X-Message-Number: 24217
Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 05:37:00 -0700
From: James Swayze <>
Subject: Re: Lots and lots of oil but ne'er a drop to burn
References: <>

>
>Message #24209
>From: "michaelprice" <>
>References: <>
>Subject: Re : More reasons to get to North America, while you can
>Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 12:38:21 +0100
>
>  
>
<snip>

>We are not running out of oil - we are running into oil. The world has used
>15% of all the oil we believe there to be - that leaves 85% untouched.
>
>  
>
So what. Why scarf down every last drop?

>Message #24213
>From: "Basie" <>
>References: <>
>Subject: Gasoline 
>Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 17:35:58 -0400
>
>Gasoline is and have been made from coal for forty years in South Africa.
>The world have virtually endless supplies  of coal.
>
Not really, nothing is endless.

> If the price of oil gets
>a little bit higher all countries will start making gasoline from coal.
>
>  
>
Hardly a better alternative to going hydrogen.

My right wing wacko brother argues with me about how much oil there is 
and against going hydrogen. Says he doesn't like hydrogen because it's 
converting o ne form of energy to another. LOL! As if digging for il 
wasn't! I had to laugh my ass off the other day when he added to his 
ignorance and actually said, "There's nothing wrong with burning oil!" I 
won't repeat here what I said to him. I was quite angry with him, mostly 
for being a fool and my kin. I thought to myself let's do an experiment, 
I'll get a hydrogen powered car and you keep your gas guzzler and we'll 
lock ourselves in sealed garages with the engines running and see who 
comes out... nothing wrong with burning oil INDEED!

Some of you chemists might edify us all with the list of noxious 
materials coming out of the tailpipe of a car or the smokestack of a 
coal burning electric plant. But really everyone here shouldn't need a 
chemistry lesson to know the ill effects of burning fossil fuels. I 
don't have to look up the byproducts of burning hydrogen, IT'S WATER! 
The difference should be obvious to even the most stubbornly ignorant of 
intellects... like my brother, but apparently not. What mischief being 
wedded to political ideology produces... total lack of reason.

If absolutely clean emissions alone isn't incentive enough to move away 
from oil I don't know what is. And it's quite easy to do. You simply 
take a hydrogen fuel cell and run it backwards. Using a solar panel or 
two or a windmill electric generator pump in electricity and some water 
and magically out comes hydrogen! A self contained mini plant like this 
can produce it all day long for practically free once the cost of 
building it is paid for. Converting regular gas burning cars to be able 
to burn hydrogen is easy and cheap and not even necessary to go with 
hydrogen fuel cell utilization albeit probably more efficient. Hydrogen 
can also be safely stored as body panels even bumpers of the vehicle 
utilizing a new solid state storage tech and this is even safer than 
gasoline, there's nothing flammable in enough quantity to blow up or 
catch fire! How do I know all this? I saw it on PBS on the Scientific 
American Frontiers program (1).

View self contained mini plant producing hydrogen here using Windows 
Media Player: 


http://www.pbs.org/perl/media.cgir?t=w&f=virage/scientific/pbssaf1403_220k.asf&s=2724575&e=3288887

View car conversion and solid state storage here using Windows Media 
Player: 


http://www.pbs.org/perl/media.cgir?t=w&f=virage/scientific/pbssaf1403_220k.asf&s=2217452&e=3288887

Find more clips of the program here: 


http://pbs-saf.virage.com/cgi-bin/visearch?user=pbs-saf&template=template.html&query=iceland&viKeyword=iceland&Search=Search

If I had the money to I'd build one of those reverse fuel cell plants 
and put a giant burning torch on it powered by the product. I'd let that 
torch burn night and day while gasoline users drove by puzzled by the 
apparent waste of fuel. Then I'd put up a great big sign saying, "You 
could be driving on this for a fraction of the cost of your gasoline! 
Convert your car now."

But what about the other cost of continuing to use oil? How about 
terrorism? Oh ya, let's keep pumping dollars into the hands of 
totalitarian regimes that fund Madras' [sp?] teaching hate toward 
westerners and our democracy. Let's keep feeding them and helping them 
to raise generation after generation of malignant irrational terrorists 
that haven't a clue who their real enemy is, oh ya good plan that is! 
How about instead we wall off the whole damn region and let them eat 
their goddamn oil!

It doesn't matter how much oil we have left or how efficiently we can 
squeeze out every last drop. We shouldn't simply use it up just because 
it is there. That should be obvious.

James

(1) Future Car http://www.pbs.org/saf/1403/index.html
Premieres May 19, 2004
Alan Alda begins this show driving a Model T - because, as he puts it, 
"A century after Gottlieb Daimler built the first Mercedes and Henry 
Ford founded his car company, the car industry has finally realized that 
the technologies it's relied on for those one hundred years are as 
quaintly outdated today as was the Model T back in 1927." Alan visits 
the research labs and testing tracks of the Big 3 automakers - including 
DaimlerChrysler in Germany - to find out what will replace today's car 
technologies in the cars we'll drive 20 years from now. What he finds 
are cars that will understand their drivers and anticipate problems 
(like driving through a stop sign!) as well as cars that are far more 
fuel efficient, like the gasoline-electric hybrids that are already 
appearing on our roads. Most significantly, Alan test-drives cars that 
no longer rely on the internal combustion engine and gasoline but 
instead are powered by fuel cells running on hydrogen. He meets many in 
the auto industry - like General Motors' VP Larry Burns - who argue that 
only way to sell more cars in the future - including to the fast growing 
market in China - is to free cars from oil, "taking them out of the 
environmental equation." Alan's investigation of the prospects for a 
quiet, fast, safe, exciting and non-polluting fuel cell car in every 
garage takes him from Stuttgart to California - and to Iceland, which is 
attempting to become the first nation to entirely replace imported 
petroleum with domestically produced hydrogen, generated from the 
volcanic heat that lies just beneath the island's surface.

-- 
Member:
Cryonics Institute of Michigan	http://www.cryonics.org
The Immortalist Society		http://www.cryonics.org/info.html
The Society for Venturism	http://www.venturist.org
Immortality Institute		http://www.imminst.org
Methuselah Foundation		http://www.methuselahfoundation.org
Methuselah Mouse Prize		http://www.methuselahmouse.org [Give $$$ for life!]
World Transhumanist Association	http://www.transhumanism.org/
Marijuana Policy Project	http://www.mpp.org
American Civil Liberties Union	http://www.aclu.org
Nat. Resources Defense Council	http://www.nrdc.org
Act For Change			http://www.actforchange.org
People for American Way		http://www.pfaw.org

MY WEBSITE: http://www.davidpascal.com/swayze/

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