On Fri, Feb 09, 2007 at 10:13:54PM +0000, Bruce Metcalf wrote: > I think hoax is the wrong term. Stupid is good though. Yeah, stupid.
Yes, if you insist to use things in the wrong way it could be called that. The damn horses keep dying if you feed them with petroleum. So petroleum is stupid. And if you run your cars on enrichened uranium the passengers puke their guts out, and then, too, die. So nuclear power is stupid. > One might argue with a few of his numbers, but even at twice the One might argue with his entire essay. It made me want to slap the man around, to knock some sense into his head. > efficiencies assumed in this paper, hydrogen energy storage is pretty Efficiences are not the things you plug into the equations. What's the efficiency of sun-driven fixated ancient carbon dioxide? Very close to zero. What's the fixation efficiency of current biomass? Some half to one percent. What's current photovoltaics? 20-30%. A car? Under 20%. Gas turbine? Up to 50%. Fuel cells? 60-80% Electromotor? 90-98% See? Efficiencies alone are meaningless. > hopeless. > > Even if the efficiencies were there, it still boggles the mind to think > of cars, trucks -- dare I say motorcycles -- all hauling around It really boggles the mind. Fortunately, it won't happen. Electrical vehicles (compare the energy density of Li-polymer with diesel -- and see how very little energy density alone means a thing) and synthetic fuels will take care of that. > substantial quantities of hydrogen using conventional humans as drivers. Hydrogen is lots more safe than gasoline -- at least in open spaces. And methanol is less toxic than gasoline. Funny how these urban legends are just that. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
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