[nredman]

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (AP) -- Researchers say they have produced hydrogen from ethanol in a prototype reactor small enough and efficient enough to heat small homes and power cars.

Link from CNN.com

sweeet...fudge oil...give me some corn-based ethanol baby.

[voodoo]

hhmmm

we'll see what we make of this.. sounds good.

[wolfen]

Ok, I hate to be negative but here goes...

THEY CAN ALREADY DO THIS WITH WATER!!!

But no...that doesn't help farmers or big energy corporations. So we gotta create some bumfvck solution to the energy problem and create a new and exciting market to rape the planet with.

Hey, BilllyJoeJimBob...you got too much corn growing on your 10,000 acre farm? Guess what? I don't fvcking care. Grow tomatoes, or open a pesticide museum & amusement park. We don't need your stinking corn juice.

Just let me run my garden hose out to the car and quit fvcking around. Stupid fvcking scientists.

Dammit.

And SH&T.


wolfen

[vmpaul]

The new technology holds economic potential for Midwest farmers, who are leaders in the production of corn-based ethanol.

The weird thing is that corn is one of the most heavily subsidized crops on the planet. Not only that but the main fertilizers to aid corn production is primarily made form oil. I've read where it takes a 1.2 gallons of oil to grow a bushel of corn. We get 130 bushels of corn (per acre) today vs. 20 a hundred years ago because of the heavy fertilization. A quarter of the oil imported into this country goes to agriculture (not sure how much is for corn).

So are we really gaining anything here? Or just making the heavily fossil-fuel based subsidized corn farmers more money?

I'm all for it because of zero pollution at the end-user level but not if it's based on the current economic system.

[mitchell_pgh]

Could you imagine if they released a cold fusion reactor...

It would debase our society... millions of people out of work, the middle east would completely fall apart... starvation... a fundamental shift in power...

Ugh... the crap part is, it would probably run windows!

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by wolfen:
Ok, I hate to be negative but here goes...

THEY CAN ALREADY DO THIS WITH WATER!!!

But no...that doesn't help farmers or big energy corporations. So we gotta create some bumfvck solution to the energy problem and create a new and exciting market to rape the planet with.

Hey, BilllyJoeJimBob...you got too much corn growing on your 10,000 acre farm? Guess what? I don't fvcking care. Grow tomatoes, or open a pesticide museum & amusement park. We don't need your stinking corn juice.

Just let me run my garden hose out to the car and quit fvcking around. Stupid fvcking scientists.

Dammit.

And SH&T.


wolfen

Okay, let's think about this a little. Yes, you can make hydrogen gas from water, but what do you need to add?

ELECTRICITY!

And how do you get that electricity?

BY BURNING FOSSIL FUELS!

If I'm understanding this article correctly, the whole point of it is that this reactor can make hydrogen from ethanol without burning fossil fuels. Ethanol has stored energy that we can use. Water doesn't. When you burn hydrogen for energy, you're converting hydrogen to water, and taking the energy that is output from that reaction. To drive the reaction the other way, you have to add an input of energy. Converting water to hydrogen and then back is not going to get you a net gain in energy. Read up on the conservation of mass and energy sometime.

[dtriska]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Okay, let's think about this a little. Yes, you can make hydrogen gas from water, but what do you need to add?

ELECTRICITY!

And how do you get that electricity?

BY BURNING FOSSIL FUELS!

If I'm understanding this article correctly, the whole point of it is that this reactor can make hydrogen from ethanol without burning fossil fuels. Ethanol has stored energy that we can use. Water doesn't. When you burn hydrogen for energy, you're converting hydrogen to water, and taking the energy that is output from that reaction. To drive the reaction the other way, you have to add an input of energy. Converting water to hydrogen and then back is not going to get you a net gain in energy. Read up on the conservation of mass and energy sometime.

Thank you.

[awaspaas]

Okay so let's tally up the score.

: 1

CharlesS : 1

wolfen : 0

[RooneyX]

I heard quite a few people have a methane reactor but they're sitting on it because they don't want to let it out in public.

[wolfen]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Read up on the conservation of mass and energy sometime.

No need to be insulting. A course in macroeconomics wouldn't do you any harm.

A) Ethanol is a source of Hydrogen. Growing and harvesting corn, transporting, refining it into ethanol, and then transporting THAT to an ethanol station...that's gonna take a sh*tload of energy. As you say nothing is for free. The fact that all this doesn't take place in my engine is irrelevant -- THIS IS NOT A NET GAIN IN ENERGY.

What this IS, is a marketable product for a nation which probably controls a fair bit of the corn market. Not a real attempt at solving mankind's energy problem. Or my family budget.

B) Water is a source of Hydrogen. I turn on the tap, and I get my water. Even if it wasn't spatially efficient, I could refuel every night in my driveway if I had to.

Now, I understand that splitting the water requires energy, but this is technology which exists. It's already available. It just needs to be perfected. Eventually you could (at least try to) increase the efficiency of this process.

We put 2 f'ing robots on Mars for 800 million dollars. We are cloning humans! All I want is to increase the efficiency of water as a fuel source. Hydrogen and Oxygen already WANT to freakin' burn. We just gotta coax water into becoming our sleazy little loveslut, giving over her pearls more readily than previously imagined. "Waterfart" is a slightly less classy metaphor that works in a pinch.

By comparison, MOONSHINE is hardly a technological breakthrough to get excited over. Unless you're in the farming or big energy industry. Why settle for a visionary future when you can have short term profits?


wolfen

Originally posted by RooneyX:
I heard quite a few people have a methane reactor but they're sitting on it because they don't want to let it out in public.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by wolfen:
A) Ethanol is a source of Hydrogen. Growing and harvesting corn, transporting, refining it into ethanol, and then transporting THAT to an ethanol station...that's gonna take a sh*tload of energy. As you say nothing is for free. The fact that all this doesn't take place in my engine is irrelevant -- THIS IS NOT A NET GAIN IN ENERGY.

What this IS, is a marketable product for a nation which probably controls a fair bit of the corn market. Not a real attempt at solving mankind's energy problem. Or my family budget.

B) Water is a source of Hydrogen. I turn on the tap, and I get my water. Even if it wasn't spatially efficient, I could refuel every night in my driveway if I had to.

From the site linked to in this thread:

The researchers say their reactor will produce hydrogen exclusively from ethanol and do it cheaply enough so people can buy hydrogen fuel cells for personal use.

From http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science...eut/index.html :

Water has always seemed a logical source for hydrogen but the only known feasible method to separate it, electrolysis, costs ten times as much as natural gas, and is three times as expensive as gasoline.

Now, I understand that splitting the water requires energy, but this is technology which exists. It's already available. It just needs to be perfected. Eventually you could (at least try to) increase the efficiency of this process.

We put 2 f'ing robots on Mars for 800 million dollars. We are cloning humans! All I want is to increase the efficiency of water as a fuel source. Hydrogen and Oxygen already WANT to freakin' burn. We just gotta coax water into becoming our sleazy little loveslut, giving over her pearls more readily than previously imagined. "Waterfart" is a slightly less classy metaphor that works in a pinch.

The reaction for electrolysis of water:

2H2O + energy -> 2H2 + O2.

The reaction for burning hydrogen to get energy from it:

2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O + energy.

The first law of thermodynamics says that energy is never created or destroyed. This is known as the conservation of energy. What this means for your idea is that since the stuff you end up with is the same stuff you started with, there's no way you're going to get any extra energy out of this equation. You can't win.

What's more, the second law of thermodynamics says that you're always going to lose some energy, which is going to be converted into a form that you can no longer use to do work. What this means is that not only can you not get more energy than we started with, but you are always going to end up with a lot less energy than you started with. You can't break even.

You can't win, and you can't break even. Playing this game, you lose every time. Water is not a fuel source. There is no way you can get water to burn, and there is no way you can make this efficient. It is doomed to failure by the very nature of the task. I canna change the laws of physics, Captain (well, the laws of chemistry in this case)! At least ethanol contains some energy that we can use to do the stuff we want to do - you can burn it, and get stuff out. Water, you're going to have to spend more energy than you're going to get back. I'm sorry - it seems like a great future if it were true, but you are just not going to be able to plug a garden hose into your car and power it. It just won't work. You might as well power your car with a perpetual motion machine, because that's essentially what this is.

[Yose]

What the hell are you all talking about "burning hydrogen to make water". I think you all need to read up on how the fuel cell technology works. AFAIK the only burning occurs during the reformation of hydrogen from methanol for instance.. and thats a process of extreme heat.. not necessarily "burning" either.

Energy is created by through an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen, a catalyst and oxygen. Hydrogen molecules due to the catalyst are seperated into protons and electrons.. the protons are able to pass through a membrane whereas the electrons must pass through an external cicuit being converted into a usable form of energy.. on the otherside of the fuel cell the hydrogen protons and electrons are combined with the oxygen to produce water.

I'm just a layman with interest in the future of the technology.. this isn't a hard concept to grasp.

EDIT: Another point about Methanol is it can be distributed with the same intrastructure we have now.. and a onboard methanol reformer has been used by a bunch of companies already... so I believe.

[CharlesS]

^ ^ Yeah, it's a gross oversimplification. I'm just a layperson, too... but that's not really relevant to my point, which is that you're not going to get any energy out of converting water to hydrogen and then back again, and thus water can't be used as a fuel source in this way. Wolfen wants to be able to put a garden hose to his fuel tank, and have his car electrolyze that to hydrogen and then convert it back to water, and somehow get energy from doing that.

I'm sorry, it just pisses me off a bit when scientists make a discovery and people pooh-pooh it because they want something like a water-powered car. I mean, why stop there? Why not demand something like Mr. Fusion from the Back to the Future movies so you can get rid of any old trash you don't want and use it as fuel? And nothing less is good enough, no matter how much better it may be than what we have today. It's like complaining about the G5 when it came out, and saying, "sure it's faster than the G4, but it's sh*t because I want a computer that can finish my calculations before I start them! Stupid fvcking engineers!"

Really, saying things like "stupid fvcking scientists" because they have to abide by the laws of nature is just

[gadster]

Ethanol? I'll drink to that.

So bring on the car that is fuelled with sugar (or potatoes in Russia, or Papaya in Hawaii), yeast and water? The Boozemobile, that'd be cool. The 'Bummer'.

Cars suck anyway, really. Where is the sense in lugging around about a ton of metal, plastic and rubber, just to go to the corner shop, especially when you are a really fat qunt already?

[wolfen]

Charles, you are missing the point.

I'm not going to debate chemical reactions with you. Who the fvck cares?

My initial post is not a sincere emotional rant but more of an "everyman argument." In other words, the average guy on the street can see that there are incredibly simple things we can do to deal with energy needs if we just care to invest the time, research, and money. And it's quite reasonable to get upset at the stupidity of the entire ethanol idea. What happens when you have a bad crop year? It's ridiculous in so many ways. And how easy is it to raze a field? So much for dirty bombs -- terrorists can buy a few torches at Wal Mart and wreak havoc. It's just plain silly.

Sure, water may not be useable right now. I don't debate that. But it seems awfully stupid to turn corn into fuel for anything more than an academic novelty. It's just not a reasonable long term solution. There's gotta be a better way.

I admit I probably haven't stated the case clearly enough for someone with a hardon for debate. (Not that your '+ energy' formulas are going to find themselves on the cover of Time magazine or anything. Dude, the whole point is the PLUS ENERGY. If you can augment some of those costs, the thing turns around. That's the point. If they can reduce the speed of a light beam and create new forms of matter -- both should have been impossible but have been done -- I hardly think reducing the cost of hydrolysis is beyond the realm of the reasonable.)

I'm not dragging out my old chemistry & physics textbooks anytime soon. But there's an awful lot of wiggle room in "+ energy." In the meantime, think of the implications of corn prices on the american economy right now and then add the demand for it as a fuel. It's preposterous. My point is not what science can't do, but what it MIGHT do if it pointed its nose in the general direction of progress. Don't presume what is possible -- many brighter than you or I have tried and failed.


wolfen

[King Bob On The Cob]

Originally posted by wolfen:
Charles, you are missing the point.
terrorists can buy a few torches at Wal Mart and wreak havoc.

I admit I probably haven't stated the case clearly enough for someone with a hardon for debate. (Not that your '+ energy' formulas are going to find themselves on the cover of Time magazine or anything. Dude, the whole point is the PLUS ENERGY. If you can augment some of those costs, the thing turns around. That's the point. If they can reduce the speed of a light beam and create new forms of matter -- both should have been impossible but have been done -- I hardly think reducing the cost of hydrolysis is beyond the realm of the reasonable.)

wolfen

Well, #1, your apparently too stupid to read his post. You cannot get any energy out of a Water to Hydrogen to Water equation. None. You'd be better just using that electricity you used to split the water and using it in the engine. If we ever find an equation that spits out more energy than is put in, and is perfectly reversible, we'd never have to worry about power ever again.

#2, Terrorists could go set fire to our oil lines in Alaska if they wanted to, same result.

[voodoo]

2H+O=>H2O+energy is called burning hydrogen. Commonly it is called burning when oxygen connects to other molecules

CharlesS is correct in that you can never use water as fuel, but it can be used as source nevertheless. Through electrolysis you can extract the H from the O. The energy you use can be nuclear/hydro/thermal/solar to create the electricity required for the electrolysis process. That does not involve fossil fuels and essentially converts those forms of power extraction into a transportable power medium. Like gasoline is.

That is the potential of hydrogen. It is quite impressive. Here in Reykjav�k we have already begun using hydrogen powered buses. Neat, they are very quiet and make water

[fireside]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Neat, they are very quiet and make water

do you guys have water-fountains on board then

[awaspaas]

Alright weenies, if any of you would have actually read the paper, you would have seen this:

[mrmister]

"I'm not going to debate chemical reactions with you. Who the fvck cares?"

Well, he did prove that your assertion was nonsensical, but why address that?

"My initial post is not a sincere emotional rant but more of an 'everyman argument.'"

Riiiiight. Since you've lost big time on making sense, you were actually making a political arguement over the ramifications of corn as a fuel source.

"If they can reduce the speed of a light beam and create new forms of matter -- both should have been impossible but have been done -- I hardly think reducing the cost of hydrolysis is beyond the realm of the reasonable.)"

Whatever floats your boat. I'll let someone else explain these to you. Just make certain you should stick to "everyman arguements", since you don't know jack sh!t about basic chemistry. I'm done with you.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by voodoo:
CharlesS is correct in that you can never use water as fuel, but it can be used as source nevertheless. Through electrolysis you can extract the H from the O. The energy you use can be nuclear/hydro/thermal/solar to create the electricity required for the electrolysis process. That does not involve fossil fuels and essentially converts those forms of power extraction into a transportable power medium. Like gasoline is.

Well yeah. You can use other methods to get the electricity, except that with nuclear power you are using materials that could eventually run out as well. Also, with nuclear, you have the problem of hazardous waste products which you have to figure out how to get rid of. Hydro works, but I doubt the power output is great enough to get fuel to power every car in the US, let alone the world. Wind is unreliable.

Solar - now you're talking. Solar power is a great way to get the energy to make hydrogen fuel from water. The sun is the basic source of all the free energy on Earth, it's reliable because it shines on us every day, and it just keeps coming and doesn't run out. However, the problem with this is that our current technology for solar collectors is not efficient enough to generate the amount of fuel we'd need. But that's okay, because there is a solar collector which we can use instead which is the best in the world. It's been worked on for millions of years, and its efficiency blows our solar collectors away. And now, thanks to the people at the University of Minnesota, we can use this amazing solar collector to make hydrogen fuel for us. What is this magical solar panel, you ask?

Corn plants.

Corn plants take water, split it using solar energy, and produce fuel which we can get from the plant in the form of ethanol, a fuel source which contains hydrogen and which has lots of available energy we can use to do work. By using its hydrogen and the energy already stored for us in the ethanol, we can make hydrogen fuel cheaply. And we do this without polluting the atmosphere at all, since all the CO2 that we release into the air came from the air in the first place when the corn plant used it to make the sugars which we use to make ethanol.

Now do you get it, wolfen?

Edit: awaspaas, thanks for posting that diagram.

[wolfen]

It's clear I will not find a sympathetic ear for using water as a source of H and O. No big deal, just an idea. I'll ignore the potshots from the miscreants.

I still don't think the economics support the use of corn as a viable long term fuel source. Not for the customers, anyway. I don't think science is pointed in the right direction.


wolfen

[wolfen]

http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/1583

There are a lot of links like this. I'm not crazy.


wolfen

[voodoo]

Norway is powered 100% by hydro power. So is Iceland. Both make so much excess power that they have to sell it to other countries or use it in aluminum production (electrolysis incidentally), in Iceland thermal energy is tapped from the immense heat in the deep earth. Combine this with solar power we are beginning to realize that we have enough power sources besides the stupid fossil fuels to make electricity and portable fuel.

If you can make energy from ethanol great! What it has to do with corn industry particularly is beyond me since ethanol can be made from a variety of other starch containing foodstuffs (potatoes, corn and sugar come to mind).

Bottomline is that fossil fuels are on the express way out whether we like it or not because they are FINITE. And I mean finite as in "well most likely be alive when it becomes too scarce for us to use" finite. We will see the end of oil as a fuel in our lifetime. We'll be ready for it when the time comes. At least we'll have replaced it as an energy source, but oil is used for so many other things. I don't know if rubber tires will be so common in the future :/

[voodoo]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Hydro works, but I doubt the power output is great enough to get fuel to power every car in the US, let alone the world. Wind is unreliable.

Two things:

- I don't think it is fair to say wind is unreliable.. unless you have some data to back that up. Half of Denmark is powered by wind alone.

- If hydro + the other alternative power sources don't cut it to fuel the American car fleet I guess you'll just have to cut down your driving eh?

[g. olson]

I think the whole point of hydrogen for use in fuel cells is that it is an alternative and clean method of transporting energy. The hydrogen can be produced through solar-cell powered electrolysis, wind-powered electrolysis, ethanol (photosynthesis-powered) or any other way, and then transported and used when and where it is needed. You can store it cheaply and indefinitely. The energy in and out equations should be able to demonstrate a net gain based, ultimately, on solar energy as an input. If it doesn't add up, there is really nothing to recommend it except that burning it is clean.

One of my questions is whether or not a good deal of wasted energy could be harnessed to make hydrogen, then stored and burned in fuel cells. I'm not an engineer, but I am guessing that there is an optimal level for the operation of a power plant, irrespective of demand. What happens to all the hydro power potential when demand is low, for example. In any case, I believe hydrogen has a great deal of potential as a clean-burning, easily produced power source.

[Fyre4ce]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Okay, let's think about this a little. Yes, you can make hydrogen gas from water, but what do you need to add?

ELECTRICITY!

And how do you get that electricity?

BY BURNING FOSSIL FUELS!

If I'm understanding this article correctly, the whole point of it is that this reactor can make hydrogen from ethanol without burning fossil fuels. Ethanol has stored energy that we can use. Water doesn't. When you burn hydrogen for energy, you're converting hydrogen to water, and taking the energy that is output from that reaction. To drive the reaction the other way, you have to add an input of energy. Converting water to hydrogen and then back is not going to get you a net gain in energy. Read up on the conservation of mass and energy sometime.

That's all true, but you're forgetting one important fact: it takes fossil fuels to produce ethanol. Diesel fuel is needed for the tractors, other petroleum products are required for the refinement, etc. I don't know very much about the process, but there is a professor here at the University who theorizes that it's impractical to use ethanol as a fuel. We'd burn so much fossil fuel in the process that it would be more efficient to just burn the fossil fuels directly.

I have direct experience using ethanol as a fuel for internal combustion engines. For high-performance applications it's great. High lower heating value, high octane rating, very high heat of vaporization..... perfect for high-revving, high-compression, forced induction, non-intercooled racing engines. Perhaps less appropriate for Honda Civics and Suburbans. But the farmers love the idea.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Norway is powered 100% by hydro power. So is Iceland. Both make so much excess power that they have to sell it to other countries or use it in aluminum production (electrolysis incidentally), in Iceland thermal energy is tapped from the immense heat in the deep earth. Combine this with solar power we are beginning to realize that we have enough power sources besides the stupid fossil fuels to make electricity and portable fuel.

Hydro is great for places that can use it. Unfortunately, not all places on Earth have the same resources that Iceland has. Given that a huge amount of the US is flat and landlocked, without so many of the hot springs, I don't think hydro would give enough energy to power the whole country. The US has lots of land that can be used for farming, though, making it possible to produce a lot of ethanol. Different measures where they're appropriate.

Originally posted by Fyre4ce:
That's all true, but you're forgetting one important fact: it takes fossil fuels to produce ethanol. Diesel fuel is needed for the tractors, other petroleum products are required for the refinement, etc. I don't know very much about the process, but there is a professor here at the University who theorizes that it's impractical to use ethanol as a fuel. We'd burn so much fossil fuel in the process that it would be more efficient to just burn the fossil fuels directly.

I'm sure different farming methods will be used as oil becomes more scarce. Who's to say that the tractors couldn't be powered by hydrogen as well as cars?

Originally posted by wolfen:
It's clear I will not find a sympathetic ear for using water as a source of H and O. No big deal, just an idea. I'll ignore the potshots from the miscreants.

Ahem... you're the one who started all of this by saying "Stupid fvcking scientists" followed by a lot of cursing. Miscreants, indeed. I am just defending the hard work of these scientists at the U of M against your potshots based on your uninformed, impossible dreams.

No one is saying it's impossible to get hydrogen from water by electrolysis. What is impossible is what you want to do, to have a car powered by water which you can refuel with the garden hose. It ain't gonna happen.

[voodoo]

CharlesS: Not every place on earth is blessed with oil, but oil is used everywhere. You don't have to be able to make hydrogen locally. There are highlands in the US and many many other countries. The Sun comes in strong in Texas and Mexico and California and Kenya and Australia.. the wind is always somewhere..

This is the future and it is already here. We will refine it further but it is usable in its current form. That is the good news. Bad news being of course that we're probably not going to make an effort to use these fuel/power sources until oil has been depleted.

Many of us know we no longer need fossil fuel. It's just easier right now.

[Fyre4ce]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
I'm sure different farming methods will be used as oil becomes more scarce. Who's to say that the tractors couldn't be powered by hydrogen as well as cars?

You're right, but energy still must be conserved. It may be possible to create a self-sustaining ethanol production system where tractors are fueled by the ethanol they help produce. But the theory says that you'll probably feed 90%+ (or some large fraction) of the ethanol you produce back into the production process, which means a lot of work for a small amount of fuel. It might be more economical to pay people to ride exercise bikes or something like that. I don't really know - the theory isn't mine - but that's what some smart people seem to think.

[wolfen]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Ahem... you're the one who started all of this by saying "Stupid fvcking scientists" followed by a lot of cursing. Miscreants, indeed. I am just defending the hard work of these scientists at the U of M against your potshots based on your uninformed, impossible dreams.

No one is saying it's impossible to get hydrogen from water by electrolysis. What is impossible is what you want to do, to have a car powered by water which you can refuel with the garden hose. It ain't gonna happen.

Charles, get over yourself. Clearing your textual throat and all. Please.

If I've learned anything from this thread, it's that the social scientists are right. Expose people to needless violence (like my initial post) and they go into fight-or-flight mode, and their higher cognitive functions evaporate.

So far, I see a lot of people copying and pasting formulas and pointing to them in awe. "Yeah, you can't do that, stupid! Duh huh huh." Doesn't make anyone an energy researcher. However, when I go around the internet and actually read about related technology (not just one article) I find that there are plenty of people who believe in water as a hydrogen source for cars, homes, etc. Yes, pouring water into the tank as I described. [insert infomercial oohs and ahhhs]

Secondarily, with all the hoopla about me being an idiot, I haven't heard anyone put two neurons together about the economic infeasability of it all. Right now our fuel prices are controlled by legislative bodies and various market controls. How about when it comes down to a lack of rain in Iowa? How about the fact that corn prices would have an influence on the entire national economy on a dangerous scale? Everything from corn syrup to home heating to animal feed to automobile ethanol...all competing for and hinging on next year's crop yields. Now add a minor drought. It's insane. It's not the same as OPEC setting a yield cap. Right now they jack up the price of fuel every chance they get...they'll have us absolutely neurotic about the weather in Kansas.

All we need is a mechanism (chemical or otherwise) to split water within a moving vehicle (or in a home). That's it. That's the challenge. Some say it's not too far away. By some miracle (hah!), a university in a farming state, in a country rich with some of the most fertile farmland in the world, points to an agricultural resource as the energy source of the future. This is not visionary, this is imperialism. One article and we should all get on board? ADM's marketing (and lobbying) dollars have certainly paid off.

Lastly, who are you to define what is possible? It's ridiculous. Copying and pasting formulas doesn't make anyone in this thread an energy researcher. You say my dreams are impossible and uninformed. I say that your delusions of grandeur (eg, knowing the impossible) are laughable.

Knowing capitalism, we will probably go through with the ethanol thing. Can't I be a little upset about it? It isn't the right answer in the long term, and we could be doing a lot better if we really wanted to solve the problem. I just wanted to rant about it a little bit, that's all. The cussing was just part of the game. It just doesn't feel right if I'm all "golly gee whiz" about it.


wolfen

[CharlesS]

That does it. I'm not posting in this thread anymore.

It has been pointed out multiple times why splitting water in a car and getting energy from it will not work. It violates the rules of thermodynamics. If you are too stubborn to read and realize this, then it's not worth the time arguing with you any more.

Using other means of getting energy, such as wind, hydro, whatever, as voodoo and others are suggesting, will of course work. I have doubts as to whether they could supply enough power to fuel all of our automobiles, but who knows? They may surprise us. Ultimately, what we'll probably end up doing is using all the methods available to us. Some hydrogen will come from hydro, some from wind, some from solar, and likely a whole lot from ethanol. In the end, it doesn't matter, as long as we get it from some source other than fossil fuels. However, it behooves us to look into as many new ways as we can find of making that hydrogen, so we know what all our options are, and that is why discoveries like this should not be attacked like they have been in this thread. The fact is, America produces a lot of corn. It is being farmed, it is being harvested, and we can use it for fuel. And that's a good thing.

Myself, I'm still waiting for that formula to turn lead into gold. Why should I have to work for a living when I could just become a millionaire through alchemy? The only reason is that alchemy doesn't help the people that want me to do work for them! Well boo hoo for them. I don't fvcking care. And honestly, why do scientists keep wasting their time on trying to make more efficient engines in the first place? Obviously, these only pander to the interests of the fuel producers, whether it be hydrogen producers, oil drillers, solar panel manufacturers, etc. Obviously, the solution we want is to power the car with a perpetual motion machine! Then it would require no fuel at all - you'd just have to get it started and you'd be set. So what if you say it's impossible? That just means you aren't visionary* enough. Stupid fvcking scientists. AND SH&T.

Goodbye.

*from m-w.com:

Main Entry: 1vi�sion�ary
Pronunciation: 'vi-zh&-"ner-E
Function: adjective
1 a : of the nature of a vision : ILLUSORY b : incapable of being realized or achieved : UTOPIAN <a visionary scheme> c : existing only in imagination : UNREAL