Global warming?

[wolf]

Originally Posted by tw

No horse has overdrive.

They are called quarterhorses.

They just can't sustain it for much more than the quarter-mile they're named after.

Enter to win a 1 hp bio-fuel powered hybrid, the Naturmobil....:

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/horse-power/

...minus the horse, of course.

[ZenGum]

TW, what's your reason for not taking hydrogen seriously as a fuel?

Here's what I have in mind:

Use photovoltaic cells to generate electricity from sunlight. Use that electricity to split water into hydrogen (and oxygen). Put the hydrogen into your car, run it through a fuel cell, drive, produce water as exhaust.

I see some problems - every time you change energy from one form to another there is loss. Present photovoltaics are inefficient. I don't know about the efficiency of electrolysis, or fuel cells. But with time, these things should improve, and economies of scale etc should lower the price.
Carrying hydrogen around is also a bit tricky, but doable. Many cars run on gas (as in LPG or CNG, not gasoline).

[tw]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

TW, what's your reason for not taking hydrogen seriously as a fuel?

That is not hydrogen as a fuel. That hydrogen is only a transmission media. If hydrogen is a fuel, then the Energizer battery is also a fuel. Problem with hydrogen as a fuel; by the time it gets used, something like one in ten units of energy remain for use.

Using photocells, then hydrogen may be a storage medium. IOW as a rechargeable battery. Currently batteries based in hydrogen are not as good as other materials. Storage of energy is one of the most difficult problems that has been largely ignored since WWII. The Energizer Rabbit battery was developed in WWII. Little existed to replace it due to a lack of R&D. Especially when battery companies were owned by companies such as Sara Lee.

Gasoline is a fuel. Coal is a fuel. Uranium is a fuel. Hydrogen (ie water) has no energy until energy is provided by a fuel or other energy source. Storage of energy in hydrogen is ineffective. Hydrogen is used in rockets because significant energy can be wasted to concentrate higher energy per pound and because that energy can be controlled. Even in space, hydrogen is a poor energy storage medium.

Biggest problem with hydrogen include storage losses due to thermodynamics. Other interesting technologies considered bind hydrogen to other materials. But that technology also required high temperatures - ie 200 degrees C.

Hydrogen as a fuel was promoted by Rick Wagoner (GM) and by George Jr in one State of the Union address. A year and years later, even George Jr stopped promoting hydrogen as a fuel.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Stick to the evidence and reasoned argument based on it.

Weren't these hackers making public the evidence behind the official reasoned argument? Are you saying we don't want the evidence, we can't handle the evidence?

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Y'know what's funny though. If you had like 8 actual horses, hitched up, you still couldn't go faster than one horse's power.

Hitching them up creates a load, so multiples sharing that load, might be able to go a tiny bit faster. But, if you want to create a significant increase in speed, put 'em on stilts.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Weren't these hackers making public the evidence behind the official reasoned argument? Are you saying we don't want the evidence, we can't handle the evidence?....

The only thing I have seen posted from the hackers to-date are e-mail exchanges between scientists at the research institute....with no context. Is that evidence of anything?

Havent you ever written an e-mail to a colleague that could be interpreted in ways other than you intended....especially by one with a political agenda opposed to yours?

I certaintly dont think it has reached the level that UT suggested of being "Major, major global warming news"

Where's the beef?

[xoxoxoBruce]

A group of Russian hackers broke into systems at a Climate Research lab in East Anglia. Today they released 162 megs of data, code, and emails. One of the lab directors has said the documents are genuine.

Taking UT at his word... and I have no colleagues.

[ZenGum]

Thanks, TW, but there was some strange stuff there (even by your standards).

Hydrogen (ie water) has no energy...

ie = id est, that is. Hydrogen is not water, we both know that.
Your point in much of your post seemed to be that hydrogen is a storage medium for energy. So what?
Call it a storage medium or a synthetic fuel, that is just semantics. For that matter, we could say that coal and gasoline are just storage media for the energy from sunlight that hit earth 100 million years ago, and uranium is a storage medium for the energy from a supernova 6 to 10 billion years ago. There is a difference, in that with hydrogen, we put the energy in there deliberately, but with the others it was there already, but ... so what?
A tank of hydrogen does not slowly lose energy the way a battery does sitting in the draw. You made some comment about losing energy due to thermodynamics, can you expand on that?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

There is a difference, in that with hydrogen, we put the energy in there deliberately, but with the others it was there already, but ... so what?

The fuel used, and pollution created, to store energy in the form of hydrogen, is higher than if that fuel was used to do the work in the first place. Using hydrogen as a storage medium for photovoltic might work out someday, but rfn it's not practical and not done. Don't forget you need a hellatious compressor to concentrate that hydrogen, and compressors are super energy hogs.

[TheMercenary]

Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming.

While few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world's climate -- nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal -- public debate persists. And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain's Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...=moreheadlines

[TheMercenary]

I could be read it as a possible concerted effort to deceive via coercion rather than putting all the data out in the public scientific community and allow it to be peer reviewed by any interested party.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

It could be read as a possible concerted effort to deceive via coercion rather than putting all the data out in the public scientific community and allow it to be peer reviewed by any interested party.

Sure...it COULD be read as POSSIBLE

I dont dispute that.

I just dont think it is hard evidence of anything as some skeptics are claiming...or very earth shattering until there is more conclusive evidence.

[Clodfobble]

So UT, does this mean scientists are just as corruptible as the rest of us after all?

[TheMercenary]

[classicman]

Kinda like smoke pouring out the windows of a house. . . It's "possible" there is a fire in there. <shrug>