What is Digg?34 Comments
- doublehead, on 11/20/2007, -2/+12anything that produces pure water as its waste has my vote
- wware, on 11/20/2007, -0/+5There's a good argument in favor of electric cars as opposed to hydrogen cars. Generally the plan with hydrogen is that you start with electricity, convert to hydrogen for transport and storage (both of which are problematic), and then use fuel cells to convert back to electricity to drive electric motors. Both conversion steps are lossy; research dollars might better be spent on battery technology, and forget about the hydrogen altogether.
Rent "Who Killed the Electric Car?", it's quite enlightening. There are a few open-source electric car projects out there, I hope one or some of them take off and become successful.
All that said, if something nudges hydrogen cars closer to feasibility or reality, it's still better than petroleum. I've met hydrogen guys and their hearts are in the right place. - inactive, on 11/20/2007, -1/+5Dennis Kucinich supports massive investment in green tech with a long-term goal of oil independence.
Support Kucinich's revolutionary vision, be part of the mass movement to donate what you can on Black Friday 11/22
watch some hippie Kucinich intern elaborate on the concept of a Black Friday mass-donation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI52XMMZK9c - nikon1123, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2This was on NPR last Tuesday...
- paddleguy, on 11/20/2007, -1/+3Agreed.
- 2oonhed, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2Cheerios is a good source of niacin & thiamin.
- inactive, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2Who Killed the Electric Car was the first thing I thought of when I saw the "300mpg car for under 30k" article on the frontpage - seems like the industry doesn't even need to pull these cars off the market to kill them anymore, they just make them ugly as sin so nobody will want to buy one.
- inactive, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2every scientist I've ever talked to says the idea of a hydrogen economy is total ***** - so why does the media and the government keep perpetuating this? What is behind this?
- epimer, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2Original article here:
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/nalefd/2007 ...
No idea if it's freely available, because I'm on an academic network. - Subliminational, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2I'm all for research into hydrogen fuel cells, but at this point in time it is not a feasible solution to our energy problems. Check out this article by Robert Zubrin. It is a very clearly written description of why a hydrogen economy could not work with our current technology.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/15/zubrin.ht ... - qpn6ph9q, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1Al Gore has the best intentions I am sure, but his hockey-stick graph was actually based on an error in the IPCC report. The latest IPCC report has the correct graphs and they look more like fun park slides than hockey sticks. Much less dramatic, but still painting the sad picture of global warming. I have produced a summary of the IPCC's latest scientific findings directly from the IPCC reports on my blog if you are interested: http://lexx.universeii.com/2007/11/ipcc-publishes- ...
- morph988, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1I think the human body is a good source of enzymes and protein....oh wait.......
- afruff23, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1So I guess that's why Al Gore used CO2 on his hockey-stick graph? Anyway, you cannot compare gases with volume. I'm not opposed to hydrogen energy, but man-made global warming proponents should argue that this doesn't solve anything.
- jacquesm, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1the sooner this silly oil addiction gets broken the better, but I'm always a bit skeptical when seeing 'breakthrough' stuff. I guess that's the downside
of the hype, it's like the boy crying wolf, I've seen so many 'next big thing' announcements in this field that I'll believe it when I see it, in quantity.
that said I wish them best of luck.
http://rndpic.com/ warning, don't click, addictive :) - redxxx, on 11/21/2007, -0/+1It's not really all that pure, but thanks for the support.
- qpn6ph9q, on 11/20/2007, -1/+2The burning of fossil fuel also produces water vapor in addition to carbon dioxide. The following is the chemical equation for burning gasoline (octane) 2C8H18 + 25O2 => 16CO2 + 18H2O. This means that your exhaust pipe spits out a gallon of water vapor for every gallon of petrol you burn in addition to the C02.
- Richandler, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1Where's my cold fusion car?
- apeweek, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1That would be wonderful if it didn't violate several laws of physics. You simply cannot generate more energy from hydrogen that it takes to chemically separate it.
Hydrogen s like a big, big boulder. If that boulder is perched at the top of a hill, it represents energy waiting to be harnessed. All we have to do is push it down the hill.
A boulder already at the bottom of a hill, however, is not a source of energy.
Hydrogen in water, already 'burned' , is the boulder at the bottom of the hill. If you use electrolysis to separate the hydrogen from the water, you are using the energy of the electricity to push the boulder up the hill.
The electricity made that happen, and that's all the energy available. You won't get more energy from the boulder than you spent pushing it up the hill. This is why hydrogen is not a fuel - the same reason a boulder isn't fuel. - 2oonhed, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1It's 2007 already....where's my flying car?
- smileydude, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1reminds me of the sony prototype battery that runs on sugar.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,2 ...
making hydrogen using enzymes is a long way off, even behind hydrogen cars. - inactive, on 11/20/2007, -1/+2As long as we keep the ICE I'm all for it as well.
- redxxx, on 11/21/2007, -0/+1It works, thanks for the link.
- kgrandia, on 11/20/2007, -2/+3Good one -- this has been a long time coming - fuelling the "hydrogen highways" has been a huge stumbling block to this point. Cross your fingers!
- apeweek, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1The whole idea is to distract us from electric cars. It's always the 'next thing' being researched, and since hydrogen will never work, we just keep waiting for it...
- apeweek, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1Unfortunately, water is not the real 'waste' from a hydrogen fuel cell system. Since hydrogen must first be isolated using energy, the waste products of that energy are the true byproducts of a hydrogen system.
Hydrogen is not a fuel - it is the equivalent of a battery. Energy must first be input, just like when you charge a battery. The hydrogen does not release more energy that what you put into it. Unfortunately for hydrogen, this process is much less efficient than existing battery systems. Research money belongs with promising battery tech, not with this. - morph988, on 11/20/2007, -0/+0the human body can generate 6 volts of electricity per hour...................
- Groovydoo, on 11/20/2007, -0/+0Popular Mechanics said that an $850 billion investment into our electrical grid infrastructure would put this country completely on H2 as a fuel source.
They say Jesus Christ could turn water into wine but George Bush just has to show the USA that he has figured out a way to turn blood into oil... - qpn6ph9q, on 11/20/2007, -1/+1Along the same lines Penn State has done similar research, but perhaps with even better results: http://lexx.universeii.com/2007/11/bacteria-cells- ...
(The link is to an article in my blog, but it is derived directly from the research paper.) GO H2 - iillthe2nd, on 11/20/2007, -3/+3I read this last week on slashdot. It produces 288% more usable energy (hydrogen) than it takes to produce. Where as corn ethanol is about 10%. Thats a HHHHUUUUGGGEEE difference. Also is works with cellulose not just high cost sugars.
- purpmint008, on 11/20/2007, -6/+4Hydrogen economy...what a bunch of *****!
Can we please spend money on research to get a better, complete, and cheap alternative to petroleum and petrodollar warfare? - afruff23, on 11/20/2007, -5/+160-70% of greenhouse gases are water vapor. Stop this now before manbearpig comes!
- thed0ct0r, on 11/20/2007, -10/+1——————/´ ¯/)
—————--/—-/
—————-/—-/
———--/´¯/'--'/´¯`·_
———-/'/--/—-/—--/¨¯
——--('(———- ¯~/'--')
———————-'—--/
———-''————_-·´
———————--(
————-———--
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is