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GM Investing in Fuel Cells
artemis67 writes "MSNBC is reporting that GM is getting ready to invest heavily in hydrogen fuel cell technology, believing that it is the way to go to increase fuel economy and reduce emissions. They believe their cars can go 500 miles without refueling, and possibly create their own hydrogen by chemically converting (not combusting) gasoline. The article can be found at MSNBC." Of course, the financial details aren't given in terms of dollars, but when the largest automaker recognizes that a seachange is coming, that's something to note. Or, they could be hedging their bets. Yeah. Probably the latter.
Americans are a notorious stingy lot. The alternative fuel cars- pure electric, hybrid, and natural gas- all have cost premiums of 20-50%. They don't do well in the market except for a few dedicated enthusiasts.
High purchase cost? $2000 off ona $50K specialty car is no "break".
Corresponding high registration costs (it's based on ticket price, yes?)
High maintenance and repair costs?
Few fill-up stations?
Few garages capabal of doing repairs?
Insurability problems (pressurized hydrogen is more dangerous than gasoline you know).
Scarcity of repair parts?
Long term (I'm talking 20+ year) reliability. My 81 Nissan pickup is still running.
Gee, I can't imagine why no one wants to buy them. With a cheaper gas car, all that money you save can buy enough gas to give you DOUBLE the total miles driven over the life of the vehicle.
Lemme know when these alternative vehicles actually cost LESS than gas/diesel vehicles and when I fill/recharge stations are available within at least 5 miles of any random urban point in the US or within 50 miles of any rural point.
So where does the hydrogen come from?
There are two possible root sources in today's technology:
- electrolysis of water. This takes electricity... massive amounts of it. So where does the electricity come from? Nuclear, coal-fired, oil-fired, or natural gas fired generation by and large in the US (mostly nuclear in France). Hydro power contributes but at a smaller percentage. All the 'green' technologies (geothermal, wind, solar) contribute almost nothing as a percentage. Keep those fossil fuels coming...
- reformation of hydrocarbons. That is, a high temperature reaction between hydrocarbons and water. Which hydrocarbons? The same usual suspects. Keep those fossil fuels coming...
This whole subject is a delicate balancing act. There are *NO* easy answers, no matter how much the scientifically ignorant press might make it sound...By the way, the other product from the reformation is carbon monoxide... and not at parts per million either - we are talking about amounts that are equivalent to the amount of hydrogen produced. Where should all this CO go? Out the exhaust pipe? A catalytic converter needs the high temperatures that *combustion* produces... a hydrogen fuel cell won't have that.
Nah. If it were just a price issue, it might help. But the proximate cause was a political decision to deregulate supply in an amazingly broken way, so most people see it as primarily a political problem.
It doesn't help that most americans, including most american politicians and reporters, equate conservation with sacrifice. Hint: if you keep a desktop running 24x7 but only use the console a few hours a day, "xset +dpms; xset dpms 1200 3600 7200", will reduce the total power use by more than half.
I'm convinced that high prices are the only thing that will get my neighbors to think about conservation and efficiency. I'd like to see a $10/gallon hike in the gas tax, with income tax cuts so there is no net change in gov't revenue. But politically, we can't do it -- maybe OPEC will probably hike the price for us.
If I'm getting 500mph, why in the world would I even care about seeing hydrogen at the pumps? A (small by todays standards) 10 gallon tank would give you a 5000 mile range. That's treating fillups the same way we treat oil changes today. I don't know about you, but I'm not to worried about what exactly is at the pump if my fuel costs (at $2 a gallon for gas, I assume you buy the nice stuff) for the entire life of your vehicle (100,000 miles, probably a little low, but remember you have to average out people totalling their vehicle right out the lot and letting it rust, etc..) are $400. I can see dealers advertising free fillups for the life of your car with these. Heck, the gas station as we know it might disappear (or be cut back at least) as most people might just get a fillup with the oil change or whatever general maintence you need.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
Run a comparison of the energy density (available energy / pound) of gasoline vs. any comparible other fule, please.
Obviously there are alterior motives to staying with the current design. Ulterior motives like known technologies, new technologies don't benefit enough to make up for the enormous cost of changing over, etc.
There have been several inventors who have either disappeared or lost their life because they invented a more efficient engine.
Documentation, please.
Alternative fuels will not be utilized until the world is in a state of crisis (run out of oil, overwhelming pollution). Only in times of desperation, will true change be brought.
Probably true, but not necessarily for the reasons you cite.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Can't create carbon out of nothing. The only way the CO2 gets created is by the yeast consuming stuff with carbon in it.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
This figure varies widely based on the input variables, and so it's always necessary to get and present those numbers along with the conclusion.
Worldwide, the reserves figure hovered just below 10 years for most of 90's. Hence, it's no real surprise that oil prices have trended higher.
The source for all this is Dr. Clement Henry's Politics of Oil class at the University of Texas at Austin, which I took 7 or 8 years ago. Trust me when I tell you that UT is a good place to learn about the oil world.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
"Dubya .. are you ready to practice what you preach?"...
Of course not. It's our (GOP) goal to destroy the planet. Our only desire on this planet is to watch it burn while we dance around on our children's graves singing hallelujah.
Not only do we want to destroy the planet, but we want to see all our children wielding guns.
We want only the rich to have money, start wars for no reason, and keep everyone from making their own decisions.
Misfit
To start any fire you need three things: enough flammable material, oxygen, and a spark. When you shoot the gas can, which has probably a good amount of air above the liquid, you give it ignition from the heat of the bullet and air, and voom.
With the compressed gas, there's no air inside the tank, so puncutering the side of it will only cause the gas to be released. However, if you now lit up that existing gas stream (with another well placed shot, for example), you might get a nice flame out the side, but the gas will be moving so fast that the flame cannot get inside the tank. But the key here is that that gas IS moving so fast as to have a significant amount of kinetic energy that the tank will basically become a missile to provide the reaction to the gas's action. And this is the inherient danger of a hydrogen-storage fuel cell system; if you crash your car as to rupture the 'gas tank', you'll create a possibly worst hazard by flying sharpnel (which can hurt others around), as opposed to just igniting your car (and hurting only yourself).
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Yes, the Saudi finds are very big; it's estimated that the recent finds just about doubled their oil reserves.
Keep in mind, whenever you hear estimates of Saudi oil reserves, that that's all shallow oil deposits compared to what we have here; if they started drilling deeper, they'd probably find much more.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Ah, yet another democrat setting up a straw man.
The neat thing is, it's self-defeating; the more they bitch about local energy producers, the more they're at the mercy of nasty, undemocratic, foreign cartels. I know many of you would rather pay $ 40 dollar/barrel to people in the Middle East than acknowledge that people in the energy business in the US have a right to make a living; but I wonder, why, after you actually accomplish that task, you persist in blaming anyone besides yourselves for high energy prices?
(currently testing something about signatures here)
We have ways of recycling nuclear waste. The technique is being held up by those who want there to be a nuclear waste problem, so they can have reasons to be against nuclear power. Rather disingenous if you ask me.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Actually, that's wrong; the world has about the same amount of proven reserves as it did back in the seventies, because there have been new discoveries. There have been massive oil finds in Saudi Arabia recently, as well as in Venezuela and in China in Xinjiang province (which apparently has a couple times the proven reserves of the United States).
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Big companies like IBM GM and Ford spend a lot of money each year on things that won't be a product for 20 years. Why because in 20 years it might be a great product. Remember for a GM $20 million (or whatever) is a non trivial but not really large amount of money. Ofcourse its in GM's intrest to make better cars. I'm sure they have lots of other reasearch projects into all sorts of things in a number of centers around the world. Some of them will pan out and be seen in cars of the future, some won't. But if you don't fail some of the time you are not being inovative enough.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
The tax credits and such are nice, but people, not too unlike myself, demand a certain aspect of performance. My car at the moment, while certainly not ready for the Indy 500, is a 99 Dodge Avenger Sport with the 2.5 Litre V6 Engine. While available in an Inline 4 (not the sport model, but others), I found it to be relatively unresponsive and not quite ready for the open highway. Honda's ESV is a nice idea, but it has no acceleration nor top speed to be able to deal with normal commuting speed here in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. Corridor (generally 80 - 90 MPH or you'll get run over). If someone could come up with a viable market-ready electric vehicle capable of sustaining at least 150 horsepower and a decent amount of torque, then the American public would, IMHO, be more willing to accept it with open arms.
All opinions of course are my own, and I've been known to be wrong, but I'd personally pay the gas premium rather than give up my perfomance
Secret windows code
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
This is not necessarily a good thing.
You're right, but the point is that we're not as dependant on public transportation as Europe is. This is because except for LARGE cities, public transportation in the US is mostly non-existant.
If we were truly commited to reducing emmisions, we'd all take a mag-lev to work every day. Unfortunately, we're not as opt to give up our freedom to drive as our other more publicly-minded european bretheren are.
Secret windows code
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
The fact that the Bush administration is backed by "Big Oil" *should* not interfere with the fact that the man still has a job to do. At this time, Oil is the most cost effective naturally obtainable resource available to the US, if ONLY we could get to it.
During the Clinton administratrion, they tried (and thankfully failed) to "restructure" health care so that it was in the hands of government agencies in its entirety. Did he do this out of the goodness of his heart? No - he did it because he was backed by the pharmecudical industry, and they knew it would be easier to scam the US government rather than the individual HMO companies out of millions each year.
Don't get the idea that polital agendas aren't anything else. So what if he wants to drill the oil out of the ANWR? What is it going to do sitting in the ground? Will it solve the Energy Crisis in California? Will it keep gas prices down here in the US. No, it won't. Keeping us from that oil is what keeps us dependant on foreign countries for our energy, at least until I have a neuclear reactor in my car (we have a lock on Uranium and Plutonium).
Also - how much farther hands-off do you want him to get if he doesn't repeal laws that hurt business.
Secret windows code
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
Yep, rising oil prices are good for the environment. I dunno why people are whining so much about $2/gl: the US has the cheapest prices in the western world... which is probably why Americans consume more than twice as much energy per capita than in other western countries, such as the European ones. Try this: as the prices go up, try conserving energy... this way your fuel bills won't increase! If you're going to buy a car that guzzles fuel, get something with performance, not a useless SUV!
At least here in Pennsylvania (and most of New Jersey), I can find the following:
However, it is not rare to see 20-pump gas stations that only serve gasoline.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
The proposed drilling area in the ANWR is about 6000 acres at the edge of it. What is going on the land outside of the ANWR in that location? Oil Drilling! IMHO, 6000 acres out of a few million isn't that bad as some people want to make it. Besides, with the horizontal drilling techniques available, they don't have to drill that many wells.
BTW, I always thought the Gary's smell was due to the collective stench of the inhabitants.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
And these animals can only give birth in an area that's approximately 3 miles by 3 miles? That's a pretty lame reason to hold up development, IMHO. I would think that if they are hardy enough to live in that environment, they could certainly have their calves someplace else. Once the wells and pipelines are in place, they could still still go back to some of the same areas. The original Alaskan pipeline is elevated in several spots in order to not disrupt animal migration, so the same thing could be done here. I'm also sure that some of the Eskimos wouldn't mind having the option of working for the oil companies too.
Why is it that the tree huggers want to freeze progress in order 'to save nature for future generations'? Several wilderness areas are being closed off to the public, so what's the point of 'saving' them, if the public isn't even allowed in? Why not work with these companies and make sure that they operate in a responsible manner? I've been to places in the mountains of my home state where there used to be open pit gold mines a few years ago. I wouldn't have known that if someone hadn't pointed it out.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
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Including the Honda, which mostly just runs the gas to charge the batt, and as an assist when you really need the extra shove?
As a special case there was a cross country "race" where minimum fuel use was the key issue. A gas car won. A normal stock gas car. Driven by the then-editor of Car and Driver. Of corse he was drafting behind a truck on the whole trip...
Yep, I did overlook moving (and cracking) the gas.
Electric cars still have breaking systems (the ones that stop you), more complex ones because they try to recapture the energy. Alternators (as part of the break systems), wiper systems, and a host of other parts. All of which have broken at one time or another in at least on car I've owned.
I think electric cars can do without a transmission, but I'm not sure all do. They generate a lot of torque, so some electric cars may choose to reduce that. Electric cars have extra parts -- two or four electric motors that are way bigger then any electric motor a gas car has! Or maybe only one, but then you get the full glory of a differential and the rest of a traditional drive train (no timing belt though).
When I was in collage I did my own car work, many of the parts I replaced had nothing to do with the gas motor. Of corse a few were because VW hadn't discovered electricity :-) (if you don't get the joke the VW Rabbit used vacuum to do a lot of control functions modern cars use electronics for).
However with the possible exception of the battery I don't think any parts of the car contribute anywhere close to 1% of the pollution that the fuel does. They do contribute to how reliable people feel the car is, and that will help influence whether you can sell the things or not, but they pollution represented by one change of the transmition fluid isn't noticeable next to the gas that took you 100,000 miles.
I'm still not convinced. I'm not convinced either way though. Electric cars could well pollute less, depending on the source of the eletrictricty, and the real cost of making gas. Would be nice to know though.
It would be good if the law actually did know. Whatever this law rates is going to shape how low emission cars are designed, not reality. If something makes the car (+ support systems) pollute less, but this law doesn't recognize it, then it is unlikely to happen. If it makes the car + support systems pollute less, but the law sees it is more, then it will not happen. I don't dislike it because it bashes my precious gas cars, I don't like it because it might bash something better then electric cars.
Well, that seems a bit unlikely, we haven't built a new one since the late 70s. It doesn't look like we will do it again anytime soon. (and yes, I think nuke power can be pretty good)
So? Build a more efficient oil cracker and you get more efficient cars. Oh, and cheaper winter heating. And cheaper electricity. And cheaper plastic army men.
They don't. I don't think the envromental cost of the batteries is all that significant, but the economic cost may be (it is about half the cost of the EV1, and has to be done every three years or so).
CA, and some other states have a low or zero emission requirement. Anyone that sells more then X cars must sell some small percent that have very little or no emissions.
In my opinion the law is flawed in that electricity is assumed to have zero emissions, rather then a guess at the emissions required to produce the electricity (which may be more then some extreamly efficient gas cars). The Honda gas/electric car for example is assumed to pollute more then the EV1 even though it probably pollutes less.
Anyway the Fuel Cells may well be looked at as a way to meet the low/zero emission laws, and not as a replacement for gas. Of corse if people like the fuel cell cars then that may change. Well, like them for the price they can be produced. The EV1 was liked by a fair number of people (it had a ton of torque), but GM leased it for about $30k, it cost them more like $60k to make them. People would have to like them a whole lot to pay $60k for them!
Actually the law is more flawed then that, but I don't generally like new (or old!) laws anyway.
P.S. yes I do find it ironic that CA has "electric car laws", and is sticking to them in the face of an electricity crisis, but the electric car laws don't actually require electric cars (they are strongly tilted towards them though)
Leading environmentalist and fuel cell innovator joins GM's global innovation and technology team
WASHINGTON, June 13 /PRNewswire/ -- General Motors (NYSE: GM) and General Hydrogen announced a 25-year collaboration today to accelerate the spread of a hydrogen infrastructure, and to speed the introduction of fuel cell vehicles into markets in North America, Europe, Asia and emerging economies.
The strategic alliance will focus on several key areas, including hydrogen storage, fuel cell vehicle refueling, energy services, advanced materials, power electronics, and electric power production.
Larry Burns, General Motors Corporation vice president for research and development, and planning and Geoffrey E. H. Ballard, General Hydrogen Corporation chair announced the deal in Washington D.C. in advance of the 12th Annual Energy Efficiency Forum.
"General Hydrogen is an exceptional company with a tremendous management team and a very exciting future," said Burns. "We believe we've added a franchise player to our GM team. This relationship brings together an impressive group of world leaders in the development of fuel cell and hydrogen technologies. We look forward to working together with Geoffrey Ballard and his team to create a hydrogen infrastructure for fuel cell vehicles."
Burns added that significant investment and planning on the parts of federal and local governments will be a key factor in developing the hydrogen infrastructure necessary to support meaningful numbers of fuel cell vehicles in the future.
Ballard is a world-renowned environmentalist who played a major role in developing fuel cells for commercial applications when he founded Ballard Power Systems in 1979 with Paul Howard, currently General Hydrogen vice chair. Ballard Power Systems is recognized as a world leader in the development of fuel cell stacks.
"We are very excited to be partnering with the world's largest automobile manufacturer and a leading developer of fuel cell technology," said Ballard. "General Hydrogen and General Motors will work together to bring about a global hydrogen infrastructure capable of supporting large numbers of zero- emission hydrogen fuel cell vehicles."
Both companies believe hydrogen is the best choice to power fuel cell vehicles over the long term. It is clean, can be made renewably and, when used as an energy source, emits only water and heat.
"In the upcoming months and years, GM and General Hydrogen hope to develop technology that will demonstrate the potential of our bold and exciting vision," said General Hydrogen President and CEO Michael Routtenberg. "This quest will be led by our powerful team, whose members include the world's foremost fuel cell and hydrogen industry leaders."
Byron McCormick, co-executive director of GM's Global Alternative Propulsion Center, said GM is committed to the effort of bringing fuel cell technologies to the market place.
"Significant work still needs to be done to build a hydrogen infrastructure," McCormick said. "The technology and business approach that we're developing with General Hydrogen is aimed at realizing that vision. This relationship clearly has the potential to fundamentally change the way energy is delivered in the future, while providing significant benefits both to consumers and the environment.
"We're putting together a world-class team to develop innovative solutions for the development of a hydrogen infrastructure," he said. "Starting with our investment in Giner Electrochemical Systems and their electrolyzer technology, to our just-announced alliance with QUANTUM Technologies, and their hydrogen storage and handling capabilities, and now our partnership with General Hydrogen, we plan to move aggressively to work on putting that infrastructure in place."
General Hydrogen Corporation, headquartered in Vancouver, BC, was formed in 1999 by Geoffrey Ballard and Paul Howard, co-founders of Ballard Power Systems, and Michael Routtenberg, who is President and CEO. GH develops technologies and invests in companies that facilitate the hydrogen infrastructure.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Yes we don't know how to do it yet, but even today the most powerful motors are electric (in ships an railroad engines). The problem is that the generators of the electricity are too big (all such motors are to desiel or nuclear generators because that is the smallest way to produce that much electricity)
I think you grossly underestimate the horizontal distance involved!
In it they claim that two different groups of auto manufacturers have pledged a billion dollars each for fuel cell research. There are a number of smaller companies and research programs, as well as some work being done by EPRI regarding the use of Fuel Cells and micropower generation to deal with electricity shortages, too.
Pretty cool.
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
It used to be fairly common here in the States for gas stations to offer a couple of grades of unleaded, leaded, and diesel. Nowadays (at least in New England, where I live, and a few other places I travel), the typical stations offer 3-4 grades of unleaded and that's it. About 1/4 of stations seem to offer diesel, and I haven't seen leaded gas anywhere in years - it's been about 25 years since the typical new car here used it.
There are a few places that handle the natural gas vehicles that are starting to be used in short-haul trucking and for public transit buses, but not the average consumer station.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I like the sound of so-called "BioDiesel". This is a combustible fuel produced from a crop (for example oilseed rape).
This would seem to be the perfect fuel, since it would have energy density comparable (more/less - don't know) to existing gasoline/diesel but the big advantage of zero overall carbon emissions.
But but but...burning it produces CO2.
Well yes, but at least that much carbon had to go into growing the plants in the first place. So the net carbon increase in the atmosphere is zero. Of course, you might still get nasty sooty particulates which mess up people's lungs, but we'll wait for "fuel cells driven by gasoline/diesel" to get a cleaner version.
Does anyone have more info about this kind of fuel? In particular any down-sides? (Other than the fact it doesn't seem to be popular at the moment?)
I'm getting pretty tired of the "big oil conspiracy" nuts. There's a whole lot to get mad at GW about, but allowing companies to drill for oil is not one of them.
I like the fuel cell technology and think it has a future -- however, it's not widespread enough technology to base our future on (yet). In the meantime, we have millions of cars and boats and trucks that need fossil fuels to operate. The Great Engine of Capitalism requires oil, and we have to come up with it somewhere. We can either look for it on our own lands (vis, the Arctic Refuge) or we get it from sombody else (primarily the OPEC nations, most of which are not exactly buddy-buddies with the USA due to our involvement with Israel)
Until such time we can run our cars and trucks and heat our homes with something other than oil (both in a technical sense and an economic sense -- if it's cheaper to use gas than a fuel cell, you won't have a lot of people switch to fuel cells), we have to have a supply of oil.
If you're so all-fired up about saving the planet from the its destruction by the Evil Oil Companies (the dividends of whose stock is probably keeping your (or somebody else's) grandmother from eating Meow Mix), go to school, get a chemical/mechanical/electrical engineering degree and develop a better solution that's cheaper and safer. Hurling deprecations from the peanut gallery doesn't impress me one bit.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Great... Because you use the Government to fund the things that you particularly like (and thus increasing the Government's powers), other people can use the powerful Government to pass things like the DMCA, and then we have to listen to you bitch and moan about that as well.
If you can work through the Government to get your pet projects accomplished, then oil lobbyists can get their pet projects accomplished. So who's fucking stupid?
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
As opposed to waving your arms and jumping up and down (or posting dysfunctional ravings on a techie bulletin board)? In a word, yes.
But your examples are flawed -- it's not a policy or a disease or a license: it's a component (or a catalyst, if you prefer). Oil is not something people want (in particular) -- it's something that enables us to do what we want. If you don't like that component, come up with a better one, don't whine and complain about how you don't like the current one.
Put in terms of computers, it's like a library. You don't like the current X libraries, because they're bloated. Okay, don't whine and bitch about it, go fix the code or write new ones. Don't know how? Go learn. Don't want to learn? Then accept the fact that there are people (like me) who aren't interested in listening to your infantile whining. Serious, constructive criticism is always welcome -- blind, hand-waving lunatic raving isn't.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Yes, but the hydrogen in the Hindenburg wasn't stored at 345 atmospheres.
The enemies of Democracy are
Hehe. That's great.
The enemies of Democracy are
Good point. But I'd want to see some serious crash testing before I made any conclusions about safety. 1/4 thick or no, if it does rupture, it will be bad.
The enemies of Democracy are
Besides, I've yet to hear one good argument against drilling in ANWR or whatever. Other than "but it's wilderness!"
And if that argument isn't good enough for you, or the majority of the people... welp, we're fucked. Been a nice few million years. The dinosaurs are laughing.
The enemies of Democracy are
Why should that argument be good enough for me?
Because we've destroyed so much wilderness already, that we endanger ourselves by wantonly destroying more. It's time to start to slow down our pace, and I think a damned good start is not drilling in a wildlife refuge.
Guess what - your house used to be on wilderness. Guess it's time to wreck the cities and let the wilderness come back...
Right. And by putting those words in my mouth, you make me sound like a loon. But you're the one not happy with how much we've already destroyed. Yes, they cut down trees to make my home. Why must we cut down _more_, for no demonstrable benefit?
Do you really think that the "well, we destroyed to get where we are, so more must be ok" argument is going to last us to the end?
Do you really think that piddling amount of oil will make your gas cheaper? Will it truly let us continue consuming at our current rate even a tiny bit longer? Make us less dependent on foreign oil? Please.
I ask you: Why should we drill in a national refuge? You're answer seems to be "why not?"
Either demonstrate that drilling in Alaska will cause irreperable harm using actual facts or just shut up.
Ever seen an oil drilling operation? That is my demonstration.
But see, I think we see this in different lights. I think that prior to being able to drill for oil in a wildlife refuge, where the caribou of an aboriginal people give birth, you should have to demonstrate that it will not have any lasting harm.
The enemies of Democracy are
6000 acres which happens to be right where the Porcupine Caribou heard births, which are important to the Gwich'in aboriginal peoples that live near there.
The enemies of Democracy are
LA and Gary, Indiana are bad, you say. Well, how would you know. If you hiked from between them and Alaska, then Kudos and hats of to you. But I don't think that likely. If you have a solar powered car, then Kudos and hats of to you.
Right. Because of course you're not allowed to observe that LA is a smog-obscured shithole or wonder how long the Gwich'in will last without caribou if you've ever so much as farted a pollutant. I drive a nice, fuel-efficient Tercel, by the way. Certainly not as good as it could be, but a step in the right direction from the Expedition. I'd like an electric, or biodiesel, or even better solar. Sadly they aren't adequate yet.
These "you're no better" arguments are truly tiring. They are dodging the issue. I'm not claiming any moral superiority. I don't shit roses. I'm not any better - I like my car, and yes my synthetic material tent and Coleman stove when I go camping. It just has become an increasingly unavoidable conclusion to me that we have to change. We have to slow down. The first step is figuring out where we are headed, and seeing that it's not good. That's where I am.
We're not 'all' fucked if a few oil wells are drilled.
Is no one here able to look long-term? Do you really think it will stop with just a few wells? Do you think this is the only wilderness area we have destroyed, or will if we allow it? It's just a few wells, but a few wells on top of more and more and more -- where does it end?
This is a preserve we're talking about. It's one of the few areas of this planet we've set aside and said "okay, let's not screw with this." Except now we want to screw with it. This is not a good prescedent.
And no one gives a shit if you don't want to see it because it might desecrate your idea of wilderness.
Heh. "My idea." As if someone's idea of wilderness has a big oil drill pumping away in it.
If you haven't seen it, then you don't know what you'll be missing once it is gone. Maybe that's the problem -- too many people never really see the parts of the planet where humans are visitors, and thus don't think anything of their destruction. Don't think it will affect them when it's gone.
But unless you go to sleep at sundown so that you don't have to use electric lights, you'll have to agree that we owe our current standard of living to burning the stuff.
Well, no shit. At what point did I say we should live a low-tech life? Obviously I like high-tech, I'm a frickin computer engineer.
The key point - the point that everyone is going to get, either sooner or later - is that if we want to maintain our lifestyle, we have to find a way to do it that doesn't depend on unreplinishable resources, that doesn't disrupt the already reeling ecosystems of our planet, that doesn't give us a 20 year time limit before we really are fucked.
What happens when the oil runs out? Did you think about that? I have, and it sucks.
You think drilling is going to lengthen our oil supply? No way. You know what will happen? We get more oil, oil prices go down, and then oil _consumption_ goes way up, possibly (like it did before) beyond what the drop in prices would make seem reasonable. We run out of oil faster. Ford makes a bigger SUV, and we run out of oil faster. Drilling in the ANWR is counter-productive to maintaining our lifestyle.
There's only so much oil. You can keep searching, you might find some here and there, but it will run out. The question is, at what point are we going to react? Are we going to wait until there is no more oil, or are we going to do something now, while there is still time enough to wean ourselves of it. If we start soon enough, maybe we'll get luck and be able to make our oil supply last until when it finally runs out we truly won't need it anymore anyway.
But people who don't care dictate that this won't happen, so in the meantime I'd study up on survival skills if I were you.
The enemies of Democracy are
Aside from the strange double-negative...
Doing my research, I found it funny how all the pro-drilling opinions would meantion how the "natives" were for the drilling. What they don't tell you as that by "natives", they mean the Inupiat nation. They are for the drilling, because they want jobs. What these reports don't mention is that the other nearby nation, the Gwich'in, are strongly opposed to drilling. The reason is that the area be drilled in is the birthing area of the caribou which they depend on much like the plains native americans.
The enemies of Democracy are
You sound like a stereotypical caricature of a republican: don't give a fuck, long as it makes a buck. Sad, because some republicans care.
A single childs footprint in a 120x120 piece of real estate... Wow, that's small... No. The ANWR is huge. The result is a big-ass footprint. And unlike a child's shoe tread, this footprint is going to be a stinking, filthy, contaminated cesspool of pollution, disrupting the lives of wildlife all around. So I wouldn't see much human presence. How much would I hear? Or smell? It doesn't take much drilling to be drilling the fuck out of something.
And what makes you think it will stop there? Considering that the amount of drilling there is now zero, I observe an alarming trend. And since the oil industry has done such a great job with the coastal plain, I'm sure they'll do a great job preserving the AWNR.
Not that you'd give a shit, and neither would Neal Boortz. Well, I would. I've been to Alaska. I've been to the refuge. And when I go back, I don't want to see a damn oil drill there. How long till someone finds something valuable in Yellowstone?
I'm sure the locals would love the jobs. If I knew a way to give them jobs without drilling, I would. I don't. Sad. But this isn't just about them. I'm not telling them what is best for them. It isn't, in the short term anyway. But what, you think they are the only ones this decision will affect? I'm not saying what's best for them. What I'm telling everyone who will listen is: "Hey, cut it out, or we're all fucked."
What's the lesson of California? Have you ever been to LA? You ever been a few miles out of LA, and not been able to see the damn city? It's fucking disgusting. Or Gary, Indiana, which you can tell when you are driving past by the smell. And it had to get that bad before they started to open their eyes and say "gee, this is kinda fucked."
The answer isn't to expand "present" energy sources. Those sources will be gone soon, ANWR drilling or not. We need to change our methods, and attitudes, or we will be living like our ancestors. And like or not, you will be too.
The enemies of Democracy are
You drive your car for 1,000 km at 100 km/hr, while your 4-stroke 2 L engine runs at 2,500 rpm. Your engine burns 1,500,000 liters of air, plus some gasonline. Dry air at sea level has density 1.225 kg/m^3. 1,500,000 liters of dry air at sea level has mass 1800 kg.
This impressive range seems to have more to do with your car having a massive fuel tank (860/50 = 17 gal), than 50 mpg being a particularly revolutionary efficiency. Well above average, but not a technological leap.
Think about it: which is more palatable to the user: an extra $10k powerplant in a $10K economy car, or an extra $10K in a vehicle that already costs $50K?
Especially since the fuel cell/electric motor is whisper-quiet, a big plus for the luxury market, and provides freedom from guilt, which is a big luxury in and of itself. Plus, Caddy really needs some way of distinguishing itself from the rest of GM.
They should also try the tech out in their big truck chassis, where the improved mileage would really pay off when those chassis are used to build cargo vans and Winnebagos. God, an extra $10k would be just a blip on a $100K+ Winnebago, and the mileage would be a huge selling point.
Can you imagine how many people would buy a Caddy Suburban that got 30 MPG?
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
If all you want is a fast quarter mile, electric cars can already do it: modern electrical engines have enormous amounts of torque, and you can simplify the powertrain by moving the motors out near the wheels, saving weight and making it even faster.
1 2, 00.html
The problem is range, but hopefully fuel cells can solve that problem.
People are already making electric dragsters that are seriously fast:
http://www.wired.com/news/topstories/0,1287,119
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
The difference is that fuel cells are ultra efficient. You will use 1 gallon of gas to go 500 miles. This is just a stepping stone. Eventually, once this has been adopted and common, you will see hydrogen at the pumps.
Hell, I need a gun to keep the bona fide Democrats from mugging me as I go to work. And I need an friggin army to keep the same wimpy milk toast 'pity me I am not as fortunate as you' jack offs from stealing from my paycheck as I "earn" it.
I am responsible for my "good fortune". I made my "good forture" through hard work and perserverance. Hell will freeze over before one Democrat ever believes a person is responcible for making their "good fortune"
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You sound like a typical democrat. You spout lots of "emotional rhetoric" but give no facts to back up your feeble claims.
... it would equal about one-half of a square inch in the corner of a 9 x 12 foot rug.
The following is a quote from a well established nationally recognized synicated talkshow host.
"The Democrats and anti-capitalist environmentalist weirdoes who never have and never will visit the ANWR will continue to protest; the people who actually DO live in the ANWR will continue to lobby FOR the drilling, and the leftist media will continue to distort the facts.
Just remember: The amount of the ANWR on which you would actually see any human presence - including drilling and production equipment - would equal about one child's footprint on a 120 x 120 foot piece of real estate. Another example
Sounds like it would be a real disaster for the ANWR, doesn't it?" -- NEAL BOORTZ
If you really want to see some numbers, see his May 1 web page at http://www.boortz.com/may1.htm
In the light of reason it sure DOES NOT sound like the ANWR is getting the "fuck" drilled out of it. And dont forget...the locals want the jobs taht come with the drilling...but that doesnt matter much to you as long as you get you way. QUIT TELLING OTHERS WHAT IS BEST FOR THEM...LET THEM DECIDE.
It seems you have forgotten the lesson of California. Stifle expansion of current and future energy sources...voila...rolling blackouts...and hot tempers. If you want to live like our ancestors 100-150 years ago did...be my guest...but dont do anything to force me to live the same way.
But I wonder about you...falling hook, line and sinker for the Democratic Party's watermelon adgenda...socialist/communist idealogy thinly veiled with a veneer of environmentalism.
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Ballard
I find this difficult to believe, and it sounds more like in a situation of pumping clean air in, air that is only slightly polluted is emitted. But if you're pumping already polluted air in, I doubt combustion is going to clean it.
Volvo on the other hand (maybe it was SAAB) did something odd where they basically put a catalytic converter on the radiator, so it actually was cleaning the air as it drove around.
The hydrogen in the Hindenburg wasn't stored in a tank with walls 1/4 inch thick either. A tank of hydrogen is safer than a plastic or paper thin metal 10 gallon gas tank.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
> 500 miles per tank? That's not a very ambitous goal, IMO.
Well, they're probably thinking of their darling Suburban, which thinks it's in heaven when it gets 10 mpg. On fuel cells, you might actually be able to drive it on vacation.
I started to hear this phrase (sea change) being used a log about five months ago? When and why did it start getting such wide usage? I see from http://www.m-w.com that it means:
1 archaic : a change brought about by the sea
2 : a marked change : TRANSFORMATION
Just as a side note as we wander comfortably off topic, the real advantage of solar is that it generates energy at the site of its consumption. Its hard to make the economics work for your house that is already on the grid. However, for a location that is remote the costs associated with connecting to the existing infrastructure is substantial.
Another nice feature of solar is that its peak efficacy coincides with the peak load in some applications, such as energy for air conditioning. This allows you to target a lower peak demand with the entire rest of your energy generation system, which saves big money.
Have a nice day.
Americans are a notorious stingy lot.
The alternative fuel cars- pure electric, hybrid,
and natural gas- all have cost premiums of 20-50%.
They don't do well in the market except for a few
dedicated enthusiasts.
The proposed Cheney-Bush energy program has a
$2000 tax credit for alternative fuel cars,
so that could help.
I've certainly heard this, and it wouldn't surprise me, but I've never actually seen any hard -- or even soft -- facts. Do you have any references?
More likely than not, GM is hedging their bets. At worst, it turns out to be a great PR move. At best, they take the lead in Clean Automobile Technology.
They're gonna have to play catch-up with other auto companies who've been investing in fuel cell tech for years, like DaimlerChrysler and Toyota.
It's not like they're the first, though I'm sure their PR staff is happy that some people seem to think so. DaimlerChrysler, Toyota, and Ford -- at least -- have all made investments in fuel cell technology. Ford Chairman William Clay Ford Jr. publicly said, "The fuel cell will end the 100-year reign of the internal combustion engine" almost a year and a half ago.
Fuel cell tech is great PR, and if they can get it working, such vehicles will (probably) be a hell of a lot easier (read: cheaper) to build, so their margins can be bigger. And they're probably already prepping to lobby for tax breaks for people buying fuel cell vehicles, so they can get a nice sales boom when the changeover starts.
Real men don't care what other people think is "un-manly".
the VW Bug, or anything from VW - forgive me, but I'm not a big fan of post-Nazi automakers
Are you aware that Henry Ford -- you know, of Ford Motor Company -- was a big support of Adolf Hitler, et al? (Not that I'm convinced it's still relevant in that case, either.)
Are you aware of the oppressive policies currently supported by some US-based corporations in various parts of the world?
I hope it's been pointed out somewhere in here that GE owns both NBC and GM. Just so we all know who's reporting what...
"Gee, NBC is saying great things about GM's future".
They should be required to post a disclaimer. As should any television station, newspaper, or other media. They should all make it clear who's interests they're vested in.
Why would you need to replace your engine every month? You install an efficient electric motor in the car, then install your fuel cell to generate the electricity. When the fuel cell runs out you replace it or recharge it. Obviously replacing fuels cells would be made convenient. Just slide out three or four cartridges (or however many it would take), then the old ones would be recycled.
Q.
Agreed, in fact Evonyx broke a world record for fuel-celled powered electric car with a distance of 217 miles using a zinc fuel cell installed in a modified Honda Insigt in October of last year. They had planned on traveling from New York to Detroit (600 miles) on one fuel cell. They said that technical difficulties stopped them, but there was enough power left in the fuel cell to reach there goal.
They haven't updated there webpage in a while, so I have no idea what has happened since. I hope they are successful.
Q.
And yes, you can blame the government and auto companies for "forcing" us to use Artic oil wells, but when someone turns off all their appliances, leaves their 65 degree house, gets in their SUV, drives to the 55 degree airport, boards a...
Have you tried to buy a high mpg car recently? 10 or so years ago we purchased a Toyota station wagon that got over 30 mpg. Last year we started looking again and
It isn't all people making free choices. Some of the choices are quite constrained.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
OK. Not my favorite answer, though.
...) and stick it down a hole somewhere. Hardly matters just where...you've already used up most of the high-level radiation waste, so what you're doing is basically safety-first stuff, and wax over a vitrified hunk of stuff it pretty safe anyway. The was keep the water out and traps the radiation. You could probably use it for building insulation (OK, that's a bit of hyperbole, I think), but just to be safe, bury it in a pit. Preferably where nobody is going to be digging without being warned. But if everything collapses, Ug mark II won't be hurt anyway. Or at least only him personally. (I envision the size of the vitrified chunks as about the size of a large glass brick. And similar composition [you mix in a bunch of melted sand during the vitrification process]).
I like the one where you vitirfy the high level waste and use it as a heat source for a few years. When it gets cool enough to not be worth bothering with, you encapsulate it in parafin (or tar or asphalt or
Now I'll be the first to admit that there may be some problems with this solution, but I don't know what they are. OTOH, I didn't invent it. I just heard of it and thought it sounded good.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
As somebody who lives in alaska, and has seen the so called 'decimated landscape' where the oil companies drill, I'd like to state that you are nuts. The oil companies' footprint in the north slope is extremely small, and the amount of money that they pour back into the communities in Alaska is tremendous. People like you with your self-righteous babbling hurt the US more than any oil company could. Oh, and on the subject of 'oil worshippers', im sure you'll be happy when we run out of oil and you can't drive your minivan to soccer practice or buy your bottles of cola. Fools that believe that drilling has ruined Alaska should ask those that actually have lived there, and they see little downsides, but do love what the industry has done FOR the people.
What if the state or the feds loaned people the money to build solar and wind, and the people paid them back over time, using the money they otherwise would have spent buying power from the grid?
Initial cost to consumer is zero, since the money is loaned to them in full.
Long term cost is equal to whatever the cost of power would have been for them anyways, and once the loan is paid back, their cost goes down to almost zero (less than zero if they feed power back to the grid)
Initial cost to the government is high, but the loan is paid back in full with the money saved.
Long term saving for government is huge, if even 10% of Californians (Nevada, Arizona, Texas) put solar panels on their house.
What if every new house (over a certain size/value) built in California had a Solar Panel on the roof... cost to be paid back by the owner over time, with monthly payments equal to whatever their energy bill would have been that month?
This is my great idea. Steal it. Use it. Make it happen.
Reality has a liberal bias
Why is it hard to believe? The cat on the Honda is simply far better than is needed... so it cleans up its own emissions and then some.
Actually have you read anything lately about the advances in making coal power burn cleaner? It's not like years ago when any nearby town would be covered in soot....they are actually getting quite advanced. A friend of mine works in the power industry (powerplant design), so I am going on what he has told me...but I'd have to say by the tone of that, that you haven't done much homework on it.
That's a 13-gallon tank (approx) in a 2000 Jetta TDI. The diesel in this engine also produces less CO2 (albeit slightly more particulate matter) than unleaded gas.
What I never understood is why it would be such a bad thing if the earth got warmer. 65 million years ago, my 8th grade geology class told me, most of the planet was desert/swamp. So what if we quit using fossil fuels and it turns out the planet is going through a natural warming cycle?
Do we start seeding clouds to increase albedo and cool it off? The idea that the climate is a big stable constant is a crock. It's a chaotic system. Right now it is at a local min. that we find very comfortable, but it could jump to a radically different one very quickly.
I have no opinion on the global warming issue one way or the other. I do, however, believe it's best to err on the side of caution and aviod dumping crap into the environment if we can avoid it.
Don't poop in the tub!
There was an article in the last issue of Home Power about a guy who makes his own biodiesel. Seems to be a pretty simple, if time consuming, process. He goes around his local area and gets the old vegetable oil out of the fryers at restraunts, filters out the food then mixes up his fuel. Granted, it can be a bit on the dangerous side, so kids don't try this at home.
I will post some more about this tonight when I get home. There were some URLs and stuff in the story.
The Veggie Van - the guy also wrote a book called "From the Fryer to the Tank" all about making your own fuel
National Biodiesel Board
Check out Corbin Motors' Sparrow. It's a electric one-seater that costs about $14,900. It looks like something from a Richard Scarry book!
I've seen two in real-life. There's also a Corbin Motors showroom in San Francisco.
cpeterso
two things:
:)
1. this car raises some serious safety concerns (will it blow up in an accident?)
2. you never get something for nothing.. it takes energy to compress the air that the car uses, and generation of that energy creates pollution.
Compressed air might create LESS pollution than other power sources, but it still pollutes. There is no such thing as zero-emissions. Even walking around creates pollution - physical exertion increases metabolism (faster creation of human waste) and elevated breathing rates increases carbon dioxide from exhaling..
we're all doomed. get over it
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
Oops, I must have stumbled onto Plastic by accident. My bad.
Lowmag.net
Like Petrol, nuclear fuel must be refined from something else.
Lowmag.net
500 miles per tank? That's not a very ambitous goal, IMO. A Volkswagen TDI (Golf, Jetta, or New Beetle) can easily go 750 miles on a 15-gallon tank -- 850 miles, if you try a little. I can go get one of those right now, for under $20K. These are some of the safest compact vehicles ever built.
You can run them on anything from kerosene to soybeans, even synthetic fuel made from natgas. I won't list the many other advantages of compression-ignition, direct-injection (CIDI) engines here; but, if you want to hear more about all the advantages of CIDI, just visit Fred's TDI Club.
I think that TDI's are attractive in almost every category; and, one can argue that they stand up well against up-and-coming technologies such as hybrids, fuel-cells, &c. Interestingly, the excellent TDI's that we get in the U.S. represent older technology -- improvements and enhancements are coming out of Europe fast and furious.
We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone. -management
Volkswagen AG was founded by the British military after the end of WWII. Germans took control of the company thereafter -- it's stil 20% owned by Lower Saxony, home to Wolfsburg.
While Dr. Porsche designed the KdF-wagen (Beetle prototype) which was paraded around by Hitler, the history of the VW corporation as we know it has absolutely no link to the National Socialists, slave labor, &c. It's no more or less evil than any other big corporation today.
Almost every auto-maker has skeletons in the closet -- here's a great example. A relative of mine strenuously objected to owning VW's based upon the perceived connection to Nazi's. This person currently drives a Subaru, made by Fuji Heavy Industries, who made all sorts of military equipment for Japan during the war.
Before that, this same person drove a Geo, made by GM, whose European division (Adam Opel AG) infamously used slave labor during the war. Henry Ford's extreme political views and friendship with Hitler are well-storied. So, let's please be mindful of this before we lay into VW too heavily, okay? Thanks.
We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone. -management
As an ASE Certified Master Automobile Technician with L1 Advanced Engine Performance credentials, I can see that roughly 98% of the posters on this topic know absolute shit about the automotive industry and the technology therein. Never have I seen such a group of egotistical idiots speaking as though they have any concept as to what they speak of. All of you....get a life and go with what you know, otherwise, shut the hell up. If there is anyone that takes any posting to Slashdot as that of an authoritative individual, they are in sad shape.
If it ain't a Model M, it's a piece of crap.
East St. Louis... *shiver*
I agree with your comment except for one thing, and it's partially semantic. The very rich aren't the only culprits, the just benefit from it. How frequently do you see very rich people driving around in automobiles that produce an enormous plume of smoke when they drive past? Not very.
On the flip side of the coin, they're probably some of the last to carpool. I could easily argue for both sides of this point.
I do agree that the poor and their (numerous) children usually feel the first effects of pollution. More children means more people to use resources, who produce more children to use more resources, etc.
This post seems to be self defeating. I inevitably end up arguing both sides of an issue, end up contradicting and confusing myself.
One thing I can't argue both sides of, we NEED more fuel efficient vehicles, as well as alternative and renewable sources of energy to power our vehicles and homes. Too bad there's so much money to be made in the oil industry.
We're not destroying this planet. The planet is doing just fine. It's we who are slowly diminishing our capability to survive on the planet. The planet will still be around when we're gone, and it will once again clean itself.
I'm assuming he's talking about the production of the hydrogen from natural gas. There's carbon in the natural gas which I suppose is released as CO2 during the production of the hydrogen for use in the fuel cell. (natural gas is something like 93% methane - CH4) It definitely makes sense to look at the full impact of the choices. Otherwise, we're not making fair comparisons between the technologies.
"They believe their cars can go 500 miles without refueling..."
I hate to tell ya', but 500 miles per fueling is not exactly a stunning new concept. I'm regularly getting 800 miles per tank in my VW Passat TDI and I'm _certainly_ not going easy on the accelerator.
Yes, I do realize that I'm comparing apples and oranges here. I just found it humorous that GM was excited about getting 500 between fuelings.
My email addy goes better without spam.
Dear! Fetch another bottle of brandy!
Jeff
Clean fuel? Hydrogen from petrol you call clean?? Bwahahahah. Most moden cars are already so damn "clean" the burning hydrogen isnt gong to matter much. If you want clean, go to hydrogen generated from nuclear, wind, water, solar, tides, or methane/bio/alcohol, but dont even pretend that anything involving gasolene of fossil fuels is clean these days. I saw an ad for "D.C. METRO(subway) Powered by newer clean coal power" I laughed outloud. If you want to save the enviornmet, push for nuclear, and I dont wanna hear about waste, thats what empty oil wells are for.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
All/most the highways were designed to run at at least 60-80 mph, then in the 70s, they put in the 55 mph crap to save energy, then after the energy crisis, they kept the laws becasue they can make HUGE $$$$ off of speeding tickes, when people arent really speeding, theyre just driving at a comfortable rate for the road. (Ok. so it was a run on sentence, what the hell)
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Damnit, thats it, im changing my sig.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Or if the warm nuclear material simply melts its way out of the wax over a year or two. Try using glass or plastic instead.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Compressed gases are incredibly dangerous. Moreso than barely-flammable liquids like gasoline, in my opinion. I think I'll pass.
Try this! 1. Cylinder full of highly flammable, highly compressed acetylene. 2. Typical automotive gas tank full of gasoline.
Set both about 500 feet away. Shoot with 22 rifle. The gasoline looks pretty while it goes up in a huge fireball on the first shot. The acetylene just, well, after 25 shots, the tank was still a tank. I gave up.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
However, had your .22 been high enough power to rupture the tank it was in, the acetone spewing out at 250 PSIG would have surely created a much more spectacular fireball than the gasoline, since just the acetone itself is *much much* more flammable than gasoline.
Thanks for seeing the point. If they were storing compressed air in gasoline tanks, I admit that there would be huge safety issues. Since highly compressed air would definitely be kept in something a little stronger than your average gasoline tank.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
There are many companies and universities hard at work on adapting fuel cells for cars. The focus right now is getting the size and cost of all the components down to be practical for consumer vehicles.
AlpineR
It isn't a rumour, its utter speculation without verification. It can be proven to be true, so, unless your prepared to prove it, why spread the rumour?
500 miles is the point where there are few, if any arguments against fuel cells.
What isn't mentioned is the amount of fuel required to do it.
Hybrid technology is a stepping stone anyway. If we continue to use gasoline for a while so people switch to fuelcell, so be it. But, once all the cars on the road are fuelcell based it would be possible to switch over to hydrogen at the pumps.
Patents are public documents. People like saying companies buy up the patents and then noone can use them, what they often forget is that the patent can atleast be referenced.
A lot of conspiracy nuts have hid behind this misunderstanding for 50 years.
These experts point out that if gasoline were not already established as an irreplaceable part of modern life, it would probably never be approved as a fuel in today's regulatory environment. Hydrogen, although not nearly as dangerous, has scared people ever since the Hindenburg airship disaster more than half a century ago. When hydrogen leaks, the gas tends to rise and dissipate, unlike heavy gasoline vapors, which tend to gather in low places and wait for unsuspecting victims to touch them off.
Article
Carefully watch the footage of the Hindenburg and you'll note it was the canvas and it's coating which is the significant source of flames after the first second. The hydrogen wasn't the problem.
If you're so all-fired up about saving the planet from the its destruction by the Evil Oil Companies (the dividends of whose stock is probably keeping your (or somebody else's) grandmother from eating Meow Mix), go to school, get a chemical/mechanical/electrical engineering degree and develop a better solution that's cheaper and safer. Hurling deprecations from the peanut gallery doesn't impress me one bit.
Are you completely fucking stupid? Let me see if we can get to the bottom of this: if someone has a problem with policy X, they should go get training in X and fix the problem themselves. So if I have a problem with, say, the AIDS epidemic, then the only way to "impress" you is to go to medical school and train myself, right?
Hmm. What if I'm a Sudanese orphan who has been conscripted at the age of 11 into the military? Do I have that option then? If I were to complain about the AIDS epidemic, would your ear be deaf?
Let's take another example: For the sake of argument, let's take global warming as a fact. Now, I live in a coastal area that is beginning to be affected by melting ice shelfs. (Again, this is for the sake of argument.) I'm a 49 year old farmer, and the encroaching sea is damaging my ability to make my livelihood. Dykes, windmills, and other such instruments are becoming less and less effective. According to you, I should go out and invent a better fuel technology, correct? Me, an aging farmer, should go back to school, get a degree in whatever, and just fix the problem myself, correct?
Or let's just take an example from the typical /.ers life: I just got done working on this really nifty program and released it under the license Y. Three months down the road, I find out that Pokersoft has snatched my wares and put them into their proprietary for-cost software, in the process violating some term of the license. According to your brilliant system, instead of hiring a lawyer, I should go to law school myself, right? No good bitching about it if I can't fix it myself, after all!
Moronic. Absolutely moronic. Fact of life, dumbass: Not everyone can solve their own problems. That's the "sevices" part of "goods & services." Sometimes it takes others to do it, whether out of goodwill or a profit motive. And sometimes the marketplace fucks people over, requiring government to step in and nudge things in the right direction.
Christ. Go back to the Freeper that spawned you.
- Rev.Now, for the info that will get me modded down as flamebait: I don't believe drilling for more energy is immoral. I believe that it is highly moral, as oil and every other natural resource is used to save our lives. The ambulance that saves a heart attack victim's life is gasoline powered...
This is very true, and a good point. However, the counterargument is that there is a chance that by continuing to use fossil fuels we will cause much greater harm in the long term, in the form of flooded coastal areas, more droughts and floods, and in general a biosphere that behaves very angrily.
do you think that by making energy a plethora of government regulation, of weaving generalities, of moral wrongness, that ANYONE would ever want to be innovative?
Very few are proposing anything like that, and those who do wield little (if any) political power. Careful with your straw men... However, energy is still a very profitable business to be in despite (or arguably because) of regulation. It can remain profitable while being nudged toward being environmentally friendly, as well. If incentives are put in for companines that bring clean technologies to market then there will be companies who will pursue. It's possible to encourage environment-friendly products while lowering the amount of regulation: if you do (a), you don't have to worry about regulations (b), (c), and (d).
- Rev.Uhmmm... How can a hydrogen powered fuel cell (your last two examples) produce CO2 as exhaust? Where's the carbon come from?
- Necron69
How does it get 900 miles per tank when it gets 45-55MPG and has a 11.9 gallon tank?
I love my Prius, but I still get closer to 500 miles per tank.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Thats not really a big deal! There are cars out there that do that. I had an old 4 banger 2.3L mustang with a big tank. That car got around 30mpg, and had about a 15 gallon tank. On long highway trips it sometimes got over 500 miles between stops. 6 hours between stops was always a good number to try for, if the people in the car could stand it.
We can cut out a lot of the fuel refinery waste (in energy usage and pollutants) to make car fuel, the pollution of the trucks and tanker ships that transport the gas to the stations, the pollution of the cars themselves, and maybe get the power companies to move away from coal burning power (very, very unlikely).
Though I don't know for sure, I wouldn't think that much power is really lost in the resistance of the power lines. I'm sure that some is lost, but is it really a crapload? If you have a percentage, I would be really interested to know it.
It's not a magic bullet, but more efficient engines will help tremendously (if only to lower the price of gas from supply and demand).
IANAL, but I play one on
But the EV1 sucks as far as being safe, at least in my book.
Think about it - it uses lead-acid batteries - they are stacked nearly everywhere there is a bit of room - a line even runs down the center of the vehicle.
So, if you don't mind being splashed with sulpheric acid in an accident...
Furthermore, these batteries (all rechargable batteries) have to vent gases. Many times (esp in the case of lead acid batteries), these fumes are corrosive, and smell real bad. If proper venting to the air isn't done right, those fumes are going to end up in the cab of the car...
I have heard that the EV1 has this problem. I don't believe the EV1 uses gel-cells either, but regular style car batteries (they may be deep-cycle as well, but pretty much liquid based).
There are many better examples of electric cars out there other than the EV1...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
More from the Post
Best Slashdot Co
like I said, it is rumored.
In Europe the situation is completelly different. With petrol prizes increasing all the time, people are very sensitive to improvements on the consumtion of new cars. That is why new very efficient and environment friendly diesel engines where developed by Audi, Renault, etc and that is why those engines sell so well.
This is a bit like the Internet. Without the low bitrates of most user connections there would have been no need to develop (and use!) compression technologies. Without high petrol prize there is no need for efficient engines.
That makes me think. Maybe the current energy problem in california will have some good long term effects after all.
Angel
Plant uses photosynthesis to convert H20 and CO2 into sugar. We use yeast to convert sugar into alcohol. (Or other biological fuels such as methane.) Then we burn the alcohol. CO2 is released, but it is never more than the plants first took out of the air with photosynthesis.
As a homebrewer I know that the yeast produce CO2 as well as alcohol as part of the fermentation process. Does your equation take that into account?
Wow, you must have studied to be an asshole. I wonder if you are really like that in real life.
"All you greenies want your cake and eat it too. You want electricity and big SUV's and all of that, but you don't want to pay for it and you don't want to accept that there is a price to pay for it."
Who does? Who are you talking to? I'm sure you'd just as soon criticize people who use bicycles and public transport and buy locally grown food as cuh-razy green tree-hugging commie nuts. I don't know who you are talking about, but there are no "greenies" I know of that "want electricity and big SUV's and all of that"...in fact, that conspicuous consumption is EXACTLY what they despise. Yet when they do something about it, they are all of a sudden crazy loony greens. I think perhaps you are talking about Bobos (who, yes, have co-opted much of the environmental movement - hey, soccar moms, buy your "RealSimple" magazine subscription now!).
"Either you want us to live in the dark ages (LITERALLY) or you're willing to accept a few mooses and ducks and shit like that dead. You might live in a fantasy world where you can have it both ways, but the REAL world is a lot different."
And you might live in a totally black and white fantasy world where any progress MUST come at a cost to the environment, where no compromises are possible, and where you can peacefully go about your life conscience-free conveniently convinced that there's nothing you can do about it anyway...but the REAL world is a lot different.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I can't speak for Ford, but GM has been working on alternative vehicles for quite awhile now ... nothing has made it to market yet (unless you count the EV1), but they have been spending R&D money on it.
Sources, please. The Greenpeace flyer doesn't count.
and it doesn't involve blaming environmentalists for a California problem that was caused by a right-wing deregulation fiasco of unimaginable proportions.
"Deregulation" never happened in California. Price controls and massive bureaucratic obstacles to producing and selling power happened.
Now that you've established that you are a morally superior individual to those of use who want to rape the earth and kick puppies, what exactly do you propose to do about the problem that our civilization requires large amounts of energy? Conservation is fine and well, but as CA demonstrates that by itself is not sufficient. And I'm guessing you're not a huge fan of nuclear power either, so what's the answer?
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
There are a few efforts underway to reduce fuel consumption..
Here's a link: http://www.clarkson.edu/~visser/research/drag/truc k/index.html to a NY State funded project to do just that. Initial results from a cross-country test suggest that a 1/2mpg savings on a truck that burns 5mpg normally.
Yeah, except that neither coal, house paint, or well water produce additional toxins: they just shuffle around the stuff that's already there. Fission reactions, however, produce these hideous poisons not found in nature (on earth anyway) basically out of thin air.
And sure 50K years is not long by geological standards, but it could sure bung up our civilization, and the next 10 civilizations after ours. Here's hoping we can find a way to warn them about it...
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No kidding. Personally, I think they should set up an offshore rig and hire Burns Slant Drilling Co. to get at the oil. Then the pretty animals can run around freely, and we get our oil! It's win-win!
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Much of their value is in the fact that they are zoned as gas stations. Converting a gas station to something other than a gas station these days poses some environment expenses. In order to make gas burn cleaner, gasoline has become fairly toxic stuff, so gas tanks must be either maintained or removed (carefully). A single drop of MTBE (a gasoline additive) can render millions of gallons of water undrinkable.
Someone you trust is one of us.
GAS prices comes mostly from three factors: The oil, the transport, and the taxes. In USA, about 40% of the price comes from the transport (oil from middle east, remember?) and about 40% goes for taxes. In European countries, citizens pay much more in taxes (up to 80% in UK!) than transport. And the oil itself, usually accounts to about only 20% of the total price. There is not much gain in the refinement; which is the reason why US refineries have been decreasing.
What can you do with more crude oil? For most people, you have to transform it in a more energy efficient form of fuel, such as gasoline, or diesel or whatever; and the USA have an extra issue, which is its reduced refinement capacity; they have to depend in other countries for a small (but growing) percentage of the refinement (so, more transport, taxes, etc).
Yes it is a dormant crisis, but perhaps some are seeing it approach. The research of alternate fuels can never be bad, and, a true fact is: The United States of America; having less than 8% of the world population, is at least responsible of 25% of the pollution of the whole planet. No point arguing about it, climate changes are already in process, and its only getting worse... For all.
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Artix
Your Linux, your init.
It seems to me that an ideal solution would be to build a shitload of nuclear reactors, use the electricity generated to power the grid as well as electrolyse water into hydrogen and oxygen, and retrofit current gas stations to handle hydrogen. Fitting fuel cells into cars just adds an unnecessary step, since the eventual goal invariably seems to be to have gas stations serving hydrogen anyway.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
did someone forget to close a table tag?
phil.
Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
Leela: No he didn't.
My blog: http://jkratz.dyndns.org/~jason/blog/
The article said a range of 500 miles...not 500 miles per gallon. ie: a fill-up gets you about 500 miles.
My blog: http://jkratz.dyndns.org/~jason/blog/
I'm interested in getting a hybrid or electric car for my next vehicle, and I was hoping anyone could refer me to some web pages that have good, up-to-date info on technologies, products (i.e. what vehicles are available from what manufacturers?), environmental issues, etc.
For all relevant data, note that I'm in the U.S. and plan on staying here, so directing me to the site of a company that only manufactures cars in Germany isn't going to help. Thanks in advance!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Whether it's local or imported from another state, Califonia is buying energy produced from oil. 700-1500% increases are PRECISELY because of supply and demand, because it's all relative to price. If you've ever looked at an S&D chart, the intersection of supply and demand is at the market price, and the market price is very high in CA right now. If you force businesses to sell below the market price, demand increases and supply is exhausted faster. If the government forces businesses to sell product above the market price, demand decreases and supply increases. In the end, what may sound like corporate greed to you is simply the energy companies responding to market demand . If Bush imposed a price cap, he would also have to force utilities outside of CA to sell all of their available power and bankrupt supply; the energy crisis would at that point spill out of CA and into other states.
As someone astutely pointed out on Slashdot a while back, we will never truely run out of oil, because as supply diminishes (the supply curve shifts to the right on the chart), the market price goes up accordingly to stabilize demand. As the flow of oil is reduced to a trickle, we would eventually reach a point where a barrel of oil costs $10,000 or more, thus ensuring that it becomes prohibitively expensive to exhaust it.
That's how supply and demand works, Charlie Brown...
The effect is still the same; you have substitute products that will at some point be cheaper and more attractive than oil; at that point, people stop buying oil and thus we never truely run out, which was my point.
Quite the contrary, actually. Many prominent Democrats are begging the President to put price caps on energy right now, energy that is produced by oil (among other things).
However, any first year economics student can tell you that price caps screw up the balance between supply and demand. When the government sets a price cap on an item, they are pricing it below what the market rate is. When a product is selling below the market rate, the demand generally increases. In effect, putting a price cap on energy would cause Califonians to use a lot more energy, and burn up a lot more oil in the process.
Can't speak for the American Oil crowd, but I know for a fact that the Euroeans are looking very seriously at all sorts of alternative/renewable energies. BP and Shell are two fairly big players in solar, biomass, geothermal, and forestry.
The green-leaning unwashed masses aren't the only ones who are aware that we're burning dinosaurs faster than we're making them. Forecasts vary on the catastrophic oil-running-out deadline (the USGS forecasts are held in fairly high repute). There are many more you can find, with wildly varying dates.
However, a fact much more interesting to an Oil company is when it's going to stop getting cheap to recover oil. All these businesses know it is definately going to get more expensive to extract oil. They also know it's a real posiblity it's going to get more expensive to buy it from countries which make it cheap (OPEC getting its shit together, and other "disaster" scenarios).
So yeah, they thought of that. They reckon that as companies who've got a pretty good idea how energy is used, they're pretty qualified to in this area. Anyone heard any oil company propoganda on fuel cells?
"A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five." -Groucho Marx
Can you point to some sources of this? I am very intersted in getting more info.
hmmm After a few seconds most cats that I know would curl up and sleep, if they weren't already sleeping when they entered the box.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
mostly because you can only drill so deep.
The earth is of finite size, and thus can only contain a finite amount of oil. (unless you believe that oil is produced somehow by the planet at a rate similar to our usage of it - an argument which I have seen but have never seen good evidence for). Mos tof the earths interior is not oil.
At some point, be it in 10 years or 1000 years, that reserve will run out. Now... plant based fuels (like bio-disel) get their energy from plant sugars, which are stored solar energy. Thus available as long as the sun is around.
Others (like fuel cells) are even more independant. They are produced by electricity usually, which can be made using solar energy, or by some bio-disel system, or geothermally.
Eventually we will stop getin glucky and finding more oil - because their wont be any more.
Better to be ready for that now, than sorry we weren't later.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Look into the air powered car.3 .a sp
http://www.cartoday.com/livenews/news/00/10/27.
Talk about cool - with a filter on the exaust this thing would have NEGITIVE air pollution. And it runs as good as an electric. The down side is there's no big company controlling AIR (Yet) so no one would make money off of fuel.
G.H.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
actually, PA (I live there too) you can get a ticket for driving in the passing lane without passing. I forget what the length of time is, but the state legislature passed it supposedly because a couple of the legislators were tired of semi's blocking the passing lane. Yay for them!
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
Toyota is selling this car (the Prius) at a loss, to get a foot in on the technology, as well as comply with certain California laws stating that a certain percentage of ZEV's (zero emissions vehicles) must be sold. Besides, this car may be efficient, but it's ugly (IMO) as hell. Who's going to buy an ugly, underpowered car? In response to our European friends who wonder why Americans need such powerful cars: Americans generally are the most idiotic and thoughtless drivers in the world (and I'm an American, so no calling this flamebait). They have no concept of what the passing lane is for, and often prefer to idle along in it, blithely blocking others from passing. More importantly, they often don't allow cars to merge onto highways by moving over. It's dangerous pulling out into traffic here. You need that power to get around the idiots. Try driving in New York City sometime. I only get angry in my car anymore...
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
From the article:
"double or triple the effective cruising range of a fuel cell-powered vehicle to 500 miles."
500 miles doesn't sound very impressive when it's no problem to get at least 600 miles range cruising at 80mph in a VW Golf GTI diesel.
GM sees a technology that could compete with their industry so they get their piece of the pie to make sure it stays at bay until they are ready to compete.
Your complaint conveniently leaves out that GM has has electric cars far longer than Toyota/Honda have had their hybrids. Take a look at the GM EV1; it's used primarily in fleets.
First off, it is not a complaint. It is an observation. Secondly, I could give a rat's ass about fleets and the EV1. I am talking about consumer vehicles. Ford has had the Dearborn, MI police department on methane-gasoline hybrid vehicles for years and years now. GM has been working on pure-electric vehicles for ages. Chrysler..well, I have no clue what the hell Chrysler is up to anymore... My point is that the Big-3 will not introduce any type of alternative fuel vehicle to the mass-market. Period.
I am cynical. I really hope (for the sake of us all) that I am completely wrong on all of this but I am afraid that I am not. The Big-3 does not care about civil-responsibility, they care about the bottom line. If it sells, sell it! Now, that is not necessarily wrong, especially if you are a shareholder, but it would be nice if a stronger effort toward greener vehicles could be made.
It is kinda like Ford calling the Expedition an 'LEV' (Low Emissions Vehicle) just because it passes the guidelines that Ford's lobbyists got through congress. I sometimes feel that they are brainwashing us into thinking that something magical is happening under the hood that makes a V8 efficient again. Oh yeah, and we need a V8 to get through the tough terrain of the suburbs.
I think the Big-3 would be even more prosperous if they would stop playing into the 'penis-complex psyche' and take another angle, like to come up with a realistic first-step into the next-generation of vehicles. A hybrid that has power, is very safe, yet has a very classic look.
Face it, 20 years from now, I hope to God that we are not all driving cars that get 9MPG. Unless the Big-3 get on the ball, they are going to get hurt and fall behind.
Back in the late 70's the Big-3 were having fun producing big muscle cars and fuel economy was not a factor in design or in the forecasting. Most Americans laughed at the Hondas and Toyotas. Then the fuel crisis hit and the Japanese carmakers were suddenly taken seriously by the consumers.
Shortly afterward, the Big-3 made feeble attempts to compete with the Japanese automakers. The Big-3 got through the tough times, but it sure wasn't pretty.
Now it is the really early 90's. The economy is on the rise, gas prices are stable, things are good. Ford throws an SUV chassis onto a pickup frame and the Explorer is born. It is featured in Jurassic Park and suddenly everyone wants one.
The next thing you know, the 'Bigger is Better' mindset catches on. By now, the mid to late 90's are here, the internet is booming, the stock market is great and gas prices are still pretty good! The Suburbans, Tahoes, Expeditions, Excursions etc are the hot thing for the soccer-moms now cuz everyone has one. 9 MPG is the standard, but nobody cares!
Meanwhile, silently Honda and Toyota R&D are working on this concept. It is a hybrid system that will allow a car to use both a gas and electricity. 60 - 80 MPG is the projected outcome. Most scoff at the lack of power and the unrealistic use of this type of car.
Then the bottom falls out. The market goes down, an oil tycoon gets elected, and OPEC thinks that we need a reality-check. The economy settles down, the gas prices skyrocket, Explorers are flipping like hotcakes instead of selling like hotcakes and suddenly the $50,000 SUV that gets 9 MPG is not the best idea.
At the same time, the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius take to the market. Yes, they are small. Yes, they are not speedsters. Yes, they are $20,000 and get unprecedented fuel mileage.
Now, Ford and GM harp up. "Hey, we are working on these nice little fuel-cell technologies. We rule!"
Sounds a little like GM's 'Impact' concept car from the mid-80's to me. That never materialized, nor will this. It is just history repeating itself... so don't worry. Perhaps after you pay off the Excursion you can get a loan to buy a Peterbuilt or Kenworth... just maybe.
Well, that is just my take on the situation. Just some guy from Detroit.
Good GOD. 30 miles to the gallon is GOOD??? I hope US miles are at least 1.5 times longer than British miles. If my car drops below 45 (including round town trips) it's taken for an immediate service cos something is violently wrong with it. And its a GM produced motor.
My life is on display at http://www.deardiary.net/ if you really care
Leaded auto gas in the US was phased out in the 80's. Here in California, we typically have 3 grades of gas available, rated by octane number, 87, 89, and 92. Some rare stations will only carry 87 and 92 octane, which is how the stuff is actually produced. The 89 octane stuff is a mix of the other two. There's also usually one or two speed shops in any given area that sells 115 octane racing fuel, fills NO2 bottles, and also sells nitro-methane to the psychotic speed freaks.
Diesel availability varies by location. In the inner city, it's available near the freeways to support trucking. Often these are "cardlock" facilities, open only to commercial traffic. In the suburbs, and rural areas, about 40% of the stations seem to carry diesel. In the western US, diesel pickup trucks are popular with small businesses, farmers, and the odd individual nutcase like me that likes to get 20mpg in a 8000lb. vehicle. European style auto-diesels haven't met much success over here, but they can be found.
About half the stations have some minimal form of LPG fueling system, but these are almost never used for fueling LPG powered vehicles. Rather, they're used for filling barbeque fuel tanks, and LPG tanks for campers & travel trailers, motorhomes, etc...
Other alternative fuels out here are bio-diesel, which is manufactured from vegetable oil, and pretty much a direct replacement for petro-diesel, and CNG. Bio-diesel is not easy to find, but popular with the yacht crowd since it's biodegradeable. A vehicle fueling station opened recently in San Francisco. CNG is compressed natural gas, and is popular with short haul trucking & delivery, and municipal buses. These virtually always have their own fueling facilities, closed to the public. It is possible for a homeowner to buy a compressor and fuel at home, since most homes are tied to utility NG sources. But it's not a popular choice.
Temkin
They're counted separately. Mobile sources and stationary sources are dealt with very differently in air quality modeling. Stationary sources can be controlled and can be located in sparsely populated areas. Mobile sources tend to be in highest concentration where there is the highest concentration of people (and where air quality is the most important).
These vehicles do not qualify for ZEV status; they burn gas just like a typical car. They just burn less of it.
The previous poster was referring to california's electricity, and california's electricity does *not* (< 1 percent) come from oil, imported or not.
As someone astutely pointed out on Slashdot a while back, we will never truely run out of oil, because as supply diminishes (the supply curve shifts to the right on the chart), the market price goes up accordingly to stabilize demand.
Nope. There's a cap to the price because of substitution effects. For example, you can create alternative petroleum products by conversion of organic material. Or, you can get power from other sources.
Those are referring to marginal peak rates for electricity, i.e. it's 110 degrees all over california, and you already bought your usual 20 GWh, how much is it going to cost to get 1 GWh more. The *average* cost of electricity in CA has done something on the order of doubling over the last couple years.
It seems to me to be far more likely that California has been spoiled by years and years of artificially low power costs, and are suddenly confronted with paying the actual cost of getting electricity for the first time, and are crying like babies over it.
It's not the people's fault; it's bad governance (which i guess is in part the people's fault). First there was Governor Pete Wilson, the legislature, and the California utilities (PG&E, SCE, etc) which created a "deregulation" bill which would have done well if not for the rapid rise in energy prices.
Then, there was Governor Davis, who refused to raise electricity prices and remove the price cap earlier than planned in the deregulation bill, causing the utilities to spiral towards bankruptcy, and causing power producers to not sell to CA (no one wants a soon-to-be-bankrupt company as a customer). Raising prices would have helped the utilities with their financial problems, and would have encouraged more conservation.
Instead, now that it's too late to do the *right* thing, Davis plans to pay for the financial problems by using tax dollars rather than raising the cap to its market level--conservation is thwarted again.
You can generally expect about an overall $.50/kWh cost from a well-designed PV system in a sunny area (such as Arizona).
There are millions of ways to produce power, just like this one. The problem is *cost*. This would not be very cost efficient. The density of the natural gas here is low, and the landfill would need help to actually force a sufficient amount of decomposition (in most landfills, there's actually not much decomposition).
Not sure if anyone has mentioned it - but this sounds like the same sort of game the software giants play with their vapourware, etc. It's to stop the smaller players getting together and forming a standard or making something that is actually good for the consumers. Same rules apply.
Fuel cells will definitely win out eventually, but it isn't very clear what the fuel will actually be. Many of the advantages, efficiency, quiet operation, low to zero emissions (and stable over the life of the fuel cell) are shared by all designs.
I'm hoping for methanol to win out, preferably with a direct methanol fuel cell (as opposed to a reformer producing hydrogen on the fly). Methanol looks more practical than ethanol or any other carbon based hydrogen carrier, it shouldn't require an outrageous change at the gas stations (a new nozzle standard, new tank linings, etc.). It can be made from natural gas (currently often wasted), which is bad for greenhouse effects, but you know it's going to get used up anyway. Or it can be generated from a number of feedstocks.
Gasoline will probably never allow a direct fuel cell, and the reformers will always be dirtier than methanol.
Metal sounds interesting, but will force a more expensive infrastructure.
Dara
I hadn't heard about the Solid Oxide Cell you mention, it sounds interesting. What I meant by "the reformers will always be dirtier than methanol" is that "gasoline reformers will always be dirtier than methanol reformers (assuming a reformer is necessary to convert the hydrocarbon to hydrogen and CO2 and pollution)." CO2 may cause a green house effect, but it is not "dirty" by any stretch of the imagination. The process of changing methane to methanol doesn't happen on the car, and I'm sure it can be controlled to be very low pollution.
The article goes on to say that 'Big Oil' is really pushing the on-board gasoline reformer technology as it would make very little difference to their bottom line, but people would think it is environmentally friendly. The relevent parts are:
'Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.' B. Pascal
Yes, storing Hydrogen in a compressed form is risky and inefficient.
So store it in a metal hydride. It can store more Hydrogen per volume than liquid Hydrogen. (Yes, it's true. Check it out for yourself.) And can be re-fueled in about the same time as filling up a gasoline tank, can be filled up when only half-empty, is filled at low pressure, would not release all the hydrogen instantaneously in a crash, and would not take up any more volume than an equivalent gasoline tank.
It is, IMHO, THE ANSWER. It can be used to feed fuel cells or hydrogen-powered internal combustion engines. And by distributing the energy as pure hydrogen, the SOURCE of the hydrogen could be from any one of hydrocarbon fuels, electrolysis of water, algae pools, or whatever. It would allow different regions to create hydrogen in the best way FOR THAT REGION, and would ensure that no ONE source has a monopoly on hydrogen.
Here's a couple links to places using this technology NOW!!
Ovonics/ Energy Conversion Devices or Hydrogen Components' Solid Hydrogen
does anyone know about the shell eco marathon contest? whoever runs the most kilometers with a single litre of gasoline wins the competition.
this year's compo was held last weekend in france, if I recall correctly. a team of colleagues of mine went over there, but I don't know the results, yet...
anyways, these are no real cars, just a motorcycle engine and a structure to hold everything together, plus the driver. but I wonder if any new concept (if any) is somehow incoroporated in a real car....
nipjc at ua dot pt
I will be sad to see the day that Mustangs, Camaros and Corvettes are replaced with front wheel drive super efficient/super slow cars.
Then again everyone thought the Muscle car era was over when the late 70s hit and right now you can buy showroom cars that do the quarter mile in 13 seconds or less. Maybe they will make a few fast ones in the future too.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
they cling to fossil fuels like a whore to a man's cock. gasoline? bah!
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
For comparison, a tank of oxygen for welding is at 2000 psi and if you knock the top off of it the thing shoots off like an unguided missile, detroying anything in its path.
I don't think I would want one of those tanks in my car!
Remeber, GM invested heavily in electric cars and when they introduced the EV1 (codenamed "impact") in '98 they were the only auto manufacturer that was making a serious attempt at an electric car in the US. In fact, they were the only company that was prepared to meet the California law that stated that 10% of all cars sold in California must be emission free by the year 2000. No other manufacturer was able to put out a car in time and so they lobbied for an extension untill 2004 (when it will happen again, I guarantee it). So what if GM is researching fuel cells....they may even put a model into production.....but unfortuneately because people are too lax with the restrictions they set upon themselves, a fuel-cell car will go the same route as the EV1.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Well, if you'd actually bothered to read the article like you claim, you would have noticed that it stated that the emissions were "well to wheel." In other words, that's the amount of CO2 created pumping out the oil, transporting it to the refinery, refining it, transporting it to the conusmer, and burning it.
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There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
However, I'd like to point to General Electric HomeGen. Published reports and stats on this show a very extremely low emmissions rate. How [sic] do that happen? I have to admit that I'm not up to the technology involved (my EE is twenty years out of date) but the specs on pollution show very low CO output.
I was going to put some stats here about the FC, but I just browsed the site and I don't see them anymore. (They were there about five months ago.) As I recall, the thing does 7KW full bore and costs about US$12,000, but I can't re-check those stats.
This is a re-badged device. I forget who the OEM is, but I'm sure a search would turn them up.
I'm actually looking at these generators to
extend operation of our computer center during power failure
reduce battery maintenence costs (we spent US$12K last year on new batteries, and will again this year
reduce our battery count to gain space. (With the generators, we will only need 1 hour of run time on batteries, vs. the 72 we have now.)
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Do you know why GM or anybody else don't produce new advanced designs? Because engineers have to be conservative designers. Nobody notices when an engineer does a good job. They just enjoy their modern conveniences without a second thought. And what happens when an engineer fucks up? Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Space Shuttle Challenger.
There are so many failure modes for new unproven technology. Nobody wants their high-tech ceramic engines cracking apart at 30000mi.
Actually, you can have your cake and eat it too. Business does not have to rape the environment to turn a profit.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
Rather than the hydrogen energy being converted into electrical energy to drive an electric motor, wouldn't it be simpler just to have a hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine?
Then we move to Post #151: Bush can't possibly rape the Artic wilderness.
So, yeah, based on his incredible consistancy, I'd say troll is more than likely. Of course, it's also possible that he's a complete nut and can't remember to check his stance on anything before posting.
Besides, I've yet to hear one good argument against drilling in ANWR or whatever. Other than "but it's wilderness!"
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You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Guess what - your house used to be on wilderness. Guess it's time to wreck the cities and let the wilderness come back... tear up the highways, forget about any progress, because, after all, they're PREVENTING WILDERNESS.
Please. Either demonstrate that drilling in Alaska will cause irreperable harm using actual facts or just shut up. I don't wanna hear "we have to conserve because we must." There's no reason in there. It's just "well, we haven't drilled there yet, so obviously it would be destroyed if we did so now." Not a good reason. At all.
--
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I'd buy a brand new car for the first time if it was a fuel cell car. That clean driving does appeal to me, but until then I'll stick with the 20 year old klunkers. They may not be as fuel efficient but they are cheap to buy, cheap to fix, and when you do buy them they don't usually go over $10,000 and require a loan to pay off. Whats really the killer is that most of these new cars are made for midgits.... there are some larger ones out there but 99% are a pain for me to get in to when they are fuel efficient. 6'5" doesn't fit easly in to a tiny little jetta or rice burner. :)
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
What's a seachange?
I think every major car manufacturer should be making these new types of vehicles their top priority. Maybe then they could find a way to include some type of "home hydrogen" kit that will use a solar panel and a tank of water to generate the hydrogen you'd need for your new fuel-cell car. Just fill it before you leave for work and you're good for the day!
I wouldnt mind getting one of those Honda Insight hybrid cars (I know its not a fuel-cell car, but it's a start), if only they didnt cost over $27k Cdn (without even having a built in CD player!).
I don't understand why people still freak out over the idea of hydrogen as a fuel -- oh yeah, it's because of the Hindenburg. If you think about it, a hydrogen explosion is a relatively safer thing then a gasoline explosion. Gasoline is a liquid, it explodes and gets thrown outward, landing on stuff and setting it on fire. Hydrogen explodes, it goes upward in a big poof, and it's over. I remember my high school chem teacher 12-13 years ago arguing for hydrogen fuel on these grounds.
"Deregulation" never happened in California. Price controls and massive bureaucratic obstacles to producing and selling power happened.
>sputter I'd like to know what you define legislative mandates (under the last Republican Gov, but delayed as a time bomb that that ineffectual loser Davis couldn't even see until it had not only exploded under him, but proceeded to shower the atmosphere with sun-killing radioactive dust - sorry, got lost in the metaphor) to force state power utilities to sell plants off to *unsupervised* companies eager to underbid on them and then overcharge for selling back power *generated by plants originally built by the state* but now owned by companies *including one of the biggest private funders of the Bush/Cheyney campaign* and under investigation for suspected collusion and conspiracy to artificially inflate shortages to increase profits.
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
In any case, gasoline vehicles are not subsidized
:-)
I disagree. They're subsidized far more than electrics, but by different mechanisms to what you're thinking of. For example, think how many billions of dollars of infrastructure have been shaped to accomodate gas, but not electric. Sure, that's the Way Things Are, but it's also acting as a huge subsidy.
Not to mention the huge subsidies in terms of the costs of the vehicles that owners do not pay, but are forced on others, such as pollution, oil-supply induced wars etc. If the exhaust pipe of vehicles were required to be piped straight back into the cab such that only the producer of the emmissions had to breath them, opinions on gas would change real fast
This is the problem with both induction motors and battery motors: they don't eliminate the fossil fuel consumption, they just hide it at the power company.
It sounds like you're not very familiar with the technology. Take two identical combustion engines producing identical emissions. Put one under the hood of a car, and use the other to charge a cell, which you then use to drive an electric car. The electric car will do the same commuting as the combustion car yet total emmissions can be ten to a hundred times less. How is this possible? Because the inefficiency of combustion engine cars is simply mind blowing.
Not only do they require wasteful, expensive kludges like the clutch, no only do they frequently operate at 0% efficiency (they emit pollutants even when you are not using them - just waiting at the lights), not only do they simply dump the vast majority of their energy (every time you hit the brakes, you throw away all your energy, then burn yet more fuel to get back up to speed when the light turns green, as opposed to electrics which convert your kinetic energy back into storage when you brake), but they are simply insanely inefficient even when running at maximum efficiency under ideal conditions, which don't exist in the real world to begin with.
And on top of all that, even the dirtiest power stations are far cleaner energy generators than cars to begin with, and in many areas, the powerstations produce no emissions.
Bottom line: It's simply a joke to claim that electrics just hide the emissions. They don't. Electrics are genuinely cleaner by orders of magnitude. When you discover how much cleaner they really are, you realise why combustion engines are causing so great a pollution problem in so many areas. When you learn how electric motors beat the pants of combustions in all other areas too, you lose all respect for those crude, smelly, noisy, victorian contraptions. The big problem is that the full power of the electric motor cannot be brought to bear in a car until the problem of storing electric power is solved. Until then, electric cars will be running underpowered with tiny electric motors (and even then are still giving combustion motors a hard time).
Sure, if you don't mind me dumping 1310 pounds of lead acid cells in your backyard every couple of years
Oh come on. Lead acid is a joke. Any electric car that runs on lead acid is either an obsolete model, or a half-hearted token attempt to grab some PR. Look into polymer batteries, flywheels, fuel cells, etc. Pointing to a lead-acid electric car in order to defend sticking to what you know is like pointing to Win3.1 to defend the command line user interface on home computers.
Show me the electric car that can do all that, and cost less than $20k (without government subsidies hiding half the cost)
Show me the gas-powered truck that can do all that and cost less than $20 (without the huge subsidies hiding most of the cost). Right now, the $$$ cost of petroleum vehicles is a mere fraction of the real cost we pay. Not to mention the huge subsidy that gas effectively enjoys compared to electric when it comes to infrastructure, because gas is currently established tech while electric is currently not.
Like I said, while electric motors are more powerful, cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, more reliable, faster, smaller, quieter, longer-lasting, more efficient, lower maintenance, etc than gas motors, they have one big disadvantage - the form of energy they use is incredibly difficult to store, and until that probem is solved, electric vehicles will benefit from only a few of the advantages of electric motors. In other words, the combustion engine is still going strong, but doesn't stand a chance - technology is continually inproving the storage of electricity, and storage of electricity is the only thing preventing electrics from sending combustion engines the way of the steam engine.
I don't dispute that your gas truck is the best cheap-n-nasty way to go at this time. What I'm saying is that the demise of the combustion engine is inevitable, simply because they are such utter crap, and an infinitely superior technology is slowly heading towards becoming viable in small vehicles.
Of course, like the steam engine, enthusiests of combustion will remain a long time after.
They believe their cars can go 500 miles without refueling...
My (gas only) Honda Accord already does this. I was under the impression that fuel cells would be a lot more dramatic then this.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Fun in the morning in 4 easy steps
:)
Step 1: Apply argument to unix
Step 2: Add Microsoft parody in
Step 3: Look at argument, see how funny it is
Step 4: Laugh at argument
Don't belive the hype. The unix industry has always been under direct control from the sys admin industry. The unix system is 20+ years old, but we have yet to find a better design? Obviously there are alterioir motives to staying with the current design.
There have been serveral Microsoft programmers who have either disappeared or lost their job because they invented a more efficient OS.
Alternative operating systems will not be utilized until the world is in a state of crisis (run out of inodes, death of sys admins). Only in times of desperation, will true change be brought by Microsoft.
Sorry about the gratuitous MS bashing, but it added just that lit bit more of humor to it
As we have all been made painfully aware over the last few months, California's "local generators" don't produce enough power to carge my notebook PC. You buy most of your power from various neighboring states. Some of that is hydroelectric, but most of it is from burning coal and oil.
But hey, it's not in your back yard, so it must be a Good Thing.
As for conservation in California, yep. They do a pretty darn good job. That does not alter the fact that consumption goes down ever more when prices go up.
By the way, what the hell is a typical power bill in Californial like, anyway? We keep hearing about these "1500%" increases... if that happened to me where I live, my power bill would be higher than my mortgage. I find it hard to believe that anybody would continue to live in California if that was the case.
It seems to me to be far more likely that California has been spoiled by years and years of artificially low power costs, and are suddenly confronted with paying the actual cost of getting electricity for the first time, and are crying like babies over it.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Give them a few months, and they will start shooting the hell out of each other again. Then the cartel will collapse and they will dump cheap oil on the market so they can buy another couple dozen fighter jets.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I was talking about the price of the vehicle. Please read my comment again in that context.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Um, fuel cell vehicles ARE electric vehicles - a fuel cell is just a battery that you can change the electrolyte. Current fuel cells use hydrogen and oxygen, and produce electricity and water. A lot of them run on methanol or other dead dinosaur fuels, and crack it into H2 and CO2 just before it is used in the fuel cell. So, how is a fixed electrolyte lead acid or NiMh battery better than a fuel cell? Fuel cells are also many times more efficient than the gas turbines used to generate electricity, which is then used to charge you battery powered car.
Um, that's just not true. Solar cells still suck. Even though the energy you get from them is "free", the initial investment is so high that they just aren't economical. I ran the numbers, and I figured at current electricity prices and with Kyocera's latest and greatest PV cells, I could convert my house entirely to solar power. However, it would take about 20 years of solar power to save the money I invested in the cells in the first place. And I ignored the time value of money, as well as the fact that the average lifetime of the cells was only 17 years. So, no big corporate conspiracy needed here - solar cells are only usefull when no other power source is available.
You can't quote a size of an oil reserve without quoting the price that the reserve was estimated at. All oil reservoirs have huge quantities of "marginal" oil that cannot be economically recovered at $12/bbl oil, but CAN be economically recovered at $25/bbl. Remember that the estimate made in 1970 would have been done on an oil price that bears no relation to today's price.
Another problem with this "we are running out of oil" cry is that new technology makes oil available that was considered garbage only a couple of decades ago. I just spent 6 months doing engineering work on a 150k bbl/day oilsand mine in northern Alberta... this mine has a 30 year life (at US$12/bbl oil). Only 20 years ago, this deposit would not have been included in the inventory of available oil because the technology to recover it didn't exist.
At this moment the oil supply is quickly using up the $10/bbl supplies, is tapping much of the $20/bbl supplies, but hasn't touched the $30/bbl supplies. When the cheaper stuff is used up, whole new inventories of expensive oil will appear (get your gasoline charge card ready!). At that crude price, the alternatives to gasoline are beginning to look attractive (read alcohol, coal gasification, etc) and they will begin to take market share from crude oil.
Regarding fuel cells:
Remember that 76% of the US energy consumption comes from oil and coal (Mining Engineering, May 2001, pp40-41). If people want to run electric fuel cells in their vehicles, those cells are likely going to consume power generated by coal.
All a fuel cell does is convert your car from a gasoline burner, to a coal burner!
-AD
No - he did it because he was backed by the pharmecudical industry
.while sitting in a kiddie-pool of oil... Id bet you wont feel too well for to long.
p er-consumption "culture" is being directed by self-serving Capitalists who are more interested in building markets and profit than communities and sustainable and healthy futures. Leaders indeed.
Bullshit. BigPharm *WANTS* a for-profit health-care system. Otherwise, how do you convince the American people that they should be making profit while the public co-operates on their Health-care?
and they knew it would be easier to scam the US government rather than the individual HMO companies out of millions each year.
Bullshit. Canada regulates prices to BigPharm. The entire country sets a price, everyone buys at this price and it is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than what HMOs and US Citizens pay. BigPharm can make up the difference in marketing/sales bullshit... all unnecessary in for Health Care. (BTW: BigPharm spends 3X (thats 300%) more on Marketing than they do R&D... just in case you wanted to say something about 'supporting research')
So what if he wants to drill the oil out of the ANWR?
Pristine, unmolested natural habitat is necessary to support bio-diversity. Humans are animals - we cannot pave and pollute the entire planet and expect to be able to live here ourselves... try running your car in a garage with the door closed..
What is it going to do sitting in the ground?
Whats it going to do above ground? And at what cost? Fuel *another* mCBlOnDaLds McCrappyMeal kid-toy factory? *ANOTHER* pair of Tommy Hillfiger Jeans for your vapid teenage brat? We dont need a greater *SUPPLY*! We need to wake up and start using what we already have *more wisely*! C-O-N-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-O-N. If Californians stopped watering their lawns in the dessert, you'd probably save more energy (water/processing/transport/etc/etc/etc) than some small countries use every year. Unfortunately American corporate leadership is accelerating in a direction totally opposite.. America, through its lowest-common-denominator-mass-market-consumer-hy
Will it solve the Energy Crisis in California?
Hello - Earth to confused American. Welcome back to reality. There is *no* energy crisis. What does exist is a powerful Corporate effort to kill the Community-Centered laws and regulations that Californians fought to win for themselves. There is no need to increase supply at the expense of everything else when simple and wise initiatives to conserve will far outstrip any effort to increase supply. Rolling Blackouts? Ha! Try 'corporate muscle flexing extortion'. Do you really believe that was necessary? Do you really believe the Bush-BigMedia-BigOil propaganda? They turned off the power on Californians to extort more money from them - not because they didn't have enough power available. Privitization and De-Regulation have delivered exactly the opposite of what 'they' (plutocrats) promised: Higher Prices, Low Supply, Poor Service and Degredation of the Commons. Californians should demand their non-profit public utilities be returned to the people who could run them!
Will it keep gas prices down here in the US. No, it won't. Keeping us from that oil is what keeps us dependant on foreign countries for our energy
Well, frankly, you dont even understand the crux and contradiction of the problem. You do understand that America purchases its 'energy' in an international market. If some American Company increases supply, you will influence international prices. You will not create a lower price for Americans and magically insulate yourself from the evil rogue nations and terrorists who are trying to starve you of the 'energy' you desire... There will be *no* marked difference in price for Americans vs. Canadians vs. Ozzies vs. Brits vs. Ugandans vs. Columbians vs %your_country_here%. We would rather you start waking up to your rampant consumption than continue to pollute without any effort to address your root problem... (Kyoto would have been a good start).
at least until I have a nuclear reactor in my car (we have a lock on Uranium and Plutonium)
Do you want to hear my arguments about urban-sprawl, alien-communities that are only hospitable to cars (and what that does to people) and the detachment humanity perpetuates on itself by using the Automobile to move themselves away from work, food and family??? Let alone how stupid an idea it is to have a billion opportunities for nuclear-fucking-disaster. But oh yeah, a Nuclear Powered SUV would be Sooooo Coooool!
if he doesn't repeal laws that hurt business.
You are lost pal. "Whats good for GM is good For America" translates to "Fuck you America, we're gonna do as we please. Try and stop us." And you believe it.
But really - you must be kidding or a troll or something.. but if you *really* believe these things, I almost feel sorry for you. +1 Insightful? Try McCarthy inspired-Gummint fearing delusion, and a really unhealthy understanding of the nature and reality of the free market - and what it means to our collective future. The California 'Energy Crisis' is a test case Against where you are headed.
I may be mistaken, but it was my understanding that caps on california consumer's costs exist. The providers can't raise consumer's rates, but the generators can charge whatever they want. Thus the providers are selling energy for less than their costs.
That fuel tank the guy is holding says "Thiokol Propulsion". If memory serves, Morton Thiokol was the company that designed the flawed solid rocket boosters on the ill-fated Challenger (and other). You think they, if it's the same company, would have removed the "Thiokol" from their name. Just a thought but I hope they can make the cars operate safely in low temperatures. I can almost picture the headlines now. "Vehicle Explodes After Accelerating, GM Blames Thiokol."
101010b 2Ah 52o
I read this somewhere in Popular Science some years ago. I remember that I may have just started college back then so that would date it at least 6 years ago.
Not only was GM doing research but every other car company was as well. They were all assisting what was then a start up company to do the research for them. Each company paid a dollar value into the project and would get a share of the findings.
I thought back then this was interesting but now it is nothing more then expected.
Not just GM - Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, Honda, all have production natural gas vehicles that you can buy and use today. In California, this even gets you access to the carpool lane, even if you are a single driver, which is a great perk.
It's not that expensive. You could pv shingle the southern side roof of an average home for ~$10,000 - I know, as a friend has hard quotes. Assuming the shingles last only 10 years, that about $1000/year in costs that you'd have to recoup. Given that some areas of the country have exhorbitantly high power bills (anyone been to California lately? Or Texas in July/August?), you'd only have to save less than $100/month in power costs to make this work. Small price to pay in my mind. Should be required on all new construction.
That's a pretty long term perspective. In the shorter term, i see it more like this:
it's the very rich who are dimishing the capacity of the earth to support everyone else. The poorer and their children are always the first to feel the effects of pollution and the tightened belts of unsustainable development. The very rich will be around and comfortable for a long time.
i always think of East St Louis.
Heh, surprising that with all these petroleum dependant solutions that the car manufacturers have been coming up with, that nobody gives these a try nowadays...
h tm l
http://www.wasserauto.de/html/inquirer_article.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Recall back in the 70's it was determined that the world had 40-50 years petroleum remaining, at current rate of consumption. Even with more efficient vehicles, more are in use that ever and the draw on petroleum reserves is still very high. Many gulf states will run out of petroleum in the next 10 years. Iraq, because of the embargo, and Saudi Arabia will be among the last, 20 years tops, at current rate (BTW this is why OPEC has cut production and raised prices.)
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Worth noting is, reported in todays news, executives at some power sellers (to California) have been selling stock for 200%-300% more than they used to. Can't tell me all that cost went to buy resources to generate excess capacity.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The current equivilent of Hot Rodding is putting a bigger/louder stereo in your car. (Also popular in California is tightening up the suspension for those mountain roads, mostly japanes cars tho)
Interstate freight by tractor-trailer is up dramatically. Kenworths and Peterbilts are consuming a lot of fuel, too, there's talk of emissions standards, but not much on fuel economy.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Thus more plants all working to some slow degree to lay down the next layer of coal? Anyway, there's huge sources of Natural Gas all around us. A mining engineer friend has worked on landfills for years and demonstrated, with a small landfill contracted by a community in Michigan, that sufficient natural gas could be generated from a properly designed one to power a generator which provides the entire community with heat and light, with some excess they sell to the grid. It's production estimated to peak in 50 years. Tens of thousands of other communities simply bury their trash, with no thought to gas recovery and waste the potential, further this gas does escape and enter the atmosphere where it contributes greatly to greenhouse gases.
Food v fuel, is currently a distant backseat to issues of turning croplands into housing, malls and parking lots.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
There's no hedging about it. They're going to be forced to make a change, and they're already being pushed against the wall with existing regulations
--CTH
---
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
'Ballard Power Systems is recognized as the world leader in developing, manufacturing and marketing zero-emission proton exchange membrane fuel cells for use in transportation, electricity generation and portable power products. Ballard Power Systems proprietary fuel cell technology is enabling automobile, electrical equipment and portable power product manufacturers to develop environmentally clean products for sale. The fundamental component of these end-user products is the Ballard® fuel cell that combines hydrogen (which can be obtained from methanol, natural gas, petroleum or renewable sources) and oxygen (from air) without combustion to generate electricity. Ballard is partnering with strong, world-leading companies, including DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GPU International, ALSTOM and EBARA, to commercialize Ballard fuel cells. Ballard has also supplied fuel cells to Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen, Yamaha, Cinergy, Coleman Powermate and Matsushita Electric Works, among others.'
If this can be done with gasoline this will probably work. All those gas stations have to do something. But... I was thinking about this a couple days ago. Imagine how much money Texaco is worth in land value. Every gas station you see is in prime location.
I agree completely. In fact, nothing *but* usage-side conservation will work.
Why? Let's say we have a 100-year supply of oil left, that is, the oil would last 100 years if it were consumed at its current rate. But the oil is consumed at a rate that grows by 5 percent each year. How long would it last under these circumstances? This is an easy calculation; the answer is a paltry 36 years.
Oh, but let's say we underestimated the supply, and we actually have a 1,000-year supply. At the same annual 5 percent growth rate in use, how long will this last? The answer is about 79 years.
Then let us say we make a striking discovery of more oil yet a bonanza and we now have a 10,000-year supply. At our same rate of growing use, how long would it last? Answer: 127 years.
Estimates vary for how long currently known oil reserves will last, though they are usually considerably less than 100 years. But the point of this analysis is that it really doesn't matter what the estimates are. There is no way that a supply-side attack on America's energy problem can work. The exponential function describes the behavior of any quantity whose rate of change is proportional to its size. Compound interest is the most commonly encountered example it would produce exponential growth if the interest were calculated at a continuing rate. I have heard public statements that use "exponential" as though it describes a large or sudden increase. But exponential growth does not have to be large, and it is never sudden. Rather, it is inexorable.
Calculations also show that if consumption of an energy resource is allowed to grow at a steady 5 percent annual rate, a full doubling of the available supply will not be as effective as reducing that growth rate by half to 2.5 percent. Doubling the size of the oil reserve will add at most 14 years to the life expectancy of the resource if we continue to use it at the currently increasing rate, no matter how large it is currently. On the other hand, halving the growth of consumption will almost double the life expectancy of the supply, no matter what it is.
This mathematical reality seems to have escaped the politicians pushing to solve our energy problem by simply increasing supply. Building more power plants and drilling for more oil is exactly the wrong thing to do, because it will encourage more use. If we want to avoid dire consequences, we need to find the political will to reduce the growth in energy consumption to zero or even begin to consume less.
I must emphasize that reducing the growth rate is not what most people are talking about now when they advocate conservation; the steps they recommend are just Band-Aids. If we increase the gas mileage of our automobiles and then drive more miles, for example, that will not reduce the growth rate. Reducing the growth of consumption means living closer to where we work or play. It means telecommuting. It means controlling population growth. It means shifting to renewable energy sources.
And nothing, nothing, else will be sufficient.
I adblock all animated gifs.
Blessed be the prime numbered slashdotters
GM has been manufacturing/marketing Natural Gas vehicles for quite some time. The Sierra NGV rocks.
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
What would happen to OPEC countries if the US and Europe stopped importing crude tomorrow? I think this is a reason for the continued importing. I say we start using alternative fuel vehicles *right now* and stop bending over to OPEC, then watch and laugh when the beggars start crying. :)
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
Umm, I think the world's worst drivers title goes to England. But that's just from what I've seen on TV, I've never been to England.
:)
As far as the "passing lane" goes, it's a myth. Unless explicitly stated as such, the left lanes are for normal driving.
I do agree with you on the schmuck's that don't move over to let you merge. That's annoying. Many other states seem to have either yield or stop signs (in PA at least) on their highway entrances, which explicitly gives highway drivers right-of-way. Merging traffic doesn't have Right-of-way, so technically those of us who wish they would move over are in the wrong anyway. Oh well.
Don't ask how I know this shit...
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
Cattle and termites have in their guts bacteria which convert cellulose from plant matter into sugars, with methane as a byproduct. More methane escapes into the atmosphere from termites and cattle than is produced by all the gas wells in the world, but the trick is how the hell to collect it? Some farms already produce methane from collected cattle dung, but a challenge would be to collect it from termites. One way to put all those Formosa termites eating away New Orleans to good use would be to load them into a tank with wood chips and other vegetable matter, seal it, and start collecting methane, but they would quickly suffocate on their own farts, so fresh air would have to be added. Which would mix with the methane, add a spark and KABOOM! tank shrapnel, wood chips and termites scattered across the countryside. So the whole key to this mess, or any other methane-from-biomass scheme is to find a way of separating methane from air.
Compressing acetylene greater than 15 PSIG will cause it to decompose spontaneously into ethylene gas, releasing enough energy to explosively ignite it. The common acetylene you get from a welding supply house is compressed to 250 PSIG, but it is dissolved in acetone, much in the same way carbon dioxide is dissolved in water to make carbonated water. Dissolving acetylene in acetone stabilizes it to allow it to be stored at a much higher pressure, making it economically feasable for use in welding.
However, had your .22 been high enough power to rupture the tank it was in, the acetone spewing out at 250 PSIG would have surely created a much more spectacular fireball than the gasoline, since just the acetone itself is *much much* more flammable than gasoline.
Mass is used to measure the emission gasses because the volume doesn't tell you anything if there's no pressure figure. It's easier to just use mass, one number which tells you everything you need to know. If you were actually doing the chemistry/math related to this stuff, the first thing you'd probably do with volume/pressure figures would be to convert them to masses anway.
The emission gasses can certainly have greater mass than the fuel that was burned, since the emission gasses include the atmospheric oxygen used to burn the fuel. In terms of mass, far more oxygen is consumed than gasoline. You're right that what goes in should have the same mass as what comes out, but you forgot that the gasoline isn't the only thing going in.
How long will it take for the Bush administration (both the President and Vice President are former oil executives are heavily indebted to Big Oil for getting elected) to put a stop to this? Will the Grand Oil Party sit back and watch this without trying to do something about it? Somehow I doubt it.
But they're working on fuel-cell systems that will run on gasoline. Surely the oil companies would be for such a thing? Such a development could actually expand the the fuel-oil market as new applications are developed. Kerosone-powered laptop, anyone? 50 hours run-time on one tank...
They are actually building two factories to produce these in South Africa as we speak.
As you say, simply being mindful of the energy you consume is often enough to convince you to use less. Like re-using cloth gracery bags. Walking distances less than a mile away. Riding your bike within 10 miles. Being wise about your choice of automobile. Not going excessively fast. Getting up to speed gradually. Keeping the AC around 80. Turning off the TV when it's not in use. Using effecient lightbulbs. Turning them of when not in use. Recycle your cans. Buy products that use less packaging. Etc..
Most of these things would require very little sacrifice, but if done by most people would make a huge difference. Conservation is far more than a short term solution.
- Dan I.
I have only anecdotal evidence to support my claim (two firms near my hometown were bought by the power comapny in the late 80's, and development stopped. Bought them, then effectively shut them down.) Beyond that, it's probably just something I've heard.
And you are right about playing catsup. However, Due to their shear size and market share, their mere interest makes them the leaders.
- Dan I.
More likely than not, GM is hedging their bets. At worst, it turns out to be a great PR move. At best, they take the lead in Clean Automobile Technology.
- Dan I.
And yes, you can blame the government and auto companies for "forcing" us to use Artic oil wells, but when someone turns off all their appliances, leaves their 65 degree house, gets in their SUV, drives to the 55 degree airport, boards a huge jet, flies to the Artic and takes a cruise on a huge cruise ship to "appreciate" nature, maybe we should look at our priorities. Using a ton of natural resources to go see them doesn't make alot of sense.
I for one got gas 6 times last year, get over 30 miles to the gallon and ride my bike/bus most everywhere. Conservation is the real short-term solution. People shouldn't keep using as much fuel as possible becuase there will be an alternative one day.
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Oh bother.
Apparently, Toyota is coming out with a hybrid gas-electric motor that will have a very small price premium over regular cars. With a tax credit, it would be cheaper...
Already, the Prius gets 900 miles on a tank of gas and 55 MPG in the city--45 on the higways. (Electric motor improves mileage in the city!). I am gonna buy one of their new models, probably, if they get some style sense ever.....
"Chill, Orrin!"---Trent Lott
Please mod this back up as SARCASM.
Republicans can be so thick.
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
Im from Alaska and there are alot of environmentalists here. Now back when the pipeline was first put in, Alaska was making alot more money then even the politicians could spend (sounds crazy but its true) so they invested the money and now give the yearly interest to all residents of the state. Last year I received a check for nearly $2000. This money is the direct result of the oil industry. The same industry that is supposedly leaving such a big scar on the wild life here. Now do the environmentalists here return the checks and say "No thank you. That money was generated by raping Mother Nature."? Nope. They say "Thank you. Now where shall I spend this?" Are they lobbying the politicians to use the money to clean up after the oil companies? No again. When the politicians try to take the money away, guess whos there along with every one else making sure they dont. Granted, there may be some who dont take the money, and there may be some who use it for environmental purposes, but the vast majority use it for Christmas gifts (we receive the money in October) and vacations.
Like I say, this is not exactly what the previous poster was talking about, but it is a more specific illustration of environmentalists who criticize an industry, but only so far as it wont hurt their pocket book.
The Bible says that "the love of money is the root of all evil." The Republicans in recent years have demonstrated that they love nothing but money. You do the math. At any rate, they definitely put money at the top of their list.
You wouldn't want to spend eternity with Bob Barr or Tom DeLay anyway.
The following is a quote from a well established nationally recognized synicated talkshow host.
ROFLMAO! Neal Boortz?
For people who may be unfamiliar with this "man", he is the author of a "book" called The Terrible Truth About Liberals, wherein he accuses anybody who is left of far-right of wanting to confiscate all private property and kill children. Talk about perfecting the straw man argument. For you to suggest that Neal Boortz is an objective source of information and that he is well-versed in matters related to exploratory drilling is ludicrous; it is childish and borderline hateful. It hints at the mentality of an 8 year-old.
The drilling of ANWR will not involve just a single, tiny well in a secluded location. It will involve scores of them scattered throughout the region. It will require the absolute decimation of the landscape. The oil corporations will have to maintain large "kill fires" where the bodies of caribou and bears can be disposed of before they are photographed by the media. In short, it will turn one of America's most cherished national treasures into something out of a Mad Max movie; a post-apocalyptic wasteland that is a mere shadow of its former self. And for what? ANWR doesn't even contain enough oil to run all of the vehicles in the United States for a single day. But we'd better get drilling right away!
I do get a kick out of you accusing me of "falling hook, line, and sinker" for an "agenda" right after you get done quoting a Neal Boortz propaganda piece verbatim. Pot, kettle, black. At least my agenda doesn't involve the rape and pillage of the natural world, and it doesn't involve blaming environmentalists for a California problem that was caused by a right-wing deregulation fiasco of unimaginable proportions.
At any rate, this is all academic now, anyway. Now that we've got a Democratic Senate, drilling in ANWR is dead. It is dead. It's not gonna happen. You oil-worshippers will have to get your fix by putting poisoned water dishes in your backyards and videotaping squirrels in their death throes. The tragic thing is that the movement to preserve the environment used to be a Republican thing (conservationism; an attempt to preserve God's creation.) In recent years, their attitude has changed to "plunder God's creation so we can make as much money as possible." They may not realize the ultimate irony until it is too late.
For years now I've been hoping that somebody would put some serious effort into developing clean fuel technologies that would reduce our dependencies on fossil fuels and other polluting agents. If GM, one of the heavy hitters in the automotive world, is committed to this, that's great. But I have to admit that at this point in time, I'm a bit cynical. How long will it take for the Bush administration (both the President and Vice President are former oil executives are heavily indebted to Big Oil for getting elected) to put a stop to this? Will the Grand Oil Party sit back and watch this without trying to do something about it? Somehow I doubt it.
.. if he doesn't get ANWR full of oil derricks by 2003 he will be a one-term President.
.. are you ready to practice what you preach? Somehow I doubt it.
Bush has already announced his intent to drill the fuck out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. If technologies appear on the horizon that make oil appear less important, the public will be even less receptive to drilling than they already are. This will make it impossible for Bush to help his oil cronies set up lucrative oil wells up there. And if he pisses them off, look for huge repercussions in the 2002 and 2004 elections. For Bush, it's "do or die"
This is why "clean fuel" efforts will be fought to the death. It's interesting that this administration has pledged to take a "hands off of business" approach, and to not impose any more government regulations. Well, the proof is in the pudding, Dubya
On the other hand, infrastructure for the internal combustion engine is in place, it is a stable and well understood technology, and car companies are, like most companies, completely beholden to the greed of their shareholders, and subsequently tied to their quarterly bottom lines with a very short leash. So the transition will go slowly unless regulatory pressures or government incentives encourage a faster pace. Considering how many idiots choose to buy giant SUVs and for all intents and purposes drive two cars worth of gas, road wear and emissions for their commute, one can assume the transition will not be consumer driven.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
The most important part of this article may be the photo. If they can actually make a tank that big that holds together under 10,000 psi and make it light enough to lift, that is quite an accomplishment.
Not that I'd be particularly happy to see tanks like that traveling down the road. Even filled with a non-reactive gas such as nitrogen, a 10,000 psi tank is a bomb waiting for a hard bump to set it off. Filled with hydrogen, which makes an explosive mixture with air... 8-(
I wonder if they plan to include a small turbo-generator to recover all the energy used to compress the gas.
egfrow
Two Towers-Two Worlds.One seeks triumphs and freedom for man.The other deems man unworthy and wrecks them.
Any idea if they count the power station emissions and the environmental cost of replacing lead acid cells every couple of years for electric vehicles? Just asking out of interest, I'm guessing not.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Sure, if you don't mind me dumping 1310 pounds of lead acid cells in your backyard every couple of years. OK, maybe only 1147 pounds if I go for the nickel-metal hydrides.
Now here we do agree. We should probably build them now, because given our past record, we'll wait until we're scraping the bottom of the crude barrel before realising that we're screwed and throwing them up in a hurry.
Hey, did you know that a solar cell manufacturing plant powered by solar cells couldn't produce enough energy to replace its own cells, let alone produce cells for anything else? I don't know whether that's funny or scary. Nuclear or biodiesel for me, please.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
"In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!" -- Homer J. Simpson
Well, the proof is in the pudding, Dubya .. are you ready to practice what you preach?
That's a common misuse-- "the proof is in the pudding" makes no sense at all.
The phrase is supposed to be, "the proof of the pudding is in the tasting."
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I recall reading about the development of ceramic based engines a few years back. The ceramics had the the potential of allowing higher combustion temperatures while using using leaner fuel mixtures. While these higher temperatures allow for higher thermodynamic efficiencies they also promote the creation of nitrogen oxides, to the point of making the engines too dirty to pass emissions standards. No real conspiracies of suppressed technology here, just real technical/regulatory issues.
Gasoline 4.4x10E7
Diesel 4.3x10E7
Coal 2.9x10E7
FireWood 2.1x10E7
Propane 5.5x10E7
ethanol 2.9x10E7
H-compressed 1.4x10E7
NiCd 1.6x10E4
Pb acid 7.9x10E3
Li + water 3.1x10E7 powerball.net
most of these are from fire.nist.gov
this of course is just the energy, it ignores the storage and conversion costs
For example ethanol gives about the same energy as gasoline, even though it has almost 1/2 as much energy per kg. This is because ethanol can be run at much higher compression therefore more efficent. greenfuels.org
I've seen a van running on fuel cell technology. It's good because the waste product from combusting hydrogen is water !
Now, combine that with... I think it's electrolosys - but don't flame me if I'm wrong... to split the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen and use the hydrogen as fuel for the fuel cell. Not quite perpetual motion but I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from.
Claric
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There's no problem that cannot be solved with a suitable amount of high explosives
Erm...never mind. :-)
As far as I recall however, current thinking is that the Hindenburg accident was not -caused- by hydrogen. A new coating had been placed over the skin, and a lightning flash combusted that material.
However, once the material was burning it is agreed that the hydrogen contributed to the speed of the disaster.
Cheers, Ian
Sorry - I remember in more detail now. The material had built up static by travelling through storms, there was a discharge between the ground and airship (caused by the mooring ropes?) and that combusted the coating.
Cheers,
Ian
Of course, the most efficient system is probably just to make hydrogen from green slime and sunlight. This avoids most of the miscellaneous metabolic processes of advanced plants (which are great but don't contribute to the desired fuel product), plus all the lossy steps of fermentation and distillation.
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
The real problem with biodiesel is that it is probably all fertilized with nitrates, which are ultimately produced from non-renewable (and CO2-emitting) natural gas (CH4 + O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2, 3 H2 + N2 -> 2 NH3, use NH3 (anhydrous ammonia) directly or oxidize NH3 to make nitric acid). The same thing applies to ethanol as auto fuel. There are little "gotchas" everywhere, aren't there? If you want to be sure you're accounting for the environmental cost you can't just tax petroleum diesel and gasoline at the pump; you have to tax the raw materials as far back in the chain as you can, to avoid making loopholes and creating perverse incentives.
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
With advances like the NEC proton polymer battery yet to hit the market, it's safe to say that the era of the muscle car hasn't even begun yet.
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I know, I'm a wet blanket.
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
What does this buy us? It gives us enough energy to run a civilization without altering the climate in untoward ways (which may upset civilization all by itself) and without generating toxic ash heaps too big to effectively isolate from the environment for even a few decades. My money's on nuclear for a safe future.
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I beleive you'll find that the 70 cent/gallon figure hinges on the use of used fryer oil that is currently available for free (IOW, that covers only the cost of methanol and NaOH plus processing equipment). Once the demand is sufficient to exhaust the supply of used fryer oil the marginal cost of the oil input will rise to the level of fresh oil. I don't know what it is in bulk, but at the supermarket I pay a lot more for cooking oil than I would for diesel.
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
The problem with running on such hydrocarbons, at least as far as global warming is concerned, is that you're producing the CO2 at the vehicle tailpipe. This makes it difficult and expensive to do anything other than release it into the atmosphere.
Eh? Methanol itself comes from reforming (oxidizing) methane, then you have the same CO2 issue. You may be able to get rid of all nitrogen oxides and most hydrocarbons and CO, but you're not going to be able to deal with CO2 as effectively as you can with off-vehicle reforming.--
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Fission products have an inherent environmental advantage over most other poisons. The mercury from the coal plant, the lead in old house paint, the arsenic in your well water... these things are toxic forever. Fission products decay away! Even icky nasty plutonium decays back to uranium with a maximum half-life of less than 25,000 years; if you can put it someplace where it can't leak out for a million years, 40 half lives will have passed and only a trillionth will remain.
There are a few fission products that last millions of years, like technetium-99. The anti-nukes raise this like a banner, but they don't tell you these two important things:
- An element with a half-life of a million years is 100,000 times less radioactive than one with a half-life of ten years. In other words, it takes a whole lot of technetium to be dangerous.
- It's easy to stop technetium from migrating in groundwater. It's less chemically active than iron, so all you have to do is plant your waste deposit in the middle of a bunch of scrap iron or steel. The technetium plates out on the steel and iron ions go into the seeping water instead. (This is how dissolved copper is recovered from the water trickled through piles of ore; the mining companies buy the steel cans from your recycling bin and run the copper-sulfate mixture through them, let the iron-sulfate run off and smelt the remains for the copper.)
Convert the metal radwaste ions to salts, absorb the salts in zeolites, press the zeolite powder under heat to form it into solid billets (inside stainless-steel cans), stick the cans in concrete bunkers above ground until the fast-decaying isotopes have bled off most of their energy and the heat output has mostly disappeared, then dump them in the mine shafts under Yucca Mountain with a few feet of iron filings as a buffer against groundwater seepage (the iron will be there for much longer than the technetium; there's still native iron on Earth from before the rise of oxygen-producing plants). That's a lot more secure and responsible than anyone has ever been with the nasty crap from coal ash.--
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
You can get a Toyota Prius, which never needs to be recharged and runs on electric and gasoline and starts at just under $20,000.
Honda's Insight hybrid coupe uses a similar technology and also does not need to be recharged. It's just a bit over $20,000 though it hasn't gotten very good reviews. Honda is promising an Accord-like hybrid in 2002 that may be better.
Ford is readying a hybrid version of their Ford Escape SUV; they expect to price it in the mid-upper $20,000s. For more info see http://www.hybridford.com.
Hybrids have become a practical solution today. They don't have to be recharged because they run on gas and electric -- relying on electric around town, and gas when you need highway speeds -- and the gas engine, plus the braking power, recharges the batteries automatically.
As for parts and repair; since the cars are from Toyota, Honda and Ford I don't think you'd have any trouble getting them fixed or finding parts; there's usually a dealer nearby.
I can't speak to the practicality of GM's hydrogen fuel cells, but today's Gas/Electric hybrids are an intriguing technology that is well within the reach of most of the car-buying public.
-Coach-
Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.
While watching DW-TV (german station broadcast internationally (yay for the big satellite dishes!)) last night, they were running a story on alternate-fuel cars in Berlin, although they used the terms "natural gas" and "hydrogen" just about equally (and seemingly interchangably), so we were left wondering what they were using. If it is the case that this is hydrogen, then GM wouldn't be the first, but if it turns out to be natural gas, then it's another topic altogether.
As well, GM may do well to partner with Global Thermoelectric, based out of Calgary, which has been doing research into fuel cells for a few years now and has already released products (to the best of my knowledge) which employ their fuel-cell technology, one being a procedure to efficiently convert natural gas to usable hydrogen in fuel cells. (maybe that might explain the german report)
Either way, GM is taking a very large step in securing their position in the new power hierarchy (double-meaning intended), and hopefully it will succeed for the betterment of everybody.
And on a completely off-topic note, the special series they're running on NOVA on PBS this week rules. It's a series on lost technology and how modern engineers are working to revive some of them. Very good way to spend an hour a night.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
The problem with current electric cars is that batteries don't have enough range. The new fuel cells (like the ones in this story) may be able to change that
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"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Musashi
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
The tragic thing is that the movement to preserve the environment used to be a Republican thing (conservationism; an attempt to preserve God's creation.) In recent years, their attitude has changed to "plunder God's creation so we can make as much money as possible." They may not realize the ultimate irony until it is too late.
So Republicans are going to Hell for not being greenies? ROFLMAO, you are either an idiotic troll or a COMPLETE nut.
Metal-based fuel cells (using aluminum or zinc) may prove a better solution than hydrogen, providing better energy densities and less hazardous handling.
There's a relevant and interesting article in IEEE Spectrum this month.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
The vehicle is a lease, which means all maintnence must be done at a dealership, so you have to remain in close proximity to a dealership for its yearly tune -up and trade in after three years.
and I like Az, it's a nice state.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Now, for the info that will get me modded down as flamebait: I don't believe drilling for more energy is immoral. I believe that it is highly moral, as oil and every other natural resource is used to save our lives. The ambulance that saves a heart attack victim's life is gasoline powered, the oil heats our homes so we can live more than 200 miles above the equator line, and oil / natural gas helps keep lights on in research facilities that are trying to make new and cheaper energy. do you think by eliminating oil companies and electric companies sources of income, by denying them energy, they will have more money for R & D? do you think that by making energy a plethora of government regulation, of weaving generalities, of moral wrongness, that ANYONE would ever want to be innovative?
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
I wouldn't be caught dead in all kinds of cars, simply because some models have a very un-manly perception. Among them:
anything from Toyota or Nissan. They're built well enough, but God they're ugly!
the VW Bug, or anything from VW - forgive me, but I'm not a big fan of post-Nazi automakers
any kind of hatch-back. I don't want to look like a fucking soccer-mom. This knocks off about 75% of all prototype cars.
Trucks are fine, but SUVs are NOT ok. They're for yuppie scum, and I'm no yuppie.
Lastly, the Kia, Neon, Honda, and Saturn all make my "bad list" - they're "sensible" cars. Yeah, real fun.
Give me a 1978 Chevy Impalla any day - or an early 80s model Ford Bronco. Actually, I'd love to have a Chevy Suburban except for one thing - they named it "The Suburban"... sorry, no deal!
You'd think ONE of the inventions would get out.
Can they really make that safe enough to withstand your average 3 car pile-up?
Headlines:
"Brakes fail on speeding semi, small town obliterated, no film at 11."
Even if they do make it safe "enough", the marketing effort required to overcome public fear and doubt would have to be incredible. I don't even want to think about the insurance rates. Though the crash tests would be pretty impressive.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Hey, a fuel-cell car! Great! I mean, it took years on a shoestring research budget, but hey! It helps the environment! Woohoo! Never mind the fact that these cars still use gasoline and will still put out CO2 into the atmosphere! The corporations tell us it saves the environment, so it must be OK! Never mind that by getting the hydrogen from gasoline instead of water (which would produce no pollutants), we're still polluting the environment and putting more money into the hands of Big Oil! It's a neat little car!!!
Being a smartass is a much better thing than being the alternative.
It has a very canadian bias, but it also contains a lot of great information. For example, many people are stating that fuel-cells are free of emissions, but that is not true. The hydrogen has to come from somewhere, and the most abundant source is fossil fuels!
Depending on how the hydrogen is extracted, the CO2 emissions can be nearly as high as engines currently produce. An onboard gasoline converter, as mentioned in the story, produces 90% as much CO2 as a combustion engine.
-Teldon
Talk about driving the eco-nazis nuts. What a hoot.