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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/3/2008 5:58:05 PM | I am surprised I couldn't find any mention of this in my forum search. Sorry if I used the wrong key words (ie. the title of this thread). This isn't the first time I have heard that this technology has the potential for much more practical applications than previously believed. My mechanic recently told me he is working on a technology that can use the electrical system in any vehicle to convert water molecules to their atomic components and utilize the resultant hydrogen immediately to increase gas mileage by 50 %. Thus eliminating the problems with storage that have been used as an excuse for not developing hydrogen technology for general use. Why aren't people excited by this and talking about it?
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/peripherals/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209901610
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1162018
This is not my area of expertise, but it certainly intrigues me. According to this article, scientists have found practical ways to harness power from sunlight and water, resources that are currently abundant almost everywhere on the planet. Could this be the answer to many of the current economic and political issues that are tearing the planet apart...... or if legitimate, will it get quickly buried like other potential technological advancements that threaten the profits of corporations that benefit from present global dependence on carbon-based energy sources? | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/3/2008 7:24:30 PM | I think your mechanic is fooling himself. The electrical system in a car simply CANNOT provide enough power to electrolyze water in the amounts required to boost mileage that much.
The others sound intriguing... IF they can be scaled up beyond laboratory experiments. | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/3/2008 7:33:06 PM | The electrolytic splitting of water molecules into its component gasses ( 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen each) has been around since the early 20th century. It's easily enough done by running an electric charge through water with an electrolyte (such as baking soda) dissolved in it. The big problem with this is that it takes more energy than you get out of it in combustible gas.
While some inventors, such as Stan Meyer, have claimed to get more out than in, this violates a well-known law of physics and hasn't been duplicated in a demonstrable way. Give HHO or Brown's Gas a google, and you will find a plethora of videos on youtube, as well. Some of the 'true believers' are pretty funny when they go off on mystical tangents.
Like your mechanic, I have dabbled with this concept, and the resulting HHO gas is impressively reactive...so much so that my first few attempts blew up in my face. Literally. My experiments did not convince me that any significant gasoline savings are possible, but that doesn't stop me from trying. Of most interest to me is that the flame burns at ~259 degrees F, but reacts with whatever it touches...getting so hot as to cut steel, ceramic, and even tungsten at 10,000 degrees. That's hotter than the surface of the sun, and useful to me as a metalsmith.
While solar electric power can be used to split water, the combined gas is too reactive to store safely, though they can be stored seperately. When my first setup blew, that was due to my carelessness with flame. Subsequent failures were a result of a mere static charge induced by the gas flowing through the hoses. I think. You can do a small scale experiment using batteries even, so have at it, but wear ear and eye protection. | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/3/2008 7:46:39 PM | According to Rocketman Len:
The electrical system in a car simply CANNOT provide enough power to electrolyze water in the amounts required to boost mileage that much.
If I understand it correctly, the reaction requires a catalyst and the discovery of one that is effective is key to this technology.
From thr Science abstract:
.........This catalyst not only forms in situ from earth-abundant materials but also operates in neutral water under ambient conditions."
I guess I would just like to see more discussion of this before someone manages to suppress it. If it is not legitimate I want to learn why it isn't, and how these scientists managed to get it published in a peer-reviewed journal as reputable as Science. | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/3/2008 9:21:07 PM | Put it simply: it takes effort to lift a weight onto a table. If the weight is dropped, it releases energy. The falling rock can be made to do work, if it's properly harnessed. Call it a "gravity powered machine."
There are a number of "gravity machines" in nature: rain is a good example. Heat from the sun warms the water in the ground and in the lakes and seas, it rises (like the rock lifted onto the table) and eventually falls as rain. Some of the rain falls on higher ground, thus creating streams and rivers. Clever people realized if they could harness the power of the flowing (actually, falling) water in the streams and rivers they could do useful things, like powering grain mills and water pumps and machine shops.
Electrolysis is like lifting the rock onto the table- it requires work.
When the rock falls, it can do work, but not as much work as was used to lift it on the table.
Burning hydrogen, or using it in a fuel cell to make electricity, releases some of the energy used in electrolysis, but only about a third is recoverable.
A catalyst speeds up a chemical process. It doesn't participate in the reaction, and it doesn't add energy.
Electrolysis powered by solar energy might eventually prove to be economic, but right now solar energy is too expensive. Maybe after the price of PV cells drops 90%, or the useful life is extended well beyond the present 20 years. | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/3/2008 10:13:26 PM | There is a company in Canada called, The Canadian Hydrogen Fuel Company that has been selling hydrogen booster systems for big rig trucks. They clam a 10% increase in full efficiency. Not much help to your home car, but if your running a shipping company a 10% decrease in fuel costs can save you a lot of money.
So yes this tech does work and is on the market now.
http://www.chechfi.ca/ | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/4/2008 6:39:08 AM |
A catalyst speeds up a chemical process. It doesn't participate in the reaction, and it doesn't add energy.
I know what a catalyst does and I wasn't implying that the catalyst provided the energy. I am just more familiar with biological ones (ie. enzymes).
Electrolysis powered by solar energy might eventually prove to be economic....
That is closer to the point. Nocera and Kanan appear to have discovered a process that will make it possible to develop affordable means to harness solar energy. The original Science article is not so easy to access, but there are actually several other articles on the net describing this breakthrough and the first one I cited doesn't give as much detail as the original one I read.
I may also have confused the issue by bringing up the hydrogen boost systems for vehicles, because although somewhat related, they aren't directly relevant to why I started this thread. Sorry for that.
Here are a couple of better articles that may help explain why I think this is such a big deal. I found these via Yahoo news search, because Google originally sent me to less useful articles.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2008/2008-08-02-01.asp
http://www.newkerala.com/topstory-fullnews-4645.html
What still concerns me the most is that in order for these potential technologies to be fully developed, they have to be accepted by the general public. That requires awareness of their existence and some way to prevent the information from being bought and suppressed by those who may lose profits if we move away from carbon sources of energy. Does anyone think we have finally reached the point where the public will demand that new technologies such as this be developed and made available? I hope so. | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/4/2008 9:00:01 AM | I'm not a scientist, but do understand the limits of energy transfer and storage. A few years ago I participated in a hydrogen study group and learned a lot about the challenges related to both hydrogen and fuel cells. I came away from that effort convinced that the most appropriate application for that technology would be stationary fuel cells utilizing hydrogen produced on site to avoid the major challenges of safely and efficiently moving around sufficient quantities of hydrogen to meet our needs.
From a transportation perspective, pure electric vehicles seem to be the most practical alternative to modern day cars. Fuel cells are expensive, finicky, and there is no easy way to carry around enough hydrogen to match the energy output of a typical tank of gas.
As noted, we never get as much energy back as put in to create our energy storage medium, whatever it may be. All of our fossil fuel use has essentially been withdrawals from the planet's 'energy savings account', whereby the energy we've been using has been the byproduct of millions of years of photosynthesis. As we're starting to realize, we can't just keep living off our savings. We need to transition to living off the energy 'interest' created every day by natural processes that all trace their roots to the sun, essentially the only significant source of new energy that comes to the planet.
The breakthrough announced here basically makes electrolysis far more efficient and practical on a consumer level than had previously been possible, opening up the possibility of more efficiently storing energy transferred from sporadic locally available 'free' variations of solar energy like direct sunlight, wind, and for lucky people like me with falling water handy, micro-hydro.
Using locally produced energy eliminates the significant losses created by utilizing our massive power grid. Continuing with my banking analogy, every time we move energy from one place to another or to create a different energy storage medium like hydrogen, we pay what amounts to an energy 'handling and processing' fee that includes significant extra 'expenses' for moving that energy large distances and for maintaining sufficient infrastructure to move it wherever, whenever, on demand. Locally produced energy eliminates much, but not all of those fees.
We still need to make progress on making home scale solar and wind devices more efficient and affordable, and if we're to use hydrogen in a stationary fuel cell there are challenges yet to be met there as well, but this does indeed seem to represent an important step forward toward our inevitable pay-as-you-go energy future.
Dave | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/4/2008 9:17:29 AM | Here's a link to the MIT article.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/4/2008 9:49:11 AM | Like many of you have said "I am no scientist, but" . . .
An electrical charge passed through salt water creates chlorine . . .
(This happens naturally when lightning hits the ocean . . .)
Isn't chlorine gas explosive ? ? ? - There is a warning on my chlorinator ! ! !
I don't believe the salt is depleted to any large amount during this process . . .
My salt water chlorinator costs under $200 and chlorinates my 16,000 gallon pool . . .
It is smaller than a 12 of beer (mmmBEERmmm) . . .
So why can't you use the chlorine gas to at least supplement the fossil fuel ? ? ? | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/4/2008 10:39:09 AM | According to the MIT article that Nightwing66 quoted, this is more of a breakthrough in storing electricity than in solar energy. It appears that up until now, it was very impractical to use water as a medium to store gravity. But now, it's a lot easier with this discovery. Basically, it should make a much more powerful battery, and right now, one of the problems with an electric car is that it cannot store enough energy to go very far. So it might mean that you can re-charge a car and have enough power to travel for as far as you could do on a full tank. That would make electric cars practical.
The next stage is gathering enough recyclable energy.
We still need to absorb enough solar energy and convert it to electricity to run a car, to make proper use of this device. So we still need to assess if it is even possible to store enough electricity from solar panels on a car to completely power it, or whether we will still need other sources. We might just not be able to get enough energy from fields of solar panels and wind turbines to power all the cars in the world anyway.
However, I would like to add that in Israel, they've had useful solar power for decades anyway. Ever since the 80s, all flats and houses were built with their own solar panels. The energy was stored in a water tank, and at night, the higher temperature of the tank was used to power the heating and the hot water. So AFAIK, they have much lower electricity bills than otherwise.
So why can't you use the chlorine gas to at least supplement the fossil fuel ? ? ? Another good idea. Even if you are worried about the chlorine producing too explosive a reaction, all you have to do is to simply use a lot less chlorine per hour, by using a much more accurate control mechanism to pass much less chlorine through. I don't know if it has been done, but it sounds like it's worth researching. | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/4/2008 11:40:49 AM | The real break thru here is seperating oxygen/hydrogen from water w/ LOW VOLTAGE.....
We can seperate them now...but it take a lot of energy to do so, making it cost/carbon inefficient.
SO, yes...it is new & quite significant.
Lat time I checked, being an MIT professor/scholar was a pretty 'real' job. | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/4/2008 11:57:15 AM |
So if I read this correctly he is saying that the solar cells on your roof will supply the energy to be used to produce the hydrogen. A fuel cell will then be used to, I am guessing, supply us with power. Why not just skip the conversion using the fuel cell and just save the energy the solar cells made in batteries? Oh but then again fuel cells are sexy and batteries are not.
Don't have time to read up on it right now, but I suspect the fuel cells (especially when taking advantage of this new lower voltage setup) make more efficient use of energy, money, or both and are probably less polluting.
Remember, storing energy in and then retrieving it from batteries involves some loss (wasted energy). | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/4/2008 12:27:14 PM |
right now, one of the problems with an electric car is that it cannot store enough energy to go very far.
How far do you need to go?
Tesla Roadster 221 miles
Venturi — Fetish 155 miles
Lightning Car Company — Lightning GT 250 miles
Think — City 112 miles
Phoenix Motorcars — Sport Utility Truck / SUV 130 miles
Obvio — 828e 240 miles
http://venturebeat.com/2008/01/10/27-electric-cars-companies-ready-to-take-over-the-road/
Most days I drive less then 20 miles.
The longest drive I make regularly (about once a week) is just under a 100 miles round trip. The only time I really needed more range than that was when I was seeing a girl that lived out of state. The vast majority of people could get along fine with an electric car now. | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/4/2008 1:33:48 PM |
The real break thru here is seperating oxygen/hydrogen from water w/ LOW VOLTAGE.....
We can seperate them now...but it take a lot of energy to do so, making it cost/carbon inefficient.
SO, yes...it is new & quite significant.
I separated oxygen and hydrogen when I was a kid. It takes between 1.5v to 2v as far as I can remember. In my books this is low voltage. As far as the efficiency is concerned the professor/scholar did not give any numbers on the page I read.
Lat time I checked, being an MIT professor/scholar was a pretty 'real' job.
Just a little bit of ha ha for all you people with a sense of humor. Half the reason for the post. Just poking some fun at the funding process, if you can make it sound sexy you can get the money.
Remember, storing energy in and then retrieving it from batteries involves some loss (wasted energy).
Any time you move power around you get a loss. But changing from one form of energy (electricity) and using it to convert a substance (water into hydrogen and oxygen which has to be stored most likely under pressure) and then converting it back to a usable form (electricity) using an expensive technology (fuel cell) seems like a lot more work than storing it in a battery (also a chemical conversion but one that have available right now and with conversion efficencies in the 90's). | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/4/2008 4:46:18 PM |
How far do you need to go?
Tesla Roadster 221 miles
Venturi — Fetish 155 miles
Lightning Car Company — Lightning GT 250 miles
Think — City 112 miles
Phoenix Motorcars — Sport Utility Truck / SUV 130 miles
Obvio — 828e 240 miles
http://venturebeat.com/2008/01/10/27-electric-cars-companies-ready-to-take-over-the-road/
Most days I drive less then 20 miles.
The longest drive I make regularly (about once a week) is just under a 100 miles round trip. The only time I really needed more range than that was when I was seeing a girl that lived out of state. The vast majority of people could get along fine with an electric car now. The Roadster does the equivalence of 105mpg. But it costs $98,000, which is about £49,000. Even the G-Wiz, which only covers 48 miles, costs over £5,000 ( = $10,000). That is probably above the price range of most UK families. You can get a second hand car starting at £300 ( = $600), and a good second-hand car at about £1,000 ( = $2,000), but it is really hard to get an electric car at those prices.
I live in London. It's 50 miles across. You need a car to get around here, and it's quite easy to drive more than 20 miles in a day. Plus, if you want to take a family of four to Manchester, it is often at least twice the price of a car, maybe 4 times. So many people couldn't travel without a car.
FYI, the UK government has raised road tax massively on non-green cars, with a recent 100% increase for the worst polluting cars, from over $800 to over $1600. As a result, many people are cutting down on travel, but they are also choosing to move jobs much closer to home. So it is causing problems for the economy, especially as local work means that in populated areas, unemployment will be high, and in industrial areas, they won't get workers, and the workers won't go there, because the cost of petrol is more than they're paid. | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/5/2008 12:38:28 AM | I remember back from the movie Who killed the electric car they said that the EV-1s were able to meet the needs of all drivers less than two standard deviations above normal (98% of Americans).
However, the problem really isn't what you do normally, it's what you do in the exception. Americans like cars because they grant freedom. If you really wanted to, tomorrow instead of driving to work, you could drive to California. With an electric car, you couldn't. Not without taking some form of mass transit (god forbid we use a train or bus) or replacing your battery (god forbid there be standardization of batteries). Mass transit or taking an entire 10 days to go cross country isn't the freedom we want.
We'll grow up eventually and join solar nations with small cars like Israel | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/5/2008 3:32:31 PM |
Not without taking some form of mass transit (god forbid we use a train or bus) The only problem with that is that public transport costs at least twice as much, and takes at least twice as long, as a car. I make a journey once a week on public transport that costs between $2 to $8 and takes me 1-2 hours. It takes 15 minutes by car and costs $1.40 in diesel. I cannot justify a public transport system that is that inefficient.
or replacing your battery (god forbid there be standardization of batteries). Great idea, o76923. It takes 3.5 hours to charge the battery in a Tesla Roadster, but it only takes a few minutes to fill up a tank. But what if we could just pull into a garage, drop off our empty battery and put in a full one? The garages could just keep a whole load charging and then charge extra for the service. Sure it would be a bit more expensive, but it would be well worth it to avoid hanging around for 3 hours with nothing to do.
We'll grow up eventually and join solar nations with small cars like Israel Israel is one of the few countries I've been to, where the time and cost of journeys by bus was so good, that it wasn't worth having a car. | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/5/2008 7:01:18 PM | Oh, I agree that America's mass transit system is pretty terrible. Most places don't put near enough money into it. Washington D.C. has one of the best in the country, and it still has about one break down or major delay per day (at least its clean and can get you most places). I was actually referring to long trips via mass transit. So I guess it's not really transit, but travel. Taking a bus from Chicago to LA for example. Not as glamorous as a car or a plane, but oh well. Current electric cars can get almost everyone everywhere they go in a day. So we don't really need mass transit, from an environmental perspective. congestion, efficiency and such, sure, but not because we'd have to.
I think the battery replacing thing would be the way to go. Replace all the gas stations today with a station where a tech can come in and pull your battery out and swap in a new one would be great. It creates new jobs, allows us to have electric cars, doesn't utterly destroy the entire gas station sector of the economy, helps trucker culture spread, etc. The only problem is batteries would probably be expensive so you'd probably wind up renting them from gas stations instead of just buying the fuel like we do today.
I actually wasn't aware that Israel had a good bus system. I was referring to an article I read the other day about how Israel is working towards a big solar power initiative. Turns out that it's sunny as hell in the middle east. So it can actually be viable to put solar panels on every roof. Then they talked about impact and implications of that. Pretty nifty. | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/5/2008 8:03:27 PM | So we should take the pollution from the car and move it to the power plant, all be it a less efficient way since you now have to transport that energy, infrastructure etc along with the fact that you will loose energy along route to your distribution center. Let us not forget about those wonderful batteries with limited (very limited at full capacity). Just where shall we deposit all those toxins and serious hazardous waste? Canada maybe?
I know everyone hates oil, or hydrocarbon fuel of any kind, but give it a closer look. It is a VERY efficient vehicle to generate energy. Yes there is pollution (jury is still out on that one...do the research...don't just go by what the media feeds you) You do know that vehicles could be much more efficient, however the red tape of catalytic converter loyalists require the "system" (outdated) to keep a certain temperature, (you can probably figure out how there kept at that temp right....more fuel) Don't believe me? Why do gas engines need to provide fuel going down hills, slowing down etc. They don't, but the cat need the heat.
So where do we start. Maybe a clean sheet of paper with politics and ego's left outside.
Develop alternate methods of capturing crude oil from shale, coal etc...eliminate foreign oil and you eliminate the problems in the middle east. (NO money No problem) Technology will help us past these times, but we need to do everything we can now. Drill, developed alternate sources of energy, etc....do it all..
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/06/07/original_blueprints_for_200_mpg_carburetor_found_in_england.htm
http://peswiki.com/energy/Directory:Suppression#Charles_N._Pogue:__High_Mileage_Carburetor
http://www.gofastnews.com/board/technical-articles/75-100-mpg-carb-does-really-exist.html
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/laugh-at-high-g.html
Excerpt from article from David Vizard.
Great article on fuel efficiency (100mpg carburetor)
Back in 2000 I had the opportunity to interview the top engineer at Seimens' Corp (the guys that replaced Bosch in making our modern OEM fuel delivery systems) named Peter Rice. I asked him questions along these lines:
Q) Do your systems shut off fuel on decel?
A) Oh absolutely not! Even though the engine doesn't need fuel to keep turning, if we shut the fuel off, the catalytic converter might cool down. When you hit the accelerator again, there'd be a brief moment of higher pollution.
Q) Back in the late '70s Chrysler had their Lean Burn 318 engines. These engines were horrid with their open chamber heads, lousy carbs, and poor manifolding. Surely if Chrysler could do it back then, modern engines could do better with a lean cruise mode.
A) Oh no! By leaning out the engine the catalytic converter might not operate at peak efficiency.....
Q) As far as improving fuel economy goes, have you ever.....
A) We couldn't do that...catalytic converter....
The Green Peace types have been dubbed "tree huggers". Maybe we should dub the OEMs the "cat huggers". | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/5/2008 8:04:26 PM | ......i'm certainly not against researching alternate forms of energy but its seems pretty obvious that neither hydrogen, nor electric powered vehicles are at all practical alternatives to the gasoline/diesel car engine...like with any new technology, the novelty itself will be cost prohibitive, thus negating any significant savings by the consumer.
what is REALLY needed (and is achievable) is much more fuel efficient (and cleaner burning) gas engines....the technology that would allow such engines to be built already exists but the "powers that be" are very resistant in that the commercial production of these engines would lead to "reduced" consumption...and thus reduced revenues!!!
however, this process can be expedited if (and when) the "public" stops purchasing gas-guzzlers......and demands more efficient vehicles from the car makers, but this hasn't happened yet...not on a grand scale! | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/5/2008 8:19:09 PM |
So we should take the pollution from the car and move it to the power plant, all be it a less efficient way since you now have to transport that energy, infrastructure etc along with the fact that you will loose energy along route to your distribution center. Let us not forget about those wonderful batteries with limited (very limited at full capacity). Just where shall we deposit all those toxins and serious hazardous waste? Canada maybe?
Actually, moving the pollution from the car to the power plant is a very good idea. Even the dirtiest coal burning power plant emits less pollution per energy unit than your average internal combustion powered car. And it's release from tall smokestacks, not at street level. Batteries can be recycled, as almost all car batteries are today.
As to your catalytic converter concerns, the prius does shut off on decel and when stopped, and it has two catalytic converters. It's true that there are times when the engine will run regardless if the sensors say the cats have cooled too much, but that's a rare occurrence any time air temps are over 50 degrees F, and maybe twenty percent of the time in the coldest of conditions.
Of course if we go with pure electric vehicles there is no need for catalytic converters, making that point moot.
I agree we should be looking at all options. I'm skeptical that shale, tar sands, or coal liquifaction are as energy efficient to extract or create than other options, and the environmental impacts of their extraction are significant, but realistically I expect we'll be looking hard at all alternatives as oil supplies continue to dwindle.
Dave | |
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| Solar Power Breakthrough
Posted: 8/6/2008 8:18:49 AM | Totally different type of battery.... no they can NOT be recycled. Oh and China is basically the ONLY supplier, EPA issues with production in this country. Interesting right?
Just saying dont bet on electric cars to be the answer anytime soon.
Hydrogen..maybe as there is now the ability to use Aluminum aloy to break the hydrogen and oxygen ... but yes we will have to mine the aluminum and processes it.
Just some things to think about | |
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