Hydrogen Fuel Balls from a Gas Pump?

navalynt writes "New Scientist reports that the Department of Energy has filed a patent for hydrogen fuel balls. From the article 'The proposed glass microspheres would each be a few millionths of a metre (microns) wide with a hollow center containing specks of palladium. The walls of each sphere would also have pores just a few ten-billionths of a metre in diameter.' They are supposedly safe and small enough to be pumped into a fuel tank in the same manner as gasoline."

Comments

Re:Government patents and other considerations.

[FudRucker]

you actually think the US Government is that benevolent?

that seems naive to me.

Poisoned Balls

[Sqreater]

Seems the white-haired children of the scientific-industrial-complex are at it again. Teflon has been found to be in the blood of practically everyone since that bright idea made it into cooking ware. Entropy tells us that these posionous balls will end up in every cell of the human body. What happens when depleted balls start sucking the hydrogen out of your lung cells? What would say, palladium oxide or nitrates of palladium (if these are real compounds) do to living creatures? Haven't we banned lead from gasoline? And MTE? And a tank of palladium-ball hydrogen for 30,000 dollars a fillup in a 500,000 dollar car is hardly a solution to the energy problem. (Conservative amounts?)