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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jbe who wrote (15517)	11/21/1998 9:42:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

I'd greatly appreciate full references for "Hill 20" and "Mackenzie 75". It sounds too good to be true - indeed I detect the heady redolence of hype. Seven gallons of hydrogen gas at standard temp and pressure are over two grams. Adsorbing them onto a gram of active carbon - well, I suspect that'll be hard. And that two-hundred-pound tank will hold, uhm, what? A few pounds of hydrogen. Still less btu's than a same-weight tank of real gasoline. So to get a 5000 mile range I'll betcha the books were cooked and not a little bit, either. (just guessing without the references - but they are educated guesses) Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying hydrogen is an impossible fuel. I hold the opinion that it is more expensive to use than gasoline - and not that much cleaner. Remember - a motor vehicle fuel needs to work not only in short-range city cars, but tractor-trailers and trains and oceangoing freight ships. (Although the latter have been credibly demonstrated using wind drive...) >What role, if any, should government play in encouraging the development of new technologies? Do "subsidies" have a place?< Honest answer? "I dunno." That's more of a policy question than a technology question. Let's look at the two biggest subsidy-bred technologies of this century. Nuclear power (instantaneous or sustained), and heavy rockets. As soon as the subsidy climate dried up, support for these technologies walked away. Civilian power nukes were regulated into economic un-viability, and they choked on their own wastes. Big rockets never made it to the point where industry got interested, as the cost per pound orbited never met projections. So big rockets were good only for grandstand plays and as nationally owned delivery platforms for Subsidized Technology #1. What's my point? "I dunno." I'm not arguing that subsidies are either evil or the badge of an uneconomical technology. After all - high development costs do not dictate that the final product won't be cheap, powerful and robust. (Ask Andy Grove!) I would like for the private market to select and drive the development of preferred technologies. Hand in hand with governmental subsidies and regulations - this will give us a balance between cheap utility and controlled environmental impact. I think that the champions of electric cars are a bit naive and optimistic - they fixate on the low emissions during the poerating cycle - while downplaying the costs of making and using such vehicles. But I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. I will need to see sober figures for vehicle specs though - not the sort of (imho) baldly partisan flights of fancy I've seen in the SciAm article and the Hydrogen link. What to do about Our Ecological Duty? Backuptrk said it for me. Drive the lightest, most efficient vehicle you can. For now that's a Honda gasser or a Vee Dub waxburner. Oh. And write your legislator about getting Diesels in on clean air laws. That'll light a fire under those who could clean up this excellent energy source.