Don’t Count On Magic

i love to see technology and research aspects separated from each other

i like to see greater work ,in terms, of technology and research work, around the globe in the magazine and the website

I like David's idea for the hydrogen economy. There is a group at MIT that combined solar panels with a fuel cell, splitting water with the power produced by the solar panels and using the hydrogen to store energy... basically artificial photosynthesis. This technology holds much promise, I am looking forward to seeing its integration in the average American household.

A hydrogen economy???s viability has been questioned around a "chicken-or-egg" dilemma; where to start: hydrogen powered fuel cell cars with no fuel dealers, or fuel dealers with no market?

Marketing? At first: for gas cooking/heating. Many of these now use bottled propane delivered to large white tanks near consumers. Heating-hydrogen's transportation need only be, like other heating-gas now, from local fuel dealer to consumer.

For early evolution toward cars, heating-gas trucks, and other applications, existing gasoline or diesel engines could use the fuel. Kits: with small pressure tanks, ignition timing adaptation (if needed), tubing, fittings, instructions, etc., could eventually permit it.

Pioneering "garage engineers" would find fuel at these heating hydrogen suppliers. This could eventually begin gently establishing hydrogen fueling stations for new, plug in free, fuel cell electric cars, like General Motors???, directly electricity driven, constant all wheel traction from 4 mechanically indendent wheel motors "Sequel" concept car.

Further evolution could move toward, more convenient, roadside locations, that gasoline and diesel now use.

Some say electrically separating hydrogen (H2) from water (H2O) (called electrolysis) requires fossil fueled electric grid reinforcement, and still more fossil fuel to transport it to fueling stations/dealers, adding CO2 from every stage, just to use a fuel that, itself, burns without making CO2, effectively eliminates hydrogen???s atmospheric CO2 reduction.

Does it?

We can increase gridpower with wind. Some people complain storage is needed to cope with wind's "variability". "What do you ... when the air is calm?", ask some. There are some places where the wind literally never stops; it varies there, but within a known range. When a wind turbine is selected that functions within that range, power from it is always available. Does that power vary? Without any automatic onboard controls against it, yes. Today, most megawatt-sized turbines have onboard computers informed of wind speed and direction by onboard weather stations. Despite wind variability, these provide the constant power output and cyclage that the grid always needs.

Beyond that, can???t photovoltaics (PV) power electrolysis ??? off-grid? PV???s unchanged direct current powers electrolysis without expensive, power-losing electronics to adapt gridpower???s alternating current. Pressurized hydrogen storage makes overnight production unneeded.

Why transport motor fuel, when made from energy produced where sold?

Gridpower could continue supplying the station???s lights, tools, etc.

Using mass-produced kits of: PV panels, electrolyzers, a compressor, instructions, etc., hydrogen infrastructure could be inexpensively aquired by station owners; if desired, even by homeowners.

The "chicken-or-egg" question needn???t delay introducing hydrogen powered fuel cell

The IPCC Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage states that the technology industry touts as "clean coal" is ready to go. It is already in commercial use where a tax on carbon emissions has forced industry to act, i.e. in Norway. Coal fired electricity costs around 5 cents a kwhr wholesale now. The IPCC believes that with carbon capture, new plants could produce power for 6 - 7.5 cents a kwhr.

If Gore were not a well-known person, he would be laughed off the platforms he speaks from. It's like those movie stars talking on subjects they have little understanding of, but their blathering gets published anyway. They are famous after all. Gore should be working on improving the internet he invented.

In the article, Gore says he doesnt believe that there can be any "clean coal" power plants built, yet he says the US Auto fleet should transition into "plug in hybrid vehicles as quickly as possible. Since solar and wind power are currently such a minute source of US energy, what does he think is going to be on the other end of the plug supplying the electic power? Nuclear energy? When there hasnt been a nuclear power plant built in this country in 30 years.

For the wordl's most prominent environmentalist to offer such half baked ideas is a clear indication that this problem will not be solved in our lifetime. Or at least not until someone or some group with a coherent strategy arrives on the scene.

I am disappointed that the media about "clean coal" technology addresses only the technology concerned with burning it. They seem to be ignoring the destruction caused by coal mining. There will never be "clean coal" technology until there are remedies are found for the pollutants from the waste coal mining produces. Not to mention mountain top removal. "Clean Coal" is an oxymoron.

Gore has been a proponent of an intelligent approach to environmental issues for a very long time; he is one of the few who think scientists have something to say and listened.
He did get a noble peace prize for his efforts as well.

Global warming is a reality in the same vein that dire warnings of global cooling was in the 70's

Climate change is normal. It is cyclical and always has been. What pomposity that some think puny man driving around in his pickup changes the climate. Climate change existed long before anyone discovered oil. As for Gore, he's hiding his reality in the environmental movement along with the rest of the homeless leftists, homeless since the fall of the Soviet Union. They have found that the lust for power is more easily accepted when wrapped in "mother earth" than in political ideology supported by tanks. After all, who can be against fresh air?

nothing about going vegetarian, again, commonly overlooked, but oh so important in the combat against climate change!

What the bankers have done to the global economy the republicans will do to the planet. Corporate profits at and all costs, that's their version of capitalism. And a bullet if you disagree.

IT's all bullshit! We have the means and technology now, we just have the MONEY to throw at it. Where do you and Al Gore think we should get this MONEY from? There isn't enough money to pay for health care, food, and housing for every man, woman and child in the United States now.
SO where am I suppose to get more money to pay more taxes to pay for more crap that is not even scientifically proven?

Newsweek just took the opportunity to call attention to environmental leaders of the past. One of those is the father of ecology, Aldo Leopold, and if mankind would heed his seminal treatise on the ecology of Earth articulated in his revered, "Thinking Like a Mountain", mankind would be on the right path. Climate change is a symptom, not the disease.

The plague is mankind's burying, slathering over, plowing, constructing over and deforesting Earth's ecosystems, i.e., all the reasons mankind is alive and breathing. Science believes by 2040, Earth will be a forest-less planet. Mankind needs to ask himself if concrete, steel, bricks, stucco and asphalt can release oxygen, balance the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, regulate the climate, govern Earth biogeochemistry, circulate vital nutrients, contribute to the hydrological system [fresh water] and regulate the nitrogen and carbon cycles, i.e., life itself and create and renew a life-gifting soil as well as check and balance mankind's pest that consume ecosystems and man's crops and check and balance the populations of pathogens, like viruses, that cause pandemics and are capable of wiping out the majority of Earth's human populations.

Can mankind survive in concrete jungles and a paved planet? How much hotter and drier is open sky and concrete than a densely forested ecosystem, Earth's shelter from the heat of the sun?

Dollarwise, I don't know. He seems to have a pretty decent grasp of the environmental issues and his speeches and documentary SURREE have gotten a lot of heads around the world turning. Maybe you should watch what you say since you sound like an elephant with its head stuck up its you-know-what.