How do you think hydrogen is produced? Primarily, through electrolysis–which requires electricity, which is produced primarily today by the burning of fossil fuels (Oh, I understand there are numerous nuclear plants in Europe, but MOST of the world’s electricity comes from hydrocarbon combustion.)

Wake up and smell the roses, people. We aren’t going to do away with the need for hydrocarbon fuels in the foreseeable future…period.

As I live in Europe and teh distance is not as big as in the USA, my commute is less so this approach will work for me, I guess that we will have different solutions. Personally I hope that they keep refining the Hydrogen based fuel cell.

I am waiting for the right cost/efficiency for the direction I want to go and then I will take the plunge.

Did anyone look at the ITM site?

Why? We can still improve on it. Also, I get this bad feeling that we’re not talking about just reducing our dependence on oil, but eliminating it all together. How incredibly stupid would that be?

Most rocket launch vehicles, all warplanes, most other aircraft will need petroleum-based fuels for a very long time. And, please, no stupid notions of running supersonic jets on “biodiesel,” puh-leeze!

Also, no ignorant notions that all rockets shouls switch to hydrogen right off the pad, because hydrogen is NOT the best fuel for the initial part of a launch (hydrogen is a superior upper stage fuel), and is so light that the fuel tanks for hydrogen are huge and bulky. Kerosene and its derivatives as well as other industrial chemicals are better for this purpose, and will be for decades.

My point is that life and technology and modern human needs are about a whole lot more than lil’ put-put cars, running the hair-drier, charging the iPod, and heating our houses. Please take in the big picture. Thank you.

Group A one group understands and have used “thermodynamics, chemistry and physics and arithmetic”

Group B the other group beleives in “opinion leaders, coolness, and I dont and cant understand it , so it must be magic , and if its magic I can beleive anything I want to.

Group B wants to force Group A at gun point, or by economic destruction to join Group B

its very much like the hitchhikers guide becoming reality

hopefully telphone sanitizers will join Group A

“Since the LNG you picked up was probably from Alaska and the rest of the US is supplied from the oil compact states, I don’t see that your solution has much bearing on the USA today. We don’t need LNG. We have gas in the pipelines.”

Ummm, no we don’t. That’s why Cove Point, Elba Island and Boston all built LNG facilities back in the 70’s…to import LNG, (from Algeria, at the time).

George Bush (41) was big into that trade with his El Paso LNG company. IIRC, he had 3 tankers running, and had ordered at least two more, but Avondale Shipbuilding screwed up the tanks on the newbuilds,(El Paso used prismatic tanks, rather than the sphericals favored by Energy Transportation…mainly because at the time Avondale didn’t have “Goliath”, the crane at Quincy Shipbuilding that lowered the spherical tanks into the Aquarius hulls). So they made PL-480 grain bulkers out of them,(the Welfare of the US Maritime World).

And then a combination of NIMBY and the Algerians hiking the price for their gas pretty much put the kibosh on that for awhile.

But the trade is on its way back. Cove Point has or is in the process of reopening, and I sailed past a brand spankin’ new LNG exporting facility outside of Lake Charles LA.

” you can let it leak to remove the pressure, but then you will come back to your parked car with an empty tank even faster.

seriously, why all this bother when diesel fuel is perfectly fine alternative?”

For cars, certainly. I was throwing the automotive LNG conversion out there as one of the “million different ways to skin the cat”.

And OCB’s point is well-taken, I was thinking more along the lines of clean power generation and home/commercial heating with NG, which is already a “done deal”, the new cryogenic infrastructure being entirely installed “upstream” from the consumer.

As I pointed out, a boiler (and ANY internal combustion engine which burns methane,despite the loss of power by the lower BTU’s), is going to be incredibly clean…necessitating less crankcase oil changes,(which itself is a not inconsiderable saving).

In this application, which itself is a done deal in many of the Eastern Seaboard cities, (Boston, Cove Point, MD, Elba Island GA, and New York City used to have an LNG storage facility,but they tore it down). LNG makes a lot of sense.

And once the stuff is re-gassified, you can pipe it wherever you like.

Lowers the demand for gasoline and diesel, which leads to…lower prices, (which is kinda the point, yes?).

seriously, why all this bother when diesel fuel is perfectly fine alternative?