"Peter Dohm" wrote in
:


"Alan" wrote in message
...
In article Jim Logajan
writes:
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

3. New nuclear power plants are not being built because draconian
environmental rules prevent their construction. As of now all
environmental restrictions on construction of new nuclear plants
are lifted.

Not needed:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...n6xZeeLKqBXnLg

2 plants in the country? Good to get started, but We should
probably
be building 20 - 30 in California alone.

However:
California law prohibits the construction of any new nuclear power
plants in California until the Energy Commission finds that the
federal government has approved and there exists a demonstrated
technology for the permanent disposal of spent fuel from these
facilities.
Source: http://www.energy.ca.gov/nuclear/california.html

We need to do something about that. We should be recycling this
slightly used nuclear fuel, not throwing it away.

Very true. I don't know how much of the energy we are currently using
from out nuclear fuel, but there is certainly a tremendous resource
remaining and we should be using it as fully as we are able.

[ Now, I would suggest that all electrical power to Sacramento (the
CA capitol) be shut off until the legislature comes to their senses.
]

4. By decree, hydrogen fuel is now the way of the future -- period.
From this point on, by my decree, the scientific and industrial
capacity of the United States will be used to perfect a hydrogen
distribution system to replace our current gasoline distribution
system, and all cars will be powered by hydrogen. Source:
http://tinyurl.com/6hklhf

Well at least you linked to an article that makes clear that the
hydrogen has to be generated from another source of energy. H2 sucks
anyway on several counts - and your last decree will essentially
ground all small aircraft, including your own. Contrary to your
ultimate goal, I assume.

Indeed. Hydrogen is a difficult fuel, with fairly low energy
density
for a givin volume. It is also difficult to handle and transport
safely.

Currently, the only known way of cramming hydrogen into a small
enough volume to be of use in your airplane is, ironically, by
_lightly_ binding the H atoms to something like, oh say, carbon. A
hydrocarbon.

Which makes for a better fuel, safer, and well suited to running our
aircraft.

All we need to do is extract the carbon from the atmosphere, and I
have
seen hints that such may be reasonably doable.

Alan

My only dissagreement here is that I wonder whether extracting carbon
from the atmosphere is really necessary, or even usefull. There seems
to be evidence that increased CO2 in the atmosphere results in
increased plant growth--and that means that plants will extract the
CO2 for us, with no polution nor industrial effort, and will yeild
food and other products in the process.

Yes, the increased CO2 in the atmosphere does lend itself to increased
plant growth. In fact,it's a bit of a mystery, or at least it has been a
bit of a mystery that all the CO2 we've produced over the last 200 years
hasn['t increased the carbon in the atmosphere as much as it should
have. The explanation is the rainforests. The increased CO2 in the
atmosphere has partly been absorbed by the rainforests, particularly the
Amazon. Sounds like a good thing, eh? Not neccesarily. The problem is
twofold. First, we're still cutting it down to beat the the band, lately
one of the main culpriots has been the thirst for biofuels. Indonesia
has been decimating its rainforests for land to grow crops for fuel for
the industrialised world. At the current rate, their forest will be
completely gone in a few more years. And of course, we're still chopping
it down for hardwoods and grazing lands as well. the bigger problem is,
the rainforests have had a fairly steady diet of CO2 for millenia and an
increase upsets the balance and may well result in a forst that grows so
quickly that it outstrips the nutrients in the soil and the result could
be desertification of the region or, at least a modification to
scrubland. Either way, no more rain forest and no more CO2 accumulator.





Bertie

Bertie