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It is casually mentioned by our candidates. No one in power in the US really considers it seriously. The Japanese and other countries are betting their future on hydrogen and Atomic power. Honda is bringing a Hydrogen fuel cell car into full production at the end of this year. I believe Hydrogen is the only portable fuel we should be using. The trouble is it is being pushed off into the future by big oil. If action is not taken now it will be way off in the future.
The new Cap & trade bill that just passed the House of Representatives contains provisions for the sale of carbon credits. Once this trade is introduced, the chances for going over to hydrogen will be reduced considerably. It strikes me if you're going to go green. Why not go all the way. If you believe man is causing global warming. Why sell carbon credits? Why not reduce these fuels to zero.
There are applications where it can be used TODAY!! Even your existing automobile can be converted to hydrogen. Those big gas guzzlers would have water coming out of their tailpipe not CO2.
Let's take a look at Hydrogen itself. I will try here not to get very technical. We all know the problem with science is it tends to be very dry and boring except to the scientist.
Hydrogen at Earth temperatures is a gas. It is the most abundant element in the whole universe and the fuel that our Sun uses every day to heat and light the earth. It is two parts of the water that is extremely abundant on our planet. It is part of coal and oil. They are Hydrocarbons. It is even two thirds of you and me.
The question that arises is, if it is so abundant why aren't we using it for fuel now? The answer is very simple it does not exist in any abundance alone. It is always combined with other atoms. An example is water, H2O. Two parts Hydrogen one part Oxygen. In order to obtain Hydrogen from water, energy must be used.
One common process is called electrolysis. Electrical energy is applied to water, which separates into Hydrogen and oxygen. We can then use the Hydrogen and Oxygen separately. Hydrogen can also be generated from other sources such as coal, oil and natural gas. When Hydrogen is combined with Oxygen energy is released, and we get back the water we started with. This operation can be set up anywhere in the world where there is water and electricity. It does not require an oil well or expensive oil rig. Hydrogen can be generated from the windmill or solar panels. Hydroelectric generators are fine. By compressing hydrogen and putting it in storage tanks. It will work just like a storage battery. Windmills and solar cell outputs can only be stored in batteries. Batteries are DC our power grid is AC. There is only so much energy that can be stored in a battery and then you must use another battery. Batteries are expensive and contain dangerous elements that, if not exposed of correctly are poisonous. If you were generating hydrogen all you would need is a bigger tank. Carbon composition tanks have been developed, that is stronger and safer and lighter than steel tanks.
Solar panels only work when there is sunshine. That makes them very inefficient. If during the day we would a siphon off some of the output from the solar panels. We could use it to produce hydrogen, which could be used during the nighttime hours. This would make the solar panels more effective.
Hydrogen sounds really nice. So why aren't we using it now?
The electricity that we are using two separate Hydrogen and Oxygen is coming from a power plant or from natural gas. The power plant is using coal, gas or oil. We need a primary fuel source to obtain the Hydrogen. It defeats some of the purpose of hydrogen if you use a fossil fuel to generate it. Every windmill and solar panel bank needs to be equipped with hydrogen generation equipment. Any type of electrical generation system would benefit from the use of hydrogen. The Hydrogen stores the energy in high pressure storage tanks in this process. The lead or lithium cell stores the energy in the storage battery. These storage batteries must be disposed of in environmental way. The lead and lithium are poison. Hydrogen is the world’s only nonpolluting storage battery.
This brings up another question. What have we gained if we go to Hydrogen?
The answer to that question lies much deeper than just the use of hydrogen to run an automobile. The very basis to our economy and the success of the United States as a nation is based on our use of energy. Without energy this country cannot remain great. It is the most important thing required for use to sustain our way of living!!! Saving energy is not the answer! Using it in a way that has the least impact on us and the planet is. Hydrogen is only real answer to this statement and should be on a very fast track. It is obvious that this is true. We are 350 million people, and according to the latest statistics. We are using 25% of the world’s oil.
Five years ago we were using 40%. This is not due to us using less it is others using more of this limited resource that has made the change. The rest of the world population is 5.7 billion people. All wanting to drive RVs. Oil is a limited supply item. It may not run out in our lifetime, but it will run out and very, very soon. The whole world needs oil and are looking at ours. It’s time to break this dependency and jump past them all. We need a real energy policy!! Not just oil, and the nonexistent clean coal!!!
The supply of oil is dwindling. Our grandkids or great grandkids are going to face a real dilemma. The fact that the supply is limited is not the only reason for the price increases. There are speculators that push the price up. We are drilling offshore or in the Arctic. Coal is being strip mined in Montana. It can't be found in easy areas anymore. Oil shale and other similar sources ruin the beauty of this planet. The cost of obtaining the oil continues to increase. The very terrorists that we are fighting around the world are getting funded by our own money. Referring to T. Boon Pickings "It is the greatest transfer of wealth the world has ever seen". It is very obvious that other energy sources are needed and needed now. Believe it or not you can generate Hydrogen at home.
We can no longer consider coal and oil the only sources of energy. We have different needs for energy. Some of them are stationary, others are mobile, and some fly through the air or sail our oceans. The only fuel source that can be used by them all is hydrogen!!
Hydrogen is used as a major fuel source for our space program. It's what makes our rockets go. There is no reason for it not to be used to make our jet planes fly. Think about it. You can go to Cape Canaveral after a rocket lifts off and there is no smell even after millions of tons of fuel have been consumed. Try that at any airport after a jet has lifted off. NASA is getting the hydrogen from somewhere how about giving some to us the tax payer.
We the tax payer has paid to develop this technology. Why should we not benefit from it? Under Eisenhower we build the interstate highway system. Why not an interstate energy system?
Again another question, does Hydrogen answer all of the energy needs of the world future? The answer to that question is no, it can’t stand alone and needs other energy sources to produce it. It is, however, an extremely important part of a practical approach to the energy problem. We have the need for both mobile and stationary fuel use. The stationary energy sources need to produce the fuel for the mobile energy users. There are many nonpolluting stationary energy sources, and any of which can be used to generate hydrogen. The hydrogen can be transported by using the existing natural gas lines. Propane trucks with a converted nozzle will work just fine. We need to start this transition now.
We do have the ability to produce it with existing technology. It can be generated using oil or natural gas for use in all our moving vehicles, trucks, cars, buses, airplanes etc. Why wait for windmills or atomic power plants to be built to start using Hydrogen? As more of the non polluting power plants come on line the hydrogen will be already flowing. If we don't do it at the same time it will just take longer. It would sure clean up the air in our cities, if only the busses ran on Hydrogen. I see no difference between building an interstate highway system so our commerce could move to building a interstate energy system. The more pipes in the ground the larger the storage capacity will be.
Hydrogen is a storage medium not a fuel source. Like a giant storage battery once the Hydrogen is generated it will store that energy forever. Every pipeline full of Hydrogen is a pipe line full of clean energy. There are multiple sources of, none polluting, renewable energy or limitless sources available to us that could generate it. There is wind power, atomic power, solar power, tidal power, geothermal power. Good jobs and clean air will be the result. America the beautiful can remain that way.
I believe it is not our ingenuity stopping the use of these different power sources. It is the entrenched use and investment in oil that is working like a giant dam. It is stopping our expansion in other energy areas. These companies have too much money invested. They want to scare us about other sources of energy. They are even after our retirees saying their pension are dependent on them.
When Hydrogen is generated it can replace gas or oil in almost every application. In one very big user that there is no other clean answer. It is jet, turbine and internal combustion engines. That old clunker converted to hydrogen would become a clean running vehicle.
How about one of these secret government facilities that keep on rolling out better spy planes surprising us and roll out a Hydrogen powered jet?
T. Boone Pickens a diehard oil man has made a proposal. It is the first crack in the oil dam that I have seen. To learn more about his proposal I've included his web address, and I'm not going to discuss it in much detail here.
http://www.pickensplan.com/
One of the things he wants to do is to increase the use of natural gas which means more pipelines. The second is the installation of windmills down the middle of the United States where wind is very prevalent. This means jobs and no cost fuel for the turbines. I believe he has one installed. How about out of the goodness of his heart he puts a hydrogen generating facility next to it!!! Windmills have the same problem as solar cells. They can have dead time. A common practice is to charge storage batteries. I propose they generate hydrogen instead and put in the new carbon composition storage tanks. This way all you need is a vehicle with a fuel cell and it and away you go power for the furnace and your vehicle. Fuel cells can also be used to power the lighting plants in your house and your other appliances.
He has been criticized for only mentioning things that would benefit his pocket. I however do not see it that way. I think it is an excellent first step. Nothing stops other entrepreneurs from taking the electrical output from his wind turbines and generating Hydrogen and putting it into the existing natural gas pipelines. The average person does not realize that most pipelines are capable of multiple uses. The Pickens lines will be in place and ready for Hydrogen. But, the existing pipes can be used now!!!! Those same pipelines that contain natural gas could be diluted with hydrogen, reducing the amount of greenhouse gas output. The end goal being one hundred percent hydrogen. To me this is a national defense issue.
It is a little known fact that for many years. Our major cities used something called city or coal gas. It was obtained from coal. It was mostly Hydrogen. Due to the Hindenburg disaster the name was disguised.
When I talk to people about Hydrogen and the first words out of their mouth is: Hydrogen is an extremely dangerous gas. Remember the Hindenburg. I know there is no sense talking to that person anymore. They don't understand the science.
If you fill a balloon with a flammable gas and light a match next to it. It's going to burn. If the balloon is as big as the Hindenburg it's going to be a big fire. Steel or carbon composition tanks have improved considerably since then.
Natural gas is as explosive as and more dangerous than Hydrogen. Hydrogen is extremely light, and if a leak occurs it will go up and blow away. However, natural gas or propane will hang around and go down until it finds an ignition source. Burn natural gas or propane, and they release CO2. When hydrogen burns, it turns into water.
I started this Blog by saying the Japanese and other countries have bet their future on Hydrogen. How are they doing this? The French and the Japanese are using Atomic energy as their primary energy source. In Japan the energy generated by the Atomic power plants is being used to generate Hydrogen that will be distributed through pipelines presently being installed in Japan. This has been a long term plan for them. We have no such plan. If you would like to see the distribution of Atomic power across the world look at the map below or for more detail visit:
http://www.insc.anl.gov/pwrmaps/map/world_map.php.
I think the number of Atomic power plants presently in existence and where they are located will surprise you. It really is a very safe method of generating power. The map you will find on this website was generated in 2005. At that time it was over a thousand reactors operating. Now it's about 1500. How many accidents do you hear about?
It's like the Hindenburg, 3 mile Island and Chernobyl happen over and over again in people's minds. We continue to build nothing and are told it'll take 10 years to complete one. Obviously this is a lie. That is the oil dam talking. We are building aircraft carriers and submarines, and many other military installations and putting reactors in them and they take a year maybe two to complete. The people on the ships and submarines live within feet of the reactors. Let's declassify them and set them up in small-town America. The aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan has up electrical power to light up a small city. It has the ability to it connect to the shore and supply this energy in an emergency.
I know we are being had by the oil dam. I look at a wind farm and I see multiple fans turning. Why do we want to build a super reactor that takes 10 years? When we could take proven reactors out of the submarines and aircraft carriers and start building small reactors that we could add to as we go. This is the way they build a wind farm. ( I FORGOT THEY ARE CLASSIFIED) The military also has stock piles of radioactive material that could be used in reactors.
I repeat we are being had! Remember for every Atomic plant that goes on line that’s off shore oil we do not need!!! A a strip mine we won't have to dig. The entrenched oil industry looses business. By off shore I mean, not just drilling, all the way to the Middle East and the rest of the world. We should be the leaders in the area of non fossil fuel power generation. A great high tech business could be created selling the technology to the rest of the world. That is the real way to stop any affect we may have on globule warming. It also is the best way to win the war on terror. We should treat it as a war!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because it is!!!
If we all stop driving our vehicles tomorrow morning, the other 5.7 billion will not. It is a wasted effort. Putting clean energy in the hands of developing nations would give us jobs. Whether or not there is globule warming? Both sides should be happy. The air in the cities of the world would be cleaner!! I ask why we want to import something that sends billions of dollars overseas so they can buy bullets to shoot at us.
I can hear your question. What is the answer?
The average person wants to get in his car and away it goes without breaking the bank. He or she wants to turn on the hair dryer or air conditioner and not have sticker shock when the electric bill comes in. These may seem like small things but they are the things that make our life better than most of the world. The funny thing about democracy is it only works well when it has abundant energy. That is why for some countries democracy gives the basic people nothing. There still is no running water.
I would like to hear one of our candidates make energy the top of his list for things to solve. A presidential order releasing the military reactors for private use would be a good start. Look what happened when the military let loose of the Internet! (It once was classified)
A group of cash prizes for the companies that develop the first practical hydrogen powered jet engine, better storage batteries, better solar panels anything that helps remove our dependence on oil. Most of all a real push on getting Hydrogen on line.
The military reactors presently in moth balls should be given to small localities for their use. We paid for them. We have the US Army corps of Engineers taking care of our water ways. Why not a Navy corps of engineers helping set up the small reactors? They have the most experience with them. It could work like the thirties rural electrification project. The requirement would be that at least half of the power generated would be used to generate Hydrogen.
Yes we should drill for oil. Just giving leases on an area does not cut it. They should be areas with the shortest recovery rate. The leases should also contain the condition that a certain amount of corporate profit be used to develop hydrogen friendly projects. Excess profit taxes just don't get us anywhere! The government will just eat the money and the power problem will not be fixed. Forcing the major oil companies to help develop new energy sources will! It will give us more and better jobs also. The companies would have new products and the pensions would be safe!!!!!!
This also will cause the oil speculators to start looking for other investments. The money would soon become available for Hydrogen development.
The old statement "It's the economy stupid" would be satisfied. Without energy there is no economy!! This most be a national program. Without we the people pushing it will not go.
The Japanese have a plan and are working hard at accomplishing it. It's a national effort for them. We need a national leader that does the same for us. We need a leader like John Kennedy that took us to the moon. If we can go to the Moon why can't we solve the energy crises? I repeat it is the OIL DAM!!!
Our candidates have no energy plan. The Bush administration said they had one but kept it secret. There is nothing to make us energy independent let alone give us limitless power so we can continue to have the life style we all enjoy and remain the greatest nation on earth. The technology exists so why not use it?
We call ourselves a democracy but in truth we are a republic. That means we elect our leaders to think for us. I hear such comments being made that we should be ashamed of not speaking multiple languages. I wonder what would be better. Learning multiple languages or studying enough science to overcome the misguided fear of atomic or hydrogen power. Could it be that someone learning science could solve the energy crises or could speaking another language do it?
Energy is the base to the saying "It is the economy stupid" No energy no economy!! We once killed whales for their blubber to use in our lamps. It is again time to move on!!
Vikingbob
Complete Vikingbobs words List
http://www.vikingbobs.net/
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Email: vikingbobs@yahoo.com
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