DrTorch Wrote:

OwlJacket Wrote:At any rate, the point of the so-called hydrogen economy is to eliminate the dependence on hydrocarbon-based fuels.

Yeah, you're right. The original hydrogen economy folks were pushing this, but today's advocates might not draw such distinct lines. ...

In short, and I think we agree, the hydrogen economy of today's visionaries is not necessarily the same as it was 15+ years ago.

To backtrack on my handwaving... I declined to say anything about using fuel cells with Natural Gas as the source because it doesn't qualify as renewable. ... I'm well aware of the original poster's mistake in saying they run on water... Hydrogen is the fuel source (using ambient Oxygen)... water is then the output.

And NO, Greybeard, I'm not advocating nuclear powered cars... IMHO, Nuclear is the only viable fuel source that is (a) clean, (b) cheap (relatively), © renewable (at least fusion). Using Nuclear power plants as a power source to generate Hydrogen from water and store it in fuel cells for cars that then produce water as opposed to hydrocarbons as waste is ultimately where I would like to see the country go.

I think the greenies (not the Tulane variety) are luddites and carry their opposition to nuclear power to illogical extremes. That has essentially hamstrung the nuclear power industry for many many years (more info.

Finally, I didn't criticize GWB ... this is obviously a controversial topic and has been for many years. To the contrary, to GWB's credit, I believe he has advocated Nuclear power for several years, but I haven't seen it gain any traction anywhere.

One of the best comprehensive discussions I have seen is here: PBS Frontline.

I haven't seen estimates of what it would take to develop fusion reactors, but it would clearly be many years and perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars or more. IMHO, that is money well spent, and the US screwed up bigtime by not investing massively back in the 80s (thanks, Jim Wright, et al).

I45owl Wrote:To backtrack on my handwaving... I declined to say anything about using fuel cells with Natural Gas as the source because it doesn't qualify as renewable. ... I'm well aware of the original poster's mistake in saying they run on water... Hydrogen is the fuel source (using ambient Oxygen)... water is then the output.

And NO, Greybeard, I'm not advocating nuclear powered cars... IMHO, Nuclear is the only viable fuel source that is (a) clean, (b) cheap (relatively), © renewable (at least fusion). Using Nuclear power plants as a power source to generate Hydrogen from water and store it in fuel cells for cars that then produce water as opposed to hydrocarbons as waste is ultimately where I would like to see the country go.

I think the greenies (not the Tulane variety) are luddites and carry their opposition to nuclear power to illogical extremes. That has essentially hamstrung the nuclear power industry for many many years (more info.

Finally, I didn't criticize GWB ... this is obviously a controversial topic and has been for many years. To the contrary, to GWB's credit, I believe he has advocated Nuclear power for several years, but I haven't seen it gain any traction anywhere.

One of the best comprehensive discussions I have seen is here: PBS Frontline.

I haven't seen estimates of what it would take to develop fusion reactors, but it would clearly be many years and perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars or more. IMHO, that is money well spent, and the US screwed up bigtime by not investing massively back in the 80s (thanks, Jim Wright, et al).

I wasn't trying to ascribe to original poster's misassertion to you; the way these things get quote it sometimes appears as such.

And the problem with nuclear power is merely with public perception, and much of that is based on fear and ignorance. See the mushroom cloud statement above - I knew Graybeerd was joking, but there is a significant percentage of the population that equates anything nuclear with bombs. Done properly, its a very safe and efficient fueld source (though I didn't realize the U-235 reserves were so low as stated in the above article you linked).

The superconducting wire stuff ementioned won't ever come to fruition - the mechanism is just too fragile to be viable at room temperature and liquid nitrogen cooling long transmission lines doesn't see practical, IMO. It will have niche applications.

Also, fusion reactors are well behind any roadmap developed for any practical implementation the power densities are way to low, and I haven's seen any convincing breakthroughs that make me believe significant progress will be made in the near future. And there has been substantial amounts of money thrown at fusion research (albeit not enough). It's good to see the GWB put some effort in the state of the union towards funding scientific research - I just hope it holds up. Many people don't realize how tied our standard of living is to our technological advantage, which is rapidly going away.

This all reminds me of a time when a person came to our front door to protest Davis-Bessie, the local nuclear reactor. They asked my mother if she cared about the environment and safe power, and if so could she sign a petition against Davis-Bessie. She said she did care about the environment and safe power and that's why she wouldn't sign. Go Mom!

Bourgeois_Rage Wrote:This all reminds me of a time when a person came to our front door to protest Davis-Bessie, the local nuclear reactor. They asked my mother if she cared about the environment and safe power, and if so could she sign a petition against Davis-Bessie. She said she did care about the environment and safe power and that's why she wouldn't sign. Go Mom!

A few weeks ago, we drove down to Fossil Rim (a "wild"-life park where they have pet zebras, ostriches, and such, plus some penned cheatahs), which is near Commanche Peak in West Texas. I took the opportunity to point it out to my daughter, and said that is one of the cleanest power sources for our environment, at which point the lesson degenerated into an argument between my wife and I (when she was a kid, her mother drug her out to the Pentagon, etc, to hold hands and sing songs...).

Just remember that it is pretty well established that people are exposed to more radiation from coal fired plants than nuclear. This is another one of those emotional issues that if people actually looked at seriously would probably pick nuclear.