On Sun, 2001-11-25 at 15:04, Patrick R. Wade wrote: > On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 10:13:45AM -0800, Jim Darrough wrote: > > > >"The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" > > > > Nuclear power is the answer. > > > [big snip] > > Another viable option in my opinion is the hydrogen fuel cell, however > >I am only a layman insofar as how those things operate. But I have some > >young friends that are very excited about them, and they have been used > >for years on the Space Shuttles. > > I suspect for a lot of the end-user applications where petrochemicals are > currently used, the hydrogen oriented approach will be more practical than > the nuclear; you know better than i the degree of competence needed to > safely run a reactor [0], it's even more demanding than running linux :-)
Actually, for the end-user, a fuel cell would probably be ideal. There was a good program on Discovery some time ago which explored fuel cells. They actually work well on any type of fuel (methane, propane, butane, old perfume, etc.) but hydrogen has a byproduct of water. Can't ask for a safer exhaust than that. > > > > [0] did y'all know that Reed College has a reactor run entirely by students? It's really a "pile" I believe, but I haven't examined it. Ours at OSU is a Triga Mk II. Sincerely, Jim Darrough