Homocon

The two quoted paragraphs in italics below are from the 2003 article, Hydrogen as a Fuel for Automobiles by C. Johnson, Physicist, Univ of Chicago.

"Yes, Hydrogen can be demonstrated in experimental vehicles, and they can have impressive acceleration and speed. But that's with a rather small Hydrogen tank aboard. If you ever see an impressive demonstration like that of a Hydrogen powered vehicle, make sure to ask how long that vehicle could continue to perform like that. The answer is certain to be no more than a few minutes at most . . .

We complain today at paying $3 per gallon for gasoline, which would be $45 for our 15 gallon tank. How many people would be willing to pay $1260 and more for the same trip, using Hydrogen?"

Uhm, I would venture to say not many, and the people who blithely assume that if we just dump enough money into research that we'll come up with easy solutions for any cost and materials problems associated with alternative energies are truly religious in their beliefs, as it would honestly take a miracle . . .

The entire articles is eye-opening, especially when it talks about how heavy the hydrogen tanks would be, how much hydrogen would be required to equal the power of a gallon of gasoline and the safety hazards of employing a highly compressed gas as a fuel source for automobiles.

The lack of readily available alternative energy sources is not a conspiracy, it's a simple reality due to the unfeasibility, impracticality or expense (or all three!) of alternative energies vs. the much cheaper and easily implemented fossil fuels. We use fossil fuels because they make sense, and we'll only stop using them when we absolutely have to (i.e. when they run out).

A society that relies on alternative energies will be inefficient and incredibly expensive, with the added problem of dealing with side-effects of which we're presently unaware. All those windmills it'll take to generate enough electricity? Perhaps massive weather pattern changes. Burning all that hydrogen for fuel? How about the release of new compounds referred to as NOx, which are considered to cause an assortment of health problems in humans and animals, not to mention their impact on plant life. And the Union of Concerned Scientists states that ethanol is a promising alternative fuel, but only when accompanied by "improvements in fuel economy and reductions in travel demand" -- right, the world population is increasing while economies are growing. A "reduction in travel demand" is bloody unlikely.

There is no silver energy bullet, or single energy villain. We consume huge amounts of energy because we want to go places and get things done -- fossil fuels allow us this luxury, which we have come to take for granted. Nuclear power is probably the only energy source that can rival fossil fuels for energy output, but environmentalists use the word "nuclear" the way the rest of us say "there's a fly in my soup!" Or worse. And nuclear power has its own set of unique challenges, as well.

The Union of Concerned Scientists goes on to state that "no single solution can meet our society's future energy needs. The solution instead will come from a family of diverse energy technologies . . . " among which fossil fuels and nuclear power will necessarily be included, albeit at a hopefully reduced level (well, reduced for fossil fuels, but most likely increased for nuclear power, as nuclear power accounted for only about 6% of the world's energy supplies as of 2003, and the demand for energy is doing nothing but increasing).

The problem is not that enough money isn't being devoted to alternative energy research, it's that alternative energies are prohibitively expensive and, unfortunately, woefully inefficient for our present demands. Yeah, I'd love to see solar panels on all the rooftops, too, but who's going to pay for them all -- Bill Gates? I think he's busy with Africa and AIDS. And what about all the energy needed to manufacture all those magic solar panels? Or the cost of transportation of the materials? Not to mention the inefficiency of the collection systems themselves. While air and sunshine are free, the technology necessary to capture and store the energy from these sources is most definitely not free, and if you're fretting about your power bill today, your future self might just have a heart attack over the costs associated with installation and maintenance of solar energy collectors, hydrogen condensers and that turbine spinning in the middle of your lawn.

But that's okay, just think of all the money you'll be saving by not traveling anywhere.