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Freeing Hydrogen From Glucose
tarawa writes: "This story at CNN reports that researchers have developed a new and easy way to extract hydrogen from a glucose solution that could provide a clean, environmentally safe fuel for our cars in the future." Stay calm, though -- ""We are not talking about spooning glucose into your car to make it go. That is 'Back to the Future' stuff."
This statement, which I suppose is technically true, is absolutely ludacris
Nope, nor is it ludicrous; it is common sense, as long as the fuel is produced from cultivated plants. And the article did say renewable sources.
It would be like saying that burning down the rainforest wouldn't produce any extra carbon dioxide
No, that would contribute extra CO2 until the areas grew back with an equivalent amount of biomass. After that the balance would be restored (as long as we're talking only about CO2), but it would take a long time and there's no guarantee it would happen at all. Rainforests are not generally considerd a renewable resource in practice. Normal farmland is usually renewed all the time.
it will produce it a hell of a lot faster and there will be higher concentrations of it in the atmosphere.
The speed of the carbon cycle is irrelevant, the important part is how much carbon is bound up in plants and elsewhere and thus kept out of the atmosphere at any given time. I can't see how this fuel scheme would be different from any other cultivation on the same land in that respect.
Another question is whether it is ethical or viable in the long term to use land for growing fuel in stead of food, but that is a very different matter.
sudo ergo sum
If you look at the bottom of the article there are a number of associated links listed. One of them is Nature, a British science journal. If you do a search at Nature (I used 'glucose' and 'hydrogen' as keywords) a number of relavent articles will show up. Unless you are willing to pay for a subscription, then you are likely to need to pass by your local university library to read them, as the results are just abstracts.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Hydrogen powered fuel cells will do more than operate cars. In fact, cars will probably be the last application of hydrogen fuel cells, partly because carrying a tank of compressed hydrogen around in your car is rather cumbersome. But, imagine all of the factories, manufacturers, refineries, power plants, etc that exist in the U.S? Refineries alone consume something like 5% of the US Oil consumption.
Now instead of buying that oil from Saudia Arabia, wouldn't it be so much better to grow it in the MidWest? The US already produces more corn than it can consume and so finding new ways to use it to supplement our energy consumption is TRULY amazing.
Once the effeciency of the involved catalysts increases and the large-scale process is designed you can say BYE BYE to our growing dependency on the MidEast Arab countries and their autocratic governments. The only resource they have is Oil. The only reason why their government is stable is Oil. The only reason why the United States tolerates their lack of civil rights is Oil.
Bye Bye Oil, Bye Bye Tyranny!
Say Hello to Mr. & Mrs. Smith of Indiana who farm 1500 acres of corn.
Which would you prefer to do business with?
Salis
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