Win-Win For the U.S. If we lead! (1 Viewer)

[NoMoreDems-Reps]

It looks like America is missing a great opportunity to be a world leader
in new technology! (Thanks to Big business/lobbyist, REPS, and DEMS)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12742338/

"
Do you want US $'s going to Terrorist
supporting countries? Or to stay in the U.S.
and benefit Americans ?? (It's a No Brainer).

The sooner we get Hydrogen & Electric cars as the standard in the U.S. the better
We’ll live!
1) Leaders of new technologies prosper followers don’t!
2) Pollution is bad! Hydrogen / Electric car don’t pollute.
3) The earth’s Oil is not unlimited.
4) We rely on others for oil. With Hydrogen others will rely on us. (If we are Leaders #1)
5) We can sit here calling names or push OUR Politicians to create new energy sources.
(Does anyone remember CFC’s? People can make change)


http://www.hydrogen-cars.biz/hydrogen-fuel-stations.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4563676
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3675760.stm
http://news-service.stanford.edu/new...en-071305.html

 

[faithful_servant]

Hydrogen technonlogy is dicey at best. It requires substantially more energy to extract it than it yields and it can be pretty hazardous. If you ever see a fire-fighter approaching a fire with a broom held in front in of them, it's a pretty safe bet that it's a hydrogen fire. Hydrogen produces no visible flame when it burns under normal conditions and the fire-fighter only knows where the fire is by when the broom catches fire. No fire-fighter I know would support hydrogen as a fuel source for this very reason.
Getting the hydrogen is another issue. People blather on about electrolysis, but they just happen to forget about the small fact that it requires electricity to extract it. So what's the source of the electricity? Why hydrogen power of course!!! :roll: Extracting hydrogen from other souces through chemical means is pretty inefficient and requires some fairly nasty chems and a chemical source for the hydrogen. Right now, the primary source for this is oil, yup, that's right, OIL. Hydrogen is a boondoggle of monumentous proportion.

 

[jfuh]

Although it's inevitable to switch from fossil fuels, however the two technologies you mentioned have two physical barriers that make them completely illogical to use.
Hydrogen's problems have been mentioned by the former poster.
As for battery storing electric cars there's the enourmous issue of sufficient storage capacity for distance.
The more storage you have, the more mass you have, the heavier the vehicle and the less the efficiency. Unless we travel along tracks such as electric trains where the power supply is not carried on the vehicle, such technology for electric vehicles is still decades away. In fact the battery storing electric vehicle is most likely never going to happen.
However two other electric technologies are very real. One would be fuel cells - not hydrogen powered ones. The other would be capacitors.
The problem with capacitors today is the capacity. However it is possible to coat the plates with carbon nanotubes, increaseing thier effective surface area and thus increasing capacitance. However that technology is not yet available nor produced even in labratory settings thus remains theoretically possible.

The next would be liquid fuel - fuel cells. Or alcohol fuel cells. Uzing alcohol would have huge benefits. One it's a renewable fuel source that is readily avaiable today and readily through slight modifications of the cam shafts and timing of current engines and infrastructure for delivery. Being such small chains as ethanol or butanol it is also easily useable for fuel cell rxns.
The huge benefit over hydrogen asside from saftey is in it's inherient energy density over hydrogen. Ethanol and other alcohols are of a much much higher energy density then hydrogen and in essence produce more bang per molecule (in fact 100 fold over hydrogen).

So; ethanol

1. currently available
2. renewable
3. non-polluting
4. high energy density
5. easy to transport
6. and safe to handle

The choice is obvious.

 

[RightinNYC]

Moderator's Warning:

Because this is neither breaking news (It happened 8 days before you posted the thread, nor properly formatted (With the title matching the news story), it has been moved to the appropriate forum. It's been a while since we opened up the breaking news forum, if you haven't read the rules yet, I'd suggest it, as we will begin giving out warnings for improper threads shortly.