Re: Tax refund checks

On Apr 30, 10:35 pm, dsi1 <d...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Richard Yates wrote:
Where would we be now had we seriously developed, say hydrogen, then?

I agree with your basic point, but hydrogen is not a fuel, it is only a
carrier. The most energy you get out of it is only as much as you expend
producing it (unless you can get a fusion reaction going - then you've got
some real energy!).

Richard Yates

Fuel iz fuel - they all cost resources to produce. Our state's great
plan to reduce our dependence on oil is to ship great amounts of ethanol
across the ocean to our rock in the middle of nowhere - this seems
wasteful. There's also costs for transporting the fuel to the ship and
costs of the raw material (I assume it to be corn), production and
storage and god knows what else. My guess is that it costs many of
barrels of oil to get this low energy content fuel into our tanks.
There's probably some costs associated with not being able to use the
land for other crops, who knows?

Personally, I think we could have done well in past years with diesel
engines running on vegetable oils but now it seems that the age of the
internal combustion engines is nearing its end. My guess is that car of
the future will all be powered by electrical motors. That's why hybrid
vehicles are important: they are acclimating us to the idea of electric
cars. I think it unlikely that we'll rely on batteries to run electric
cars - except maybe on very cheap models. My guts tell me that we'll
still be filling up at the pumps in the future. What we'll be filling up
with is unclear but my guess is that it will be hydrogen or a biomass
fuel that is used to generate electricity in a fuel cell.

david

I figure that by the next time I need a car the chevy volt should be
in production. That platform is built for the scenerio you describe.
The first generation uses a gas engine to run the generator that
charges the batteries, the next round uses biodeisel or deisel, and
after that fuel cells.

The whole ethenol thing is a joke. We use tons of petroleum produced
chemical fertilizer to produce corn to ferment it into a fuel with
much less energy content than gas and only a slight decrease in
pollutants - stupid, should just burn the gas. Corn is for food! If we
were smart, we would have by now perfected the process of producing
ethanol from switchgrass/cellulose. Like someone said earlier in this
thread, where would we be now if we went down the alternative path in
the 70's?

For now, I stick by my position that nothing will change until the oil
runs out, and I'm doing my part. We bought a new horse for my younger
daughter and had to pick it up. Drove the truck and trailer from VT to
southern Indiana and back last weekend, 10 mpg down and 9 mpg back -
about 1700 mi roundtrip. I wane nestalgic for the days when I only had
to swipe my credit card once to fill the tank...

John L.
.

Relevant Pages

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