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"H-Prize" Announced
An anonymous reader writes " The House passed legislation to encourage research into hydrogen as an alternative fuel creating the "H-Prize",allowing scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs to vie for a grand prize of $10 million, and smaller prizes. The Department of Energy would put together a private foundation to set up guidelines and requirements for the prizes. Anyone can participate, as long as the research is performed in the United States and the person, if employed by the government or a national lab, does the research on his own time.
Best political Quote: "If we can reinvent the car, imagine the jobs we can create." said bill sponsor Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C."
Its not everyday the government asks us to do dangerous things outside our work time especially doing things with hydrogen. I wonder if the other departments have been notified of this homework assignment?
Splitting the atom at work is fun, getting to take work home is just a bonus.
Now, where's my chisel?
liqbase
It wont. On Earth hydrogen is an energy storage and transport medium. Essentially, a battery. The energy has to be put into it first before it can be extracted. "Going Hydrogen" makes about as much sense from the energy saving standpoint as "Going Duracel."
Because of the Second Law, for the time being there will be a net increase in the use of fossil fuels by using hydrogen as a fuel, just as there would be a net increase in fossil fuel use if everything were run by batteries.
When the fossil fuels get expensive, hydrogen will get expensive. When the fossil fuel runs out hydrogen will be forced to become things like solar power and be in as short supply as all other forms of solar power.
The power of the power of fossil fuels is that they are the stored and concentrated solar energy of centuries, which you can use all up in a single trip to the mall. When they're gone you'll need to learn to walk again, i.e. use only as much stored solar energy (in the form of liver glycogen) as can be reasonably concentrated in a timespan relevant to the human lifetime.
KFG
I think this is a good idea, but in the end the H2 has to come from some where and Nuclear power is the only real answer. I just love to hear about the genuis's that build a town around driving around in Electric Golf cart so they don't have to have cars, but the forget that the whole town gets their power from the Coal plant down the road. If we did not have the 70s/80s scare tactics about Nuclear power, the power grid would be better and we could make a conversion to Hydrogen easier. I really have no true love for Nuclear power but it is the better option to get away from foreign oil. Personally I think getting away from foreign oil, whether it be with ANWAR or alternative energy, is the best for this country. OPEC could destroy this country in one move and that has nothing to do with Oil companies gouging us.
"If you like Battlestar Galactica, you're probably a huge nerd." -Stephen Colbert
I have to disagree about public transport. Here in the UK, we already have massive taxation on fuel. Tony Blair's government came in with grand plans to channel funds into the public transport infrastructure, and vastly increase the number of people using it. The plan was an utter failure, and was abandoned after a several years. (OK, so we're not talking *free* public transport, but affordable, and as far as free goes, I think you need to do some math on that).
Why did it fail? There are areas where public transport is convenient - intra-urban commuters primarily - but in most such cases the public transport system is already there and utilized almost as heavily as it can be. Meanwhile for everyone else - those commuting between suburbs/outlying areas and cities - in many cases there is just no way public transport can be made attractive. For example at my previous job, I had an easy 30 minute commute by car. Public transport took 90 minutes, and cost three times as much. You couldn't really improve that much, you can only have so many stations, and you can only run your busses and trains so often. Even if you made it free, the extra hour makes it unviable. Not to talk of losing the ability to stop of at a shopping center on the way home, or run errands in my lunch break.
Since the USA has more of a car culture than the UK, I'm sure there are improvements to be made, but it is fantasy to believe that public transport is the transportation panacea that some make it out to be. Public transport has it's place, but the convenience and freedom that comes with personal transportation is not something many people want to part with, and nor should they in my opinion.
Oh no... it's the future.
Of course they are spending more than this saving the owls. Do you know how combustable those things are? You can get back and forth to work for a week with the energy generated by burning just 2 gallons of owls. If oil bottoms out before some of these experimental technologies prove themselves, we'll still have our trusted spotted owls to fall back on.
They're there affecting their effect.