In reply to Horace Heffner's message of Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:38:49 -0900: Hi, [snip] >The reason Si is such a great element for energy transportation and >storage is, if you look at energy production on a global basis, there >is so much of it cheaply available in desert areas, where the solar >energy to refine it is located. And it has a double whammy - money >is to be made on both the energy and the byproduct. This is a fairly >quickly implementable scheme for power utilities, and the economics >certainly *were* there if they aren't now, and should be there again >soon.
Availability would be an important bonus, however according to the Wiki page on silanes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silane), silane is toxic, and also pyrophoric. The latter would probably prevent its use as an automotive fuel, since any accident leading to a tank rupture would instantly result in a fire (not sure about the heavier silanes). [snip] Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
