, communist roots, the environuts have systematicly placed development of our own domestic energy resources off limits. Transnational corporate globalists like Dubya merely ignore their buffoonery and move offshore, leaving our nation hostage to the whacknut demands and evermore dependent on imports.
To maintain our liberty and independence, there are a variety of policies that we should be pursuing. First and foremost would be a flat revenue tariff of 10~15% on ALL imported goods, including oil. That would significantly motivate development of ALL domestic sources of energy production.
On the consumption side, we could also significantly reduce our petroleum consumption, NOT by defying the laws of physics and imposing extremist "efficiency" levels on which there are diminishing returns of investment, but by employing technology that is currently available. Construction of modern, efficient, electriclly powered mass-transportation systems (light rail, high-speed rail and Maglev) in our nation's most densely populated regions and urban areas would provide an efficient and competitive transportation alternative that utilizes an energy source other than petroleum. And the vast quanitites of electricity necessary to offset the petroleum consumption could easily be provided by nuclear power.
Sounds good, but where does all that water go? Could raise the oceans and wipe out coastlines! (You know that's coming -- they're printing up the protest signs right now).
Electricity can be generated in many, many ways,
including using gerbils to drive hundreds of millions of tiny treadmill generators.
It's just that not all ways of generating electricity are commercially viable.
More energy is put into manufacturing flashlight batteries than what the batteries can produce. So does that make flashlight batteries a bad deal?
Think about it for a minute and you will understand why you can't say that energy in vs. energy out equation is the only way to measure the value of a potential source. If we can convert wind, solar, tidal, biomass or nuclear energy, or a combination of them, into a potable fuel source, the economics could very well make a lot of sense.
I don't know if it will happen, but I do know for a fact that fuel cell technology has reached the stage were it makes a lot of sense to start serious R&D of the hydrogen fuel cycle.
The scale of flashlight batteries is a bit different from that of automobiles. The two can hardly be compared.
Do you run your car on flashight batteries? You could technically.
PEM fuel cells use a Pt catalyst. PEM isn't the only fuel cell chemistry which works well, though... They just happen to have most of the advertising money.
In 1919, Goddard published a short book titled "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes." It garnered some attention, not all positive. In an editorial, The New York Times haughtily dismissed his notion that a rocket could work in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere, saying Goddard "seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."
Goddard defended himself and told one reporter that "every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it." In 1969, as Apollo 11 raced through space and three days before it landed on the moon, the Times printed a correction.
After we're done, I'll expect to receive your written apology. ;-)
Hmm. Since water is made up of hydrogen, why not just recycle it? Get the hydrogen from your own wastewater!
... where is that marketing department phone number? ...
< sarcasm OFF>
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