Whatever happened to the WW2 German idea?

There are plenty of options. Nuclear power is one of them. Heck, for a $100 billion investment, you could harvest solar energy on the moon and beam it back as microwaves...ensuring much of the world of a utterly non-polluting source of energy that doesn't violate the NIMBY principle.

The problem is that the people operating the "status quo" are throwing such a vast amount of money at the political system around the world that you'll never see any significant change in energy policy...at least probably not in our lifetime.

We could also make DSLR camera bodies out of coal.

Sure, but don't wear white.... : 0 )

They lost the war and this is their revenge....: 0 )

check out the other links, references, as well... the current view is that oil shale, for one, has been overhyped.

pollution ? I seriously think there's more future in nuclear power. Modern plants are very safe.

For starters, one of the most air polluted nations in the world is China. That's in the process of changing. When the Three Gorges Dam project is completed, they will have 32 generators providing power throughout the entire industrial region and more.... That means no more coal or oil fueled factories, etc. And, if we ever need to take them out, one dam breach and the flood downstream will sweep the land clean of everything. Our air is bad. Some of us are old enough to recall traveling across the country with out seeing an unending haze. But, ours is nothing compared to China and eastern Europe.

And some of us are old enough to remember seeing a grimy black deposit everywhere in any city visited... selective memory, Spike!

I am ALL in favor of the fluidized bed, pellet-fuel nuke... but you'll never get the nanny-minded tree huggers to go along with that..

They truly ARE 'useful idiots'.

No. It is not selective memory.

While that is quite true of many cities, from personal experience traveling the nation and overseas, you tended to see far more of that in the eastern states than in the west, just as you might see comparing eastern Europe to North America, where hydroelectric is far more prevalent.

Personally, I think it had much to do, not just with the vehicles, but with the use of coal and diesel for heating, factories, etc. Those are used far less in the western states.

And "back in the day" there was less thought to air pollution, therefore less thought to proper maintenance of vehicles when they began burning oil in large quantities, and exuding large clouds of blue.

Even so, today, you can't drive across the nation (USA) without seeing the haze, thicker in some areas than others, but there none the less. Those clear star filled nights, and days of clear (clean) blue skies is pretty much a thing of the past.

With all the effort to reduce emissions, that haze has increased. Naturally, in part, because there are more vehicles on the road. But they are supposed to be cleaner vehicles.

So, while you may consider it selective memory on my part, I think, on your part, you have ignored certain aspects of life in past decades with regard to socio-economic conditions relative to geographical influences. : 0 )

Well, here in Phoenix it is not caused by emissions from cars. It is particulates that cause the smog caused by: dust on road/land, dust from diesel engines (semi's), lawnmowers, construction sites, etc etc... I modern car engine is very clean.

No dispute that modern engines are cleaner, but, the haze continues to grow, yet there are far less "old" cars on the roads, far more "clean" cars, etc. As for Phoenix, and Flagstaff and the rest, you also have to acknowledge that the populations of such areas have greatly increased. If cars burn cleaner by 25% for example, but the numbers of cars have quadrupled, what is the end result? Surely, you don't think it's going to be cleaner air.

The context of the discussion was my "selective memory" and forgetting how dirty cities used to be long ago. My response was that while true about the cities, one also has to take into account ALL the associated factors, such as indicated in the preceding paragraph. The problems of pollution are often over-simplified. For example, modern cars are cleaner so it must be the trucks and lawnmowers, while neglecting to take into account increased populations.

One cow may fart a cloud of methane with little impact upon the environment. But one million cows farting methane will surely impact the region in which they are concentrated, as well as drifting over other regions.

When i moved to this rural area, smog was practically nil. The population at the time was around 36,000. Most were ranchers and farmers, and most were driving older vehicles. That was 1986, when the sky was clear, stars were bright and you could see for miles. The population is now in excess of 100,000. Most people drive pretty nice modern cars. Yet, many days a year, we get smog alerts now, and there is a perpetual haze. We have no factories, etc. I don't think we have that many lawnmowers.

Spike....

I dont think you got my drift. Certainly I feel the same as you do.

There has got to be MORE to it than popular/political science knows.'

There HAS NOT been enough increase in use to overcome the drastic DECREASE of emissions.

Smog is MORE than just hydrocarbon reaction. Downtown cities used to stink of car exhaust... it's notable that is no longer the case, yet the readings increase.

Dayton Ohio is a place that should be studied. Hit hard by de- manufacturing, factories reduced and closed and cleaned up, coal burning power plants shut down. population stable or falling. reduced air traffic both at the airport and AF base.

E-check mandated. Yet no real lowering of 'smog'readings. So E-check discontinued... hmmm.

Agreed. I know for us here in CA, those dam special low emission fuels have been a problem. What they reduced on the one hand, they made up for on the other. Add in that it ruined vehicle engines, especially diesel, and ended up producing more of what it was supposed to reduce.... in addition to adding the new stuff.

The areas like LA basin, and here where we have a very similar topographical situation, smog has nowhere to go. Both areas have sustained massive growth problems.

Isn't it Dayton that has the garbage fired power plant right along the interstate? Or is that Columbus? Former in-laws all live back there, and I recall my then bro-in-law pointing it out to us. Thought it was on the trip to the Air Museum, but it was about 40 years ago.

Columbus had an operational plant..along I-71 south of city, only for a few years. I believe Dayton's was a pilot plant, never went into mass operation.

As you might guess, Dayton is also in a valley. Like I said, it's an odd duck, the yellow haze is def. visible there... but not 20 miles to the east west or north.

SNIP

That's because everything blows down to Cincinnati where my ex resides. And that drift might explain why so many of her family (both parents, etc) have died of cancer.... although I'm told the reason for that is some nuke storage place north of there that's been on the EPA super fund list for decades.

Uh, no it doesnt.. The westerlies still prevail, WHEN there is a wind.. Cinci, however, happens to be at the confluence of the Miami and Ohio River valleys, thus a basin.

I suspect any such is as much due to eastward flow from Louisville, and it's own emissions.

Plus... Dying of cancer is as much hereditary as anything else. We all die of something... if I take from my mom's side, it'll be cancer.

If from my father's side, it'll be either heart, when long-lived, or Alzheimers, if earlier.

Could be from Lewville, I guess. Not my part of the country. As I recall it was a northwest air corridor which brought it down. My former is from Newport, Ky, right across the river, and when her mother died her dad came up with all these articles about the winds carrying stuff from this nuke dump storage site, and that it also leached into the groundwater system. I think he was considering some sort of suit. Supposed to explain why the cancer death rate in Cincinnati was considerably higher than most of the rest of the country. That was her 2nd round of cancer (different types). And then he was diagnosed and later died of it. And, yeah, we all die of something... called life. It's terminal. Nearly every male will develop prostate cancer before he dies. And the last time I was there and saw the Miami R,and worse the Little Miami R, it looked like you could walk across the sludge. I like it here. Crystal clear streams and lakes, and blue rivers not brown. But, everyone has their own preference as to what region they like best.

Miami valley is straight N-S

However, what you speak of is from the Miamisburg Mound Lab Superfund site, 35 miles north up the Miami. Cleaned up for years, as I recall.

There's been some talk of high cancer incidence, locally and downstream, but not much made of it lately

There's (or WAS) a Naval Ammunition depot in Crane IN, near Bloomington which would be w-n-w of Cincy.. though I didnt hear of nukes being stored there.

Nust have been SOME time ago... I spent some time, canoeing, on both Miami R,and the Little Miami R over twenty years ago... though it was further north than the confluence.

Last I read, which wasn't all that long ago was that they were still cleaning stuff as it percolates up or some such. Like Love Canal... will it ever really be clean? And that aspect of powering vehicles is a concern with nuclear. You might power a car, but what to do with the waste product. Seems it would be just trading one pollution for another.

All the stuff my former fil showed me had to do with chemicals stored in leaking drums and stuff about how they were trying to install rubber liners...

Last time I was down there was when I was in Peru, IN back in 1985, and had to make trips down for court and child visitation. Didn't see it when I went back following my son's death, but, the view we had from the Hilton Hotel in downtown Cincinnati was disgusting. Hate to say it about anyone's hometown, but the city looked filthy... although the streets right around the courthouse were not too bad.