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The issue with 'generating' Hydrogen is the losses incurred. The fork-lift would get more 'work' done using the electricity taken to generate the Hydrogen than the Hydrogen itself would allow by burning in the fork-lift. It's essentially wasting energy to give you a clean fuel to use indoors (this I see as Hydrogen's place in the future. A fuel that can be used in closed spaces that won't produce noxious fumes.). Meanwhile, a few miles away the power plant is burning coal to run the Hydrogen Generator.

I can't see it being commercially viable to run our cars and trucks (especially commercial trucks, knowing the drastic loss of power over hydrocarbons). You'd use a heck of a lot more Hydrogen to run your car, and knowing what we do about the energy costs of producing it, I can't see it being in any way cheaper than gasoline and diesel are now. We'd be setting ourselves back into the mid 20's (mpg) with our best fuel economy cars that today are getting in the upper 30's (hard to believe that we had cars in the 50's that made 50mpg+).

This is something I noticed with my truck, running it on propane. Sure, propane was cheap (unlike Hydrogen) at the time, but you do use about 20% more propane than you would gasoline, due to the power loss and the fact that you drive to compensate for that. With your foot to the floor.

Actually, after a modest equipment investment and excluding sub freezing temps, a "demand" generator pretty much produces a free burnable hydrogen gas. How well it will work in an auto I can not say. It is burned WITH hydrocarbon fuel and according to the friend who is making the units as an employee of the fork lift company it will cut hydrocarbon usage by half or more.

With the floods in the corn belt ethanol just took a fatal hit. A few big distillers will survive but the bulk will fail due to extremely high grain prices.

If we do not act soon we will have mass hunger and economic calamity. If you want to see problems watch what happens then. Crime will be rampant! I just read in the print news that our grain reserves are gone.

We need to be deciding soon where our priorities lie. Is the welfare of humans more important than the welfare of animals, trees and scenery? I say yes!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Let me make sure I am reading this correctly. Are you referring to the ecosystem, of which our species is one intrinsic, small, and fragile moving part among millions, as "animals, trees and SCENERY"?!

I don't know if this discussion is going to tip me over into liberalism, but it may make a paleolithic, shamanic pagan of me yet. Dogshirt -- think I could use that drink.

I'll take a tree or a wolf or a bear over most of the yuppie scum that has been moving into the county I live in! (Passing a bottle of GOOD scotch!)

I'll take a tree or a wolf or a bear over most of the yuppie scum that has been moving into the county I live in! (Passing a bottle of GOOD scotch!)

I too know a lot of people who do not deserve the air they breathe and I like your taste in Whiskey! I do not want to see us follow in Hitler's foot steps. I figure I would end up on the "list" myself. I like my dog better that some people I know. I have spent a lot of time in the Colorado San Juan mountains, and remote areas of New Mexico,, Arizona and Wyoming. I would not like to see that destroyed but I want my children, grandchildren and their offspring to have decent lives. They are more important than animals and trees to me.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle4133668.ece

Here's another development. A genetically modified version of a non-pathogenic E. Coli bacteria is now producing CRUDE OIL!

“I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”

He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs – very, very small ones – so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.

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What is most remarkable about what they are doing is that instead of trying to reengineer the global economy – as is required, for example, for the use of hydrogen fuel – they are trying to make a product that is interchangeable with oil. The company claims that this “Oil 2.0” will not only be renewable but also carbon negative – meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.

Yes, 1 barrel a week from vat with a 40ft/sq. base is not exactly high volume, but every little bit counts.

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Because crude oil (which can be refined into other products, such as petroleum or jet fuel) is only a few molecular stages removed from the fatty acids normally excreted by yeast or E. coli during fermentation, it does not take much fiddling to get the desired result.

I still think that "hydrogen Demand Generators" are the answer. They work WITH hydrocarbon fuels. A complete switch to hydrogen is not realistic in the short term. Ethanol and electric are not viable either. The biggest myth is an oil shortage. We have more located reserves today than we have ever had. Remember the GREAT sugar, coffee and Toilet Paper shortages? "Now you know" I suspect!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Mmmmm . . .

But can you keep the little booger nonpathogenic once you have modified him and then his generations start to modify themselves? And will he be irrelevant to the human system, because he has been tailored to subsist on cellulose, and so harmless -- or one of those things that triggers an allmighty fatal purging reaction in the human gut (because the booger will get out and naturalize himself, be sure of it) along the lines of typhus or cholera, just because he's alien?

Mmmmm . . .

But can you keep the little booger nonpathogenic once you have modified him and then his generations start to modify themselves? And will he be irrelevant to the human system, because he has been tailored to subsist on cellulose, and so harmless -- or one of those things that triggers an allmighty fatal purging reaction in the human gut (because the booger will get out and naturalize himself, be sure of it) along the lines of typhus or cholera, just because he's alien?

My personal feeling is that "genetic modification" in any thing is playing with fire. Just because we can does not mean we should!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

I just heard on this morning's early news that congress is prepared to move on off shore drilling in the gulf and off the Pacific coast. It seems that after all their past rhetoric, the oil industry spokesmen now have turned 180 degrees and are opposed to the idea. The industry now says doing so will only produce eight million barrels a year and will have little or no effect on energy prices. I smell a RAT!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

They just corrected the output to 6 to 8 Billion barrels a year. Still no price reductions!?

Slàinte,    

Patch    

One of the biggest issues we have in coming up with an alternative fuel solution is the fact that everyone is looking for 'The Answer', when we should be looking for 'An Answer, to go along with the Other Answers'. Trying to find the one fuel that will release us from oil will just put us back in a position where we're dependant on one source again. We need to have options of at least five mainstream forms of energy storage, so if one supply goes belly up, we won't be facing another recession.

Electric is very viable, though batteries aren't yet. Electric propulsion is probably the most efficient way of getting anything done, if only storage wasn't an issue. Like I said before, Ethanol is very viable as well. Just ask the Brazilians. The idea of using Hydrogen as an economy booster (it had better save enough fuel to cover the cost the unit and electricity used to produce the gas) is a good one as well. I haven't heard much about this, other than the kids on local Car Club boards asking about doing an HHO conversion for their cars.

I can't help but be skeptical about it, since so many car companies are doing H2 Fuel Cell research (Honda has just started producing the pure H2 burning FCX Clarity for consumer lease) but none of added a Hydrogen tank to their cars to try and save themselves from the CAFE monster. Why would they have to stop building full-size trucks (the only remaining money-maker for domestics) at their high volumes if there was such a simple solution?

As for oil, the problem isn't supply anymore, it's ease of extraction. We're pretty much to the point where there is no Clampett-Easy Oil left. We need to end our affair with oil before it sinks us all.

They just corrected the output to 6 to 8 Billion barrels a year. Still no price reductions!?

Slàinte,    

Patch    

I read in Mother Earth News magazine some years ago that in a rural setting one could get a federal permit to operate a distillery to produce alcohol for non human consumption. I do not remember what all the restrictions were but remember the key to making it economical was to use wood for the distilling process. The use of oil products made it too costly as is the situation today. I will look as the articles could be available on line still. Were someone be able to raise the grain, and have a wood lot of sufficient size to provide energy for the distilling process one could make ones own ethanol. You would have to get pretty close to 100% alcahol in the final product for it to work. (You might even be able to slip a pint or two out for personal testing if your still was "safe.") There are plans available on the net for building a still.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

So Bush is now blaming the democrats for the cost of oil, because they won’t allow the oil companies to drill off shore and in Anwar.
Well if anyone is to blame for the high cost of oil, and global worming for that matter. It would be the republicans and Ron Reagan, who made a deal with Iran to keep holding the hostages, until he won the white house, and for overturning Jimmy Carters plan, for us to kick our oil habit, by perusing clean renewable power, by the year 2020.

This guy has to go, now!

C-Span live last nite was interesting. A chart of oil drilling permits, wells drilled and the price of gas, all graphed on one chart.
The price of gas climbed regardless of permits and wells drilled.
In fact there are now more permits issued than wells drilled because the oil companies have no desire to drill at anywhere near their capabilities, nor are they willing to invest in the difficult extractions, even when they did drill to the full complement of permits, oil prices still did not drop, but climbed continously.
Then with refineries, even when there was a 50% tax credit to build them , the major oil companies refused and stated they had no interest in building refineries. The ROI wasn't there. Todays refineries are currently running at 80 t0 88% of capacity and again the oil companies say they have no interest in increasing capacity.

Reasons: the Return On Investment is far greater to do nothing than to put their money into oil drilling and refineries. They make far more money operating like they do than by any other means. Remember, corporations are in the business of making money. The most efficient way to make money and increase profits is to continue to function as they do. How many Mobil-Exxon stockholders are screaming at them to put their profits into non-profit making ventures?

Answers: there is no one answer, though that is the the current public policy approach. OldRaven covered this.

Other shames: Oil companies claiming to be "Going Green" in all their commercials ,Citgo, BP, Shell. What a joke. I forget what Mobil-Exxons total income was, but we all know their profits were 40 billion last year. Out of just their profits, the total investment in alternative energy was 10 million.
With the current policy of oil being an unregulated public commodity, oil companies have absolutely no reason to look elsewhere for profits.

Oil is not an open market product, oil prices are not ruled by the supply and demand model as stated by the oil companies to Congress. Oil is a limited, controlled source supply and limited distribution channels with a fixed growth demand.

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