Trogdor2 wrote: You forgot a "t".

Or maybe an "r".

bluemunky42 wrote: Fuel for Through? i doubt it.

Heh - I misstated. 

I first read the title as "Fuel for Trough".  I thought there was a t/r switch. 

Fuel for Thought certainly makes more sense than my title, though.

:)

I stand corrected.

mbro wrote: free market economy

I tend to agree.  We can't be fair-weather capitalists.

The time limit that a truck driver is allowed to drive in a 24 hour period is going to be lifted on 9/14.  They'll be sleepy, so watch out.

Badsmitty wrote: The time limit that a truck driver is allowed to drive in a 24 hour period is going to be lifted on 9/14.  They'll be sleepy, so watch out.

they wont be able to drive straight

It's a scam, yes - the name of that scam is "capitalism".

I swear - prices go up, and suddenly everybody is a communist.

Communist? Yeah right.  I'm just tired of our government's lack of effort and devotion of resource to an alternative fuel source. 

The argument I heard is that efficiency number's aren't what they claimed for Hydrogen.  Big deal let's just get it done already.

BTW- I have investment in oil.

It's got nothing to do with efficiency - you have to get the hydrogen someplace, it's not just lying around.  You have to make it, essentially.  And that process requires energy, and lots of it. 

And ryan - how is this a scam?  And how is this about rich people?  Practically everybody in this country owns stocks, and most people own stocks in oil companies (whether they know it or not).

This is how our economy works.  Charging what the market will bear is how this country grew.

.Ryan wrote: It's about rich people because they are the ones who own the oil companys and decide how much they want to charge....

Investors own the oil companies.  That includes retirement funds (like the teachers' union fund), people's 401k retirement accounts, mutual funds, and so forth.

"Rich people" do not own the oil companies.

As to deciding how much to charge, that is done by management.  You are right, they are probably rich, because they get paid by the investors to make money for the investors.

But they can't charge whatever they want - they can only charge what the market will allow.  Right now, the market allows a lot - just like wrapping paper costs more in November than in January, gas now costs more than it did last year.

You can say it's supply and demand and whatnot but I think we're just being taken for a ride.

But that makes no sense.  What does that mean  - "taken for a ride"?  Prices have gone up, yes, but assuming competitive forces are still in effect, this is simply the market price.

And is anyone supprised that our government is half-arseing the search for alternate sources? Think about their backgrounds...

Forget the government - since when has it been the government's obligation to innovate?  Alternative energy sources will come from private industry, utilizing those same market forces that are now driving up gas prices.  If anything, you should be HAPPY that gas prices are high, because this just might make biodiesel cost-competitive.

If you really want a gasoline alternative to appear, you should hope for $10 gas.  Because then we would all be driving biodiesel cars.

And, BTW, the federal government under Bush gives billions in subsidies to wind energy, solar energy, biomass, and other alternative energy sources.

Lightningbolt wrote: Clark, the opinion I got about hydrogen efficiency was from a GM exec's point of view.  He claim's the government is helping very little.

I'm not familiar with the particular statements...

But many folks (me included) believe that hydrogen is a false turn.  Bush likes it a lot, but I think it is a waste of time, simply from an engineering perspective.  There may be some gains over combustion engines, but not enough to make it the foundation of our transportation, IMO.

To betterdays:

Simple:  Whence cometh the hydrogen?

Hydrogen does not hang around waiting to be put in a fuel cell - it has to be "released" from its current chemical compound.  Some releases are easier than others.

One popular one is ... ... gasoline.  Yes, many proposed hydrogen fuel cell cars run gasoline.  They have a converter that extracts the hydrogen from the gasoline, and puts that hydrogen through the fuel cell.

Similarly, most fuel cells sold for home use run on natural gas, just like your furnace.  But instead of burning it, they "fuel cell" it.

This process produces MUCH less pollution than burning the gas/fuel, and is a smidgeon more efficient, but obviously does absolutely nothing to reduce our oil dependancy or lower the price of gas.  This technology is cool, but obviously an interim solution.

The other current proposed structure is to have large hydrogen facilities/power plants that would "make" hydrogen.  The problem is that this process takes lots of power, which we get by burning coal.  Essentially, hydrogen because an elaborate battery.  Store coal energy in hydrogen, move the hydrogen energy to cars, convert to kinetic energy.

This is essentially the same as regular electric cars (all fuel cell/hydrogen cars are electric), with two important features:  First, hydrogen cars could work now (or soon, anyway).  "Regular" electric cars are behind, because of battery technology.  Second, hydrogen storage and distribution is difficult and dangerous, and will require significant new infrastructure.

It's not so much that hydrogen fuel cells are bad - they aren't.  It's just that we can do better, and fuel cells are a detour.  Instead of spending money on figuring out how to generate, store and distribute hydrogen, and investing in costly new infrastructure, we could/should be investing in simply improving current battery technology, or developing another safer/easier technology.

Fuel cells are a big change for a small improvement.  I like them, but I think we can do better.

Sorry about ramble - hope that made some sense.

oldsoldier wrote: Effeciancy is the key, look at you average diesel electric locomotive, the diesels run the generators which in turn run the electric motors which turn the drive axles...

You are almost right.

COST is the key.  Current auto diesel engines are MORE efficient and MORE powerful (particularly at low RPMs) than gasoline engines.  Turbodiesels are quite popular in Europe.  BIOdiesel, however, is much more expensive to make than regular petroleum diesel - or at least it was until last week.  We also don't have the current manufacture capabilities.

Last thing I read, biodiesel cost, in the US, about $1-$1.50 more per gallon than regular diesel.  That may no longer be the case.

But biodiesel works, and it works well.

There is an efficiency component, however - again, you have to make the biofuel.  And some of them are hard to make.  Ethanol, in particular, requires a lot of energy to make.  Some people have argued that ethanol is actually an energy-negative process - IOW, you burn more fuel to make ethanol than you get fuel out of the process.  So we have to focus on the biofuels that are efficient, but they are out there.

Betterdays wrote:   If solar power could be used to generate electricity which was then used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen you would have an virutally unlimited supply of hydrogen.

Hooking fuel cells up to wind and solar facilities has been suggested.  Not so much to generate hydrogen for use elsewhere, but to smooth over the unreliability of wind and solar.  A wind/fuel cell combo facility would give you dispatchable renewable electrical energy, and (lack of)dispatchability is the big weakness of renewable energy.

As you point out, however, there is an efficiency cost to that conversion, as well a significant cost increase to already expensive energy (wholesale prices for solar energy are about 10 times the wholesale prices for coal energy). 

Using wind/solar to create hydrogen for delivery would require a different cost model due to the cost factors you identified, but would still leave the concerns about distribution and storage.

I do think fuel cells have a place in our energy universe - I just don't think they are the panacea they are sometimes made out to be, and I certainly don't think they are the correct replacement for automobile combustion engines.