By george, I think you've got it!!!

Another problem with the "hydrogen economy" is leakage. Since H2 is the
smallest molecule, it will always leak in significant quantities from
anything but the most expensive, most precisely engineered and manufactured
systems. H2 diffuses into the atmosphere very quickly, and is also the
lightest molecule. Too bad about the ozone layer... But hey, skin cancer is
preferable to other forms, right?

Not to mention fuel cell "stacks" are very heavy. Most of the fuel cell
stuff I see are nothing more than "stunts" to attract ignorant investors or
congressional earmarks. Fuel cells do have some wonderful applications on
the low and high ends of the spectrum, but I really don't see them as
"everyone's favorite power source". We need some major revolutions in
materials science for that to happen.

Not sure I agree about the nuclear angle. Fluidized bed reactors are really
quite efficient and not able to "Chernobyl". Nuclear power has been around
for decades, and if properly monitored by the NRC, not that bad. I grew up
next to Big Rock (since decommissioned). Now my home town has to deal with a
dirty coal-fired plant. I would have preferred the Nuke plant myself...
Waste will be a problem, but better in WIPP than in the atmosphere!



wrote in message
...
G.R. Patterson III wrote:


Dan Luke wrote:

Interesting. What happens to the leftover carbon & sulphur?

I wondered that myself. They said the carbon is in the form of CO2 and
CO, so I
expect that that's just exhausted. Perhaps the sulphur is SO2 and also
exhausted.
We can hope not, but, if so, it's no worse than what's exhausted when
the fuel s
burned.

George Patterson
Great discoveries are not announced with "Eureka!". What's usually
said is
"Hummmmm... That's interesting...."

True, but at least you get the energy out of your engine when you burn the
carbon and the sulphur.

Makes one wonder what the overall efficiency is versus just burning the
diesel.

One problem with hydrogen engines no one seems to want to talk about is
the
fact that hydrogen burns hot. If you get your oxygen from the atmosphere,
there is also a lot of nitrogen in there. Hot engines and nitrogen produce
oxides of nitrogen which are a major constiuent of smog.

There seems to be a big fly in the ointment for all the wonderous
alternative
energy sources:

Alcohol: takes more energy to produce a gallon than you get out of burning
a gallon.

Wind: gets you sued into the ground as in Altamont Pass and most of
England
for killing tweety.

Geothermal: clogs up the pipes with all the nasty crap that comes out and
takes heroic efforts to keep that junk out of the atmosphere.

Nuclear: where do I begin to enumerate the technical and social problems
with nuclear plants?

Solar: expensive and cloud cover, what cloud cover?

Where is Scotty and a batch of dilithium crystals when we really need
them?

--
Jim Pennino

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