New fuel

"BllFs6" wrote in message
news:20040818094952.12124.00003620@mb- If you dont do THAT, then your at
best making a little more ethanol than the
gas you started with (and wasted alot of valuable food and land in the
process)
and at worst you've actually ended up with LESS fuel than you started with
(and
have totally wasted a non-renewable fuel source)....

This reminds me of something I saw on Scientific American Frontiers last
night. It was a show on new car technology and was touting the glorious
revolution that will be Fuel Cells run on hydrogen.

While it was very interesting, there was this theme that the American market
was slowing the development of fuel efficient cars because we (Egads!!) keep
demanding more power and utility from our vehicles. Kind of irritating
actually. The American market, in a big way, helps fund their development
programs through car sales.

Anyway, the one thing that they glossed right over was that it takes more
energy to extract hydrogen from water than you get from the extracted
hygogen. They said that to solve this catch-22, we can extract hydrogen from
hyrdrocarbons (ie coal, oil, natural gas, etc.) or use nuclear to extract
hydrogen from water. Doesn't seem to be all that glorious of a solution now,
does it?

As I see it, what's slowing down the development of hydrogen fuel cells is
the fact that getting hydrogen isn't easy or cheap (cost or energy-wise).
It's great technology, but it still has a long way to go before it will be
accepted by the buying public.

-Trent
PP-ASEL