The Gas prices...

[Muffinmix]

@ Muffinmix - Yeah, you probably could blame most of the ills of the world on America...but then again, take a look around....

China - Mass pollution, child sweat shops, billions living below the poverty line, apathetic communist (term used lightly) government.
Korea - Nuclear proliferation, deteriorating conditions in the north, millions starving or homeless, looming threat of war
Middle East - Need I say more? Waring tribes, unstable pseudo governments, abusive alliances, mass destruction, a war a 1000 years old

I said that the US was suffering from the same major global issues as everyone else, it just so happens their economy was already fragile due to their military campaigns. They'll be the first to fall and it will cause a domino effect on other nations. If it were not for the global issues, as in the US alone taking a dive, the repercussions would be far from severe. Now the US goes down and other countries already battered by the issues follow suit.

It was my reply on page 5

It's like QFT.

Also it would be a blow to the world economy, but it would recover were it not for the global problems not affiliated with the US.

...

The world economy is suffering from the same global problems as the US economy, not DUE to the US economy.

...

Either way, the world is in stuff. Now we just have the US to blame for making it all go to stuff faster then expected. Thanks US.

As for oil, it's far more valuable as a source of hydrocarbons. We already have ample amounts of technology to make a completely hydrogen powered state, either by using Electrolysis to produce hydrogen from water at specific stations (think gas stations) which would have the available energy producing facilities, like wind turbines in the case of isolation or connected to some other free energy source.

Methane can be used at these stations to produce hydrogen easily, requiring little energy. The byproduct is CO2, but because it's produced at a plant it can be easily contained and converted to other products using some funky chemical process or, again, electrolysis.

Right now the only problem is our electrolysis technology is fairly crappy when it comes to bulk production, but it still works and using it will push us to develop better reactors for the process. The problem is convincing everyone that we need to change the current system, not the oil companies. If the government really wanted to, it could put a better system in motion. It's just everyone is very scared of a new system like this when the current one "works". That's why no one is budging except the countries that realize the system isn't working anymore and they desperately need a change.

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[Reactor Worker]

Hydrogen should be thought of more as a battery and less as a source of power. Electrolysis is not a perfect system and energy is lost in the process, not gained. You still need some power source to operate the electrolysis.

Currently most of the US is powered by fossil-fuel-burning plants and a few nuclear and hydroelectric plants. In order to reduce/eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, we must gradually replace the fossil fuel burning plants with much cleaner sources as mentioned above.

The rising cost of gas will be a great incentive for people to switch to electric vehicles, but it will still take time. The main thing holding most people back is the lack of infrastructure and understanding associated with electric cars.

Other concerns:

Hydrogen conversion is still subject to the laws of thermodynamics and sadly efficiency is only mildly better than combustion engines (about 40%).
The various catalysts for the reaction all have acute flaws, either being to expensive to produce, not being powerful enough, or not lasting long enough to be worth it.
Hydrogen is much more likely to detonate than gasoline. Gasoline requires an almost perfect air to fuel ratio; hydrogen is not so picky.
Alternatives to hydrogen fuel cells (such as lithium batteries) are heavy, don't last long and contain various environmentally damaging heavy metals.

[Technoscubed]

Minnetsota

Same!

[Otis Da HousKat]

Alternatives to hydrogen fuel cells (such as lithium batteries) are heavy, don't last long and contain various environmentally damaging heavy metals.

Not against you, but some guy on another forum was butt hurt over the fact that the Prius contained nickel in it's battery. He claimed that the Prius ruined the environment around the nickel smelting factory in Sudsberry, Ontario which supplies Toyota.

Because nothing else in the world uses nickel and the plant wasn't there before the loving Prius. [/facepalm]

I don't understand why some people are so against wind energy.

Wind energy is less efficient than coal/oil.
20% efficiency? Well guess what efficiency you get when you don't use free blowing winds? Wind is also a constantly renewable resource. Coal/Oil, not so much.

Wind mills are ugly!
When you put three of them in some random location they are. Have any of you ever drove through the wind mill valleys in California? loving epic.

Sound pollution!
Put them in place with low population density? The barren valleys for example.

That land could be used for farming!
It could, but was anyone even farming it?


The main concern I can understand is the energy saved/produced not warranting the price to create new systems and redesign the current grid. If people say we eventually have to switch to alternate fuel sources though, big loving deal, take the hit.

[Muffinmix]

Hydrogen should be thought of more as a battery and less as a source of power. Electrolysis is not a perfect system and energy is lost in the process, not gained. You still need some power source to operate the electrolysis.

Yes of course, and that energy can be easily supplied by wind power alone.

The catalysts used in the electrolysis are stuff, I'll admit, but it still works and can be done. Un-catalyzed reactions need a huge amount of electricity to get going, but this can be produced using, again, wind turbines on site. I leave solar panels out of the equation because they are brutally expensive and inefficient. Wind turbines are cheap, easy to set up, and can operate almost everywhere. You'd be surprised but these things produce massive amounts of electricity, and most of the time they can't work because the wind is too strong. If they were to keep up with the wind, they'd be producing too much electricity. Link them up to an electrolysis reactor and you get the conditions needed to cleave H2O into H2 and O2. Another thing is Hydrogen reacts extremely slowly with oxygen, believe it or not, unless it's a combustive reaction.

For cars, you can get compressed hydrogen fuel tanks. It's been tested and in the case of a leak and ignition source, the hyrdogen burns upwards safely without an explosion occurring or anything. Gasoline on the other hand spreads on the ground, lights up and you get a fireball. The small tanks used to store hydrogen in cars are also rather light. The only issue is the weight of the tank.

Bulk hydrogen transportation is the major issue, and the current simplest ways of dealing with it is to produce hydrogen on site (at gas stations) or to find better ways to transport it. Small hydrogen tanks for cars work, sure, but then you supersize it to truck loads and you start getting weight issues and dangerously high amounts of hydrogen. Some ways of dealing with this which are being researched actively are metal hydride storage methods. There is actually a research group at my university looking into it and they have produced some fairly awesome hydrogen "sponges", and are now simply fine tuning the production ratios to get something like 10% hydrogen by metal hydride weight compounds (which is insanely high mind you, that's a higher hydrogen density then liquid hydrogen). Such compounds can be reused over and over, you could also use them to make extremely efficient hydrogen cells that can store a large amount of hydrogen and keep a car going for a long time.  The only problem is the material is toxic, so you need to take precautions, but in terms of efficiency it's insane. It's a very viable method of transporting energy.

I will admit, there is nothing more efficient then gasoline, since gasoline is a prepackaged energy source that just needs a little purification and off it goes. We'll just have to suck it up and start working a little harder for our energy, not that it's that hard.

I mean the sun is practically a source of free energy for forgets sake.

[Reactor Worker]

I'd love to have our nation be powered by wind power but from an engineering standpoint it isn't practical.

1. Wind turbines are expensive to produce and maintain making profit margins slim, if not, non-existent in many cases.

2. Location, location, location. The turbines are most effective in areas with a strong, consistent breeze (by the sea for example) so many areas simply aren't suitable for wind farms as they don't receive enough wind current to generate the power.

3. Aesthetics are questionable at best. Moving them out of site is becoming increasingly difficult as metropolises expand and moving them further away increases the cost for construction and maintenance and infrastructure. Longer powerlines reduce the effectiveness of the farms and cost a lot more.

Much like solar energy, it is simply a matter of waiting/hoping for/working towards some breakthrough technology that is many times more efficient than what we currently have. Another thing to consider is that any sustainable power plant must generate profit in order to stay running and promote the building of other plants. Wind turbines, solar panels, mirrors and more are all highly expensive to buy and operate and with current technology wouldn't satisfy even the most risky of business plans.

To me, the clear solution (at least until more sustainable forms become available) is nuclear power. The public's fear of it is unfounded and modern nuclear plants are among some of the safest, cleanest and most viable sources of power in the country. Fortunately, both presidential candidates have vowed to back nuclear energy, but I fear the McCain and his doll will focus and rely on the offshore drilling to heavily.

@Muffinmix - see above. Wind sounds great but there are valid reasons why we don't see it used as often. As you said, solar panels are pathetic right now. I'm not as concerned by the efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells, but rather than by what powers them. If we could fuel even inefficient fuel cells, it would be an improvement over gasoline cars in the big picture.

[Otis Da HousKat]

I will admit, there is nothing more efficient then gasoline, since gasoline is a prepackaged energy source that just needs a little purification and off it goes. We'll just have to suck it up and start working a little harder for our energy, not that it's that hard.

I mean the sun is practically a source of free energy for forgets sake.

Wind, solar(duh), wave, etc. energies are all a result from the energy we get from the sun. It provides a lot for this planet and we don't use it. The reason we don't use it is because as we both said, no one wants to suck up the cost to implement new systems right now.

There's a big misconception about gasoline. Most of the oil from places Canada is top grade stuff, they avoid making more gasoline at the expense of other products from it. Other petroleum based products are made from that oil like polymers and lubricants. Middle eastern oil on the other hand, is full of impurities from its environment. It's mostly converted to gasoline. Gasoline is just the stuff vapor extract from refining. I assume you can get more gasoline vapors at the expense of higher quality oils.

[Rughugger]

Same!

Most Minnesotans I've seen online at one time......ever! o.o; It's a rarity that I find more than one MN on every blue moon. But here, it's a frikkin convention. lol

[Otis Da HousKat]

To me, the clear solution (at least until more sustainable forms become available) is nuclear power. The public's fear of it is unfounded and modern nuclear plants are among some of the safest, cleanest and most viable sources of power in the country. Fortunately, both presidential candidates have vowed to back nuclear energy, but I fear the McCain and his doll will focus and rely on the offshore drilling to heavily.

I'd like to see more nuclear energy as well, along with wind where viable >:(. Billions of tons of CO₂ vs. thousands of tons of nuclear waste that can be isolated and even reprocessed if needed, unlike fossil fuels.

It's already obvious a fully nuclear power system can exist. Almost 100% of France's power is nuclear.

But once again, no one wants to pay the cost of implementing a completely new power system across the whole country/world.

Most Minnesotans I've seen online at one time......ever! o.o; It's a rarity that I find more than one MN on every blue moon. But here, it's a frikkin convention. lol

On another forum I go to there is some bitch from Minnesota, she lives in Fort Benning in Georgia now. She is a very stereotypical patriotic bimbo. She bragged about being near the top of her high school class, but said she dropped out of college in her first semester because it was way too hard. Then she ran away from home with her now fiance who is a Green Beret in the Army Rangers.

That forum is a fan made one for a game. One of the game masters for that game is from Minnesota. He used to be the creator of the large clan I was once in. He sucked a lot of richard and was eventually employed by the game company.

My thoughts on Minnesotans are very soured.

[Rughugger]

I'd like to see more nuclear energy as well, along with wind where viable >:(. Billions of tons of CO₂ vs. thousands of tons of nuclear waste that can be isolated and even reprocessed if needed, unlike fossil fuels.

It's already obvious a fully nuclear power system can exist. Almost 100% of France's power is nuclear.

But once again, no one wants to pay the cost of implementing a completely new power system across the whole country/world.

Yup, gotta love greed. It's humanity's downfall. We'll economically throw ourselves back into the stone age before we even start with the nukes.

[Ronin]

Here's a true story, people living on Cape Cod had/have the opportunity to supply themselves with a very reasonable amount of electricity by offshore wind turbines [estimated 25 miles off shore, behind horizon line]. This is by-far the best location for wind turbines, you got the sea blowing wind towards and away from the Cape and a very strong current.

This vote got quickly run into the ground by voters of the Cape, because they felt it would ruin the scenic view of the ocean. Despite hard evidence that it wouldn't, and the large amount of energy that would provide the Cape [and the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard], the vote got shut down. The Cape and the Islands are hard to supply energy to, and they really could have used this.

But here's the funny thing, the people who voted against it loose their houses due to soil erosion by the seashore, and they don't even use their houses until the summer. Might I add the Cape and Islands vote Republican.

Solar panels aren't cheap, and you sort of need a lot of them. Not to mention they work at 50% efficiency when it is cloudy [and 0% when its dark/overcast]. I see them as a supplement, but not a solid component to the energy demand (unless you live on the equator).

There is hope for nuclear power, states like Florida are now implementing a system that almost charges coal burning plants by the tonnage of CO₂ they produce, its like a clean tax. Also they aren't allowing new coal burning plants to be built in most states.

[Muffinmix]

This is a great debate by the way.

Wind turbines cost money to maintain, but they're cheap compared to building power plants, building oil rigs, building pipelines and all that stuff and then maintaining them. You can also spread out small wind farms all over the place. They need 10mph wind average areas to work, which are abundant. The location is a small problem but not what's keeping them down.

Aesthetics is the problem. People don't like the idea of having a community powered by wind, and selling the excess, because it might kind of ruin the view, but not really. I hate people sometimes.

Fission plants are costly, and disposal of nuclear wastes is also costly. My bet is on Fusion, it's going to kick every other energy source's ass. Fusion consumes a very very small amount of hydrogen isotopes, and boy does it generate a stuff ton of energy. The byproduct? Radioactive helium, it loses it's radioactivity after only 100 years. Radioactivity problem over.

The issue is the reactors suck at the moment and it's going to take another 70 years of research to perfect them. The amount of energy needed to get the fusion reaction going is astronomical, and then the reaction can't be maintained.

Edit: Also fusion is safer then fission

[Ronin]

The school I want to transfer to runs a Wind Turbine on campus, they let the Civil Engineering majors work on them. It actually powers the entire campus.

[Muffinmix]

Also I'd like to add wind turbines kill birds, which is another argument people use against them.

The argument is kind of floppy when you consider that, if the entire world's energy demands were met solely with wind turbines Radio towers alone would still kill something like 10 times more birds.

The school I want to transfer to runs a Wind Turbine on campus, they let the Civil Engineering majors work on them. It actually powers the entire campus.

I wish I could transfer there.

[Ronin]

http://www.maritime.edu/

I suppose if you don't mind wearing a uniform, and want to get a great paying job after college. Wall Street Journal loves these guys.