More "pie in the sky" alternate fuel nonsense

Anyone remember "fuel cells?" Back in the 1980s, companies like Ballard Power were going to change the world by producing vehicles that ran on them. What happened? Not much. Now it's hydrogen power. Clean, cheap, etc, etc. What's the catch? You can't store enough in a car (unless you want a vehicle that looks like the Mad Max mobile) to go any distance. So now they are working to develop new materials to store it in some solid form. Good luck. It's not going to happen this decade, maybe not this century.

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What WILL happen is that they'll develop ultra high pressure vessels to store hydrogen in it's traditional liquid form, and when one of those things runs into a wall, or a car, it won't be like a propane vehicle leak (which is bad enough)where they have to close down a whole block for fear of detonation, the hydrogen vehicle will go off like a small nuclear bomb. Do we really want this kind of thing on the road? Gasoline is safe. It's not stored under pressure and it takes a big accident to make it ignite, and when it does ignite, unlike in the movies, it doesn't go off like 10lbs of dynamite, it just flares.

Reply to
RichA
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We need something because, in case you haven't been paying attention to oil prices, gasoline is getting scarce, and it's only going to get scarcer. Sometimes cold, hard facts are tough to face.

The real problem with hydrogen isn't storage or combustibility. Those can be managed, albeit with some inconvenience and compromise. The problem is that hydrogen isn't a primary energy source. It doesn't come from a hole in the ground. It has to be made from something else -- currently either from natural gas, which process is dirty and produces CO2, or from electrolysis of water, which is expensive, requiring electrical power.

My vision of our best energy future is safe, modern nuclear plants (augmented with wind, tidal, solar, and whatever else can be made economical) that generate electrical power efficiently enough to make hydrogen feasible. If you crash and explode, so be it. Slow down, at least in traffic.

Reply to
rw

It's presently projected that in another 20 years you will see hydrogen stations all over the place, just as in the beginning, gas stations were very rare.

The vehicle designs are moving toward storage in cells throughout the chassis rather than a single tank in the trunk. Essentially, the cabin area sits over the propulsion section. There is even talk of a capsule type cabin much like those used for hydroplanes which, in the event of an explosion would separate from the propulsion unit.

Electrolysis will continue to be the method of breaking down water. Hydrogen's waste byproduct is water vapor, which is even safe to drink right from the exhaust (if you're that hard up for something to drink). Present hydrogen storage is safer than gasoline according to the latest crash tests. Hydrogen produces more power per volume (60-80% vs gasoline's roughly 40%).

As for gasoline being safer... that's relative. True that in "most" cases, it burns rather than explodes, however, when it does explode it does so with the equivalence of approximately 12 sticks of dynamite per gallon (California Department of Justice Crime Lab) depending on the amount of vapor. Hydrogen tends to dissipate rapidly in air in the small amounts used for vehicle propulsion, while gasoline will easily soak clothing, etc, and it's oily properties cause it to adhere, thus making it harder to get rid of in the event of an ignition.

If you want something to fear.... take one LNP container ship parked in any port, and have it explode.

If you want cheaper, environmentally friendly, then we are back to hitching up animals. Of course, they won't be setting any records in the quarter mile..... I'm waiting for Ron Propeil to come up with something new to go with the Chop-O-Matic....

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Reply to
Spike

You'll have to see them all over, since you'll be filling up every 50 miles.

Only because it's on buses where you can afford to use space to reinforced the tanks. Cars are another matter.

Reply to
RichA

Like anything else... improvements are constant. The manufacturers will push the envelope of engineering to exceed limitations because they know there's no profit in something nobody will buy.

And apparently, you didn't see the prototypes I looked at. The same cab forward look of the GM types, the interior floor space was pretty wide open. The propulsion unit with fuel storage (not counting wheel height) is approximately 8" deep. Apparently for repairs, the cabin separates from the propulsion unit. Not too bad a concept for starters.

But, what's the problem? New technologies come along all the time. They don't spread through the masses overnight. It takes years. Consider the time it took for computers to go from monsters with less power than the pocket calculator to the pc and notebooks of today. Or how long it took Al Gore to create the internet and spread it, with Bill gates help, around the globe....

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Reply to
Spike

My personal belief is that we will see more and more diesels on the road... biodiesel well in excess of 50% will become normal. Fuel cell technology is still pricey while biodiesel (5% ) is a reality.

Who knows what we may wake up to in the morning? Whatever, I think it will be nothing less than interesting.

Reply to
Jim Warman

Actually a fuel cell is powered by Hydrogen and fuel cells have been in use by NASA for years. I've read an article about small home generators being run by them. Running a car won't be much farther away.

Reply to
WindsorFox[SS]

HAHAHA!!! Who told you that, Algore??

Reply to
WindsorFox[SS]

No, the market tells me that. The price of oil recently hit a record of $60/barrel. Some knowledgeable observers are predicting a near-term price of over $100/barrel.

Have you ever heard of supply and demand?

Reply to
rw

Heve you ever heard of price manipulation? Please....

Reply to
WindsorFox[SS]

Have you heard of OPEC? And I suppose you have never heard of corporations being sued and beaten for price fixing.....

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Reply to
Spike

Yes. They're just being good capitalists, trying to get the most money they can for their resource.

Not under this administration. Are you suggesting we sue OPEC? Didn't GWB say in the campaign that he would use his Saudi connections to jawbone OPEC for lower prices? That's worked well, hasn't it?

We've depleted our domestic supplies. Every year we import a larger fraction of our oil. The low-hanging fruit has been picked, and new oil fields are more and more difficult and expensive to exploit. Countries like China have explosively increasing demand for oil. That sounds like a recipe for scarcity to me.

By the end of the year you may have to spend $100 to fill up your tank, and all the whining about OPEC and evil corporations isn't going to do you any good.

Reply to
rw

A lot of people tend to forget all the advancements which have come from NASA, as well as all the advancements which improve our daily lives thanks to developments made for military use. Some of which are in use for many years before the public sees the benefits.

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Reply to
Spike

The comment re OPEC is that OPEC fixes the prices no matter how available or scarce.

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Reply to
Spike

OPEC is only one player in the energy market, albeit a very big one. In any case, the oil is theirs. They can charge anything they want for it, but the market still dictates what you pay for gasoline. When the demand goes up and the supply is constant, then the price goes up. Blaming all that on OPEC is nonsense.

Reply to
rw

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Reply to
Spike

Two things to learn here:

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  1. The remaining portion of the world's proved oil reserves is around
1.75 trillion barrels. Global demand is currently 75M barrels a day. That gives us 64 years of oil supply, if we only count conventional oil, and conservatively ignore new discoveries. Of course, once we consider growing demand, it'll probably be more like 40 years or less, but,

  1. conventional oil reserves are dwarfed by non conventional reserves, most importantly oil sand reserves, which are becoming more and more viable every day due to the higher price per barrel, but more importantly, new investment and improved technology for extracting oil from tar sands.

The point? We won't be running out of oil in anyone's lifetime currently able to read this post.

Reply to
pawn

Your point is not well taken.

"Running out" of oil in the ground and gasoline getting scarce (and therefore expensive) are two different things. The price of gasoline is pretty much determined by the price of oil. The price of oil is determined by the demand (which is growing VERY fast), the cost of production (which, as you point out, is getting higher on average), and the supply, which is controlled by how much the producers are willing to pump and sell, and which in the short term is roughly constant. Anyone who thinks that, under those circumstances, the price of gasoline will not continue to rise is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Sometimes I get the feeling that people think, "If only Saudi Arabia and those other OPEC countries would pump oil as fast as they can and put it on the market we'd have 25-cents-gallon gasoline again! Yee Hah!" They're probably right, but it's not going to happen.

Suppose you're the King of Saudi Arabia and you have to decide on a marketing strategy for your oil. To put it in stark terms, you have two possibilities:

  1. Determine what time period and what production rate will maximize your return. It might be, for example, 40 years. The last barrel you sell will go for a very high price indeed, and after 40 years you'll have a great deal of money.

  1. Pump it and sell it as fast as possible at whatever price you can get. Then you can go back to herding camels.

The choice is clear. OPEC is acting rationally. We (i.e., the US) are not. They're thinking long-term while we're thinking short-term. We should be heavily investing in alternative energy sources, and I think we should be paying for it with a much higher gasoline tax.

I wonder what whatever Easter Islander it was who cut down the last tree on his island thought when he did it. In our global economy the world is an island, and if we act without foresight we'll deserve our nasty fate.

Reply to
rw

Pretty much all commodities rise.

It could very well happen, Of course if it did, the value of the dollar would be ..... anyway......

But, when that last barrel is pumped, and the world is out of it... how much will that money be worth?

in which case, the king would be living on the Riviera while his former subjects herd camels. Makes no difference to him.

And the people you are going to hurt the most with those higher prices are the very people who can least afford to pay it. Why is it that minimum wage people commute 50 miles and several hours to get to work in the city? Because there is no place closer that they can afford to live. So, before you do that, you should probably invest in an infrastructure of rapid transit nation wide for those commuters. Which will cost the taxpayers how much? And again, who gets hurt the worst by it? I just think your answer is to simplistic because it fails to consider the impacts on all levels of society unequally.

Gee, the last time I looked, there were still small groves of trees growing there. And if there was such an islander, it's doubtful he gave it a thought for he surely had a reason behind his madness....

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Reply to
Spike

No, we won't. But if the greedy industry refuses to up refining capacity, we could see steadily increasing prices for years.

Reply to
RichA

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