s4s/f4e: Energy

i don't want to hear about how long it would take, with current gas prices, to save enough money to counteract the extra cost of buying a hybrid vehicle. Money is not the point (how un-American of me). The environment, pollution (hybrids can use a variation on the combustion engine that expels 80% less pollutants), and oil (hybrids can use up to half as much gas as similarly sized vehicles) are the issues. Those are the reasons for taking a moral stand and buying a hybrid. You can't buy fresh air (yet) so i don't want to hear about cost differentials ever again.

You want to maintain your lifestyle? You want to improve the environment as well as the economy? Well, have i got an energy idea for you.

Bio-fuel options are not logical if people want to maintain a similar lifestyle. Using soybeans to make fuel (the most efficient crop to turn into bio-fuel), even if the entire US was covered with soybeans we still could not make enough fuel to meet our current gas addiction.

My proposal is a combination of hybrid and hydrogen technology. By the end of the '90s the major US car companies all had a hydrogen fueled vehicle close to production ready. One of the difficulties was covering similar distances in between refueling as current vehicle do without taking up too much space in fuel storage. Somewhere along the way, however, these companies are now pretending that they need more government money to develop such vehicles. Either then or now someone's lying about the state of the hydrogen program. Could it have something to do with a change in administration in that time period? Why is one of those companies selling a type of hydrogen vehicle in a progressive thinking European country?

To solve a fuel storage problem might i suggest combining hybrid technology and its impressive mileage with hydrogen fuel cells, which have been used by NASA for some time now. i won't take up space explaining how the fuel cells work because it's easily found on the internet. Hybrids already use electric engines and hydrogen fueled cars would need to use electric engines as well. If not already in existence, this technology is extremely close to being perfected. i wouldn't put too much faith in US automakers though because they are even struggling in the current hybrid race.

Now, the big problem here is the hydrogen. NO, i'm not referring to the 'bomb' problem. The Hindenberg burst into flame because its shell was covered in a highly combustible coating. It was not the hydrogen that caused the problem. There are plently of things in your house that can be turned into bombs that people are not getting worked up over so let's not dismiss hydrogen as a fuel source. Hydrogen is by far the most common element in the universe. On Earth, however, the hydrogen is bonded to other elements... not easily found already isolated. So how do we get our Hydrogen?

Despite GB Jr's idea to separate it from oil/natural gas, that doesn't solve our goal of emission free and renewable energy. If we only have 40 years of oil left on the planet based on our current rate of consumption how does this sound viable or intelligent? My idea is based on the simple electrolysis of water (which covers over 70% of our planet). Overly simplified: if you run an electrical current through water it will separate the H2O into its components of hydrogen and oxygen. Twice as much hydrogen as oxygen in fact. But where will we get all that electricity?

In the Midwest of our country we could produce enough wind generated energy to meet our current electricity needs. The problem is we don't have a grid system in place that could efficiently transport that energy across the country. What if we used that energy instead to separate out water into the hydrogen needed for our new vehicle system? Could this possibly even help, to some extent, the issue of sea level rising (maybe not but one can dream)?

Where would we build those wind farms? Our government pays a certain number of farmers to NOT grow crops on their land so that we don't end up with a crop surplus that could effect prices and hurt farmers overall. Why not on that land? We currently grow such a surplus of corn in this country that much of it is turned into a very cheap sugar (that's why high fructose corn syrup is in everything). What if some of that land was converted to wind farms?

So what are we left with? A booming new economy centered in the heartland of this country which will not be covered with water as sea level rises. With no need for foreign oil there would be no money from us going to terrorists, there would be no reason for the US to take over middle east countries, therefore, no terrorist threats on the US. Using hydrogen fuel cells we are no longer polluting the air, therefore, reducing our impact on climate change. Less pollution in the air means better quality of life and better health. Imagine the views possible in every major city if the air was clean?

Sure there are specifics i'm not mentioning here, but isn't this entry long enough?