Re: Buy DANISH!

• From: Guy Alcala <g_alcala@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 22:54:59 GMT

Keith W wrote:

> "Mark Bradford" <markbrad@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:cdJDf.12218$vp6.3378@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > "Jack Love" <jackxxloveyy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> > news:grost15h9id6rcbhtjij0psqherobtjpgq@xxxxxxxxxx
> >> On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 08:32:37 -0500, "Mark Bradford"
> >> <markbrad@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> >"Jack Love" <jackxxloveyy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> >> >news:20vqt15jb5bm35o6g08i4eail0hsnonroe@xxxxxxxxxx
> >> >> Support the right to annoy islamics using 'normal' freedom of speech.
> >> >>
> >> >> http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/21097.html
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >To play devil's advocate (the Hebrew word for adversary is Satan), in a
> >> >purely Laissez-fare viewpoint, the Muslim countries have every right to
> > pick
> >> >and choose whom they buy from.  They are quite within their rights to
> >> >not
> >> >have to buy anything from the Danes for whatever reason they choose.
> >> >
> >> >At the same time, if we choose, we can opt to support the Danes with our
> >> >purchasing power.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> >On this note, I would love to see a Manhattan type project to get this
> >> >nation off of the petroleum teat.  Once we do that, OPEC can try to eat
> > and
> >> >drink their crude.
> >>
> >> This is the typical head in the sand comment: we don't need a
> >> 'project' we simply need to build nuclear power plants.
> >>
> >>
> >> >Mark.
> >> >
> > Not exactly sure what you meant by your comments there, Jack.  While they
> > are probably a part of the solution, nuclear powered electrical generation
> > plants are not the entire solution by themselves.  I was thinking more
> > along
> > the lines of developing alternative automotive fuels, i.e. fuel cells,
> > etc.
> >
>
> Fuel cells require Hydrogen , where will this come from if not
> from Nuclear Power ?
>
> > I think you are thinking too much "inside the box".  What is missing right
> > now is imagination on how to attain the goal of energy independence.
> >
>
> Imagination is cheap, engineering is the key.

For a hard-headed, non pie-in-the-sky look at the practical difficulties of a
conversion to a Hydrogen/fuel cell infrastructure, I can highly recommend "The Hype
about Hydrogen", 2004, by Joseph J. Romm.  In the late '80s/early'90s, Romm worked at
the Rocky Mountain Institute with Amory Lovins*, then he was Acting Asst. Sec. of
Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewables during the Clinton administration, and now
heads an energy efficiency consulting firm.   He's a believer in renewables/alternative
energy, but he also knows just what the obstacles are to bringing this stuff to market
cost-effectively.  One of the points of his book is that just about the worst possible
option, if one of your main concerns is reducing greenhouse gas emissions, would be to
switch to hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles before we eliminate fossil fuel generation
of electrical power.  Stationary fuel cells are, for the middle future, far more
cost-effective, and suffer from fewer practical difficulties.

*Lovins was the guy who first pointed out back in the '70s that efficiency and
conservation were the quickest, least-hassle, least-polluting, most reliable and
cheapest sources of 'new' energy (he coined the term "negawatts" to describe such
energy)

Here's an opinion piece Romm wrote which includes many of the arguments in the book
(without going into the technological, infrastructure and financial detail that the
book does):

http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/8931101p-9857320c.html

> > BTW, why is it that automotive hybrid technology is not coming out of
> > Detroit, but out of Tokyo?  How come Detroit does not have a commercially
> > viable hybrid car on the market, but Toyoda does?  Why is Detroit
> > consistantly behind in innovation?
> >
> >
>
> Hybrid cars took around 0.1% of the Japanese market last year
> and even less of the US market. They are little more than a marketing
> gimmick in real terms
>
> As for Detroit Ford already have hybrid vehicles on the market

True, although they are licensing about 20 Toyota hybrid patents.  Hybrids aren't just
a marketing gimmick in the US, although their market percentage is currently very
small.  Toyota is very serious about massively increasing their production.

> while
> GM has 2 hybrid pickups and Chevrolet and Saturn are launching
> hybrids for the 2007 model year.
>
> Fact is hybrids are a niche market right now, they are expensive
> requiring all the complexities of both gasoline and electric
> cars. There are far simpler ways of getting better fuel economy.

True, but see below.

> High efficiency diesel engines have made vast strides in effficiency
> and reliability with 60 mpg cars being readily vailable in Europe
> from Japanese and US based manufacturers.
>
> Example the Honda Civic Hybrid delivers 50mpg for $22,000
> In the UK the Honda Civic 1.7 Diesel delivers 56.5 mpg
> with better performance for approx the same price
>
> Diesels now have around 50% of the car market in europe

Until the Euro-diesels reach US (especially CA) NOx and particulate standards, they
won't be a viable option here. I also seem to remember (from the days when my dad owned
a 1976 Peugeot 504 diesel, the slowest car sold in America that year) that while a
diesel is more fuel efficient per gallon of refined fuel, it takes more petroleum to
make a gallon of diesel than it does a gallon of gas, making any reduction in a
_country's_ petroleum usage by a large-scale switch to diesel illusory.  Cost-wise, in
the US Diesel #2 is more expensive at the pump than gas which would seem to bear this
out, although I don't know what the (current) respective fuel tax situation is.

Guy

.

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