Ain’t We Got Fun?

 

(Time to think seriously about fuel alternatives…and it appears Hydrogen’s the one) 

 

 

 

Oh boy! Gas prices are gradually creeping above four dollars a gallon. Now, I have a little Mazda MX5, gets around 32 gallons around town – 35 to 36 on the highway. Not bad. Got a 12 gallon tank. So that means, roughly, 48 bucks for a fill-up. Yikes! Before that car, I had me a Mazda RX-7, 12-gallon tank, fill-up: 20 dollars. I’m no mathetician, but it seems to me that we are being punished by the oil-producing nations. Either that, or they are running low on crude, which I seriously doubt. What, oh what, can we do?

Well, one idea would to be raise tariffs, another word for taxes, on oil imports. That would be among the stupidest ideas since the late-1920’s absurdly named ’Taft-Smoot -Hawley Act’, which had the effect, if not worsening, actually causing the Great Depression. European nations, rightfully enraged at this unprecedented hike in tariffs, especially on grain, immediately greatly raised their tariffs on American exports. The result was imbecilely predictable. Everything got tremendously, colossally worse. The word for how much worse it got strains credibility.

So, let’s just forget about tariffs. The economic world is headed in the direction of ‘free trade’, in any case. We are leaving behind the era of imposing fees on foreign exports. They raise prices on consumer goods, and are poor policy in general. The very concept is absurd on its face.

No, the answer, it seems to me, is to deprive the oil-producing nations of the value of their products. A variety of attempts have been made at doing this: from electric-powered cars, to hybrids which run on a variation of gas end electricity, to automobiles that are powered by ethanol, alcohol distilled from grain. The problem with the latter is that it would require vast amounts or grains, a basic food product, to manufacture the fuel needed. Scientists are at odds on this issue. Yet it cannot be denied that using tremendous quantities of grain production would have a deleterious effect on cattle feed. And Americans do love their beef.

So far, the hybrid solution seems the most practical. But think: electrical power provides instant and rapid acceleration. And consider this: electrical power need not be produced by massive gas-powered generators. Our continent is rife with rivers, the flow of which can power dynamos, which produce electricity, and which in turn can be stored in batteries, and used to power all manner of things, including cars.

However, all this newfangled technology – solar, wind, hydroelectric, etc. – is merely transitional. When we speak of hydrogen power, and lot of people do, including the President, most folks are befuddled. Hydrogen? What and where is it and how do you extract and harness it. The fact is that hydrogen is everywhere, in the very air in fact…one of the most common elements in the atmosphere. It’s not some new technology. The Germans used it to float the Zeppelin Hindenburg in the late 20’s…with unfortunate results.more benefits: Hydrogen is highly combustible; about twice as flammable as gasoline, at a third the weight. That quality more than makes up for the cost of mass production. A cylinder of hydrogen, with twice the combustible thrust of gas is more than worth whatever cost necessary to produce it. We’ll come to that in a moment. Using elementary physics, a fuel that provides twice the energy at a third the weight…well, you figure it out. Cost at the pump? Well, by the time conversion to Hydrogen production is well underway, by some estimates 2010, the cost of a gallon of H2 will be $1.50 per gasoline equivalent.

Now, the fun part. Anyone who tells you it will be cheap to convert the massive petroleum production industry to making hydrogen will lie to you about anything else.

The overriding question is, can we afford not to? It’s going to take a lot of money and enough hot air in Congress to float a million lighter-than-air ships to get it done. But I see no other alternative.

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