Re: [Amc-list] Hydrogen power

[Archimedes <Freedom@xxxxxxxx>]

"Clarence Milstead" <cmilstead@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:


>Hydrogen power is a boondoggle as are some of the other alternative fuels.


With current technology, yes.

However, almost all fuels -- gasoline included -- are effectively boondoggles.

Government controls & subsidies on petroleum -- from finding it all the way to pumping it into your tank -- have hopelessly distorted the market.


>The real answer is electricity and nuclear power, which are already proven,
>available, and ready for use if the politicians will get out of the way and
>let a lot of nuclear plants be built.


That's not really true.  The biggest problem I have with nukes is that their liability is limited by the Price-Anderson Act.  Just one nuclear accident could cause billions of dollars in damage to be cleaned up; but P-A limits what the nuclear operator would have to pay to a fraction of that (unless it's been changed since I studied it in the nineties, the limit is only $50 million).

If nukes were required to compete with all other energy sources on a level playing field, there simply are no insurance companies that will cover a nuclear accident.  Being uninsurable alone would prevent the construction of any more plants, and probably the continued operation of existing plants, until the technology was very safe -- which is a long way off.


>Many things can be switched to electric power,
>trains, city buses, heating, and a lot of other oil users. The only thing
>that really needs gasoline is cars, you can fill your tank and drive for
>several hundred miles. I don't think any of the other technologies can make
>that claim. We don't need new technology, we just need more of what we
>already have. The problem is that the politicians and their buddies can't
>make any money off of existing technology. 


I disagree.  Government policy actually has driven energy demand.  First, by creating pedestrian-unfriendly, sterile, boring suburbs with minimum setbacks, minimum lot sizes, exclusionary zoing, and the separation of business & residences into distinct, never-the-twain shall meet entities.

We drive more these days because government prevents us from building living quarters above our storefronts, like we used to.  The compact, walkable city blocks of a century ago are no longer allowed.  Where forty of fifty families once lived on a coupl-acre city block, now you can only put one house and only one family is allowed to inhabit it.

Free roadways, too, keep us moving further and further out, which means even more gasoline use.

Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx> said:


>iirc they can only burn about -1%- of
>the nuclear load before the fuel rods must be yanked and discarded....
>
>more efficient approaches that have near-total consumption of the
>fissionable load, with safety 'baked in', are on the drawing boards.
>these even largely solve the disposal problem by leaving little or
>nothing but lead to dispose of.  


Curious - is this basically what breeder reactors do?


>but another thing which most folks overlook bothers me; uranium, and
>thorium which reactors can also be made to run on, are finite
>resources we dig out of the ground just like oil and coal, and the
>biggest deposits are not in this country.


Worse yet, a few of the biggest suppliers are countries we really don't want to depend upon, much less send our treasure:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_ura_pro-energy-uranium-production


>how about solar power satellites, constructed in space from lunar-mined
>material?  the startup costs are about as staggering as you can
>imagine, but once you could pop one out it'd be a self-sustaining
>industry.  i've been re-reading gerard o'neill's 'the high frontier'.
>some of his economics is hopelessly optimistic, but still...


Some of that may be closer than you think.  With space elevators, the cost of getting things into space is actually not prohibitive.

adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Sandwich Maker) said:


>taking the field in, and not forgetting what's manufacturably
>practical, imho the best alternative fuel is biodiesel.  better fuel
>crops are needed and subfreezing fluidity needs to be improved, but
>it's a straight sub for diesel fuel and heating oil.  diesels that run
>all the time can easily switch to straight vegetable oil, which works
>very well when heated to coolant temps.  cold starting is svo's only
>weakness.


Biodiesel is a good short-term alternative, but once again it has "cons" as well.  The vegetable oil has to come from somewhere; and for the same reason ethanol can't supply US fuel needs even if every square inch of arable land was planted with crops, there still wouldn't be enouh.


>yes, many things like trains and urban buses could be electrified.
>being from boston i'd like to see more trolley cars...  [digression: i
>-hate- those diesel tourist so-called 'trolley' buses, blatantly
>misnamed since 'trolley' refers to the electric pole that runs along
>an overhead wire]


Yeah, that always irked me as well.

AMC (kinda) content: check out the kenosha trolleys.

http://www.heritagetrolley.org/existKenosha.htm

-- Marc



_______________________________________________
Amc-list mailing list
Amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.amc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/amc-list