JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Brian Austin Whitney Blog Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

The cost of hydrogen is $2 dollars per gallon gas equivelent. And that is without infrastructure and economy of scale. I saw a PBS special on it which is what prompted this set of ideas. The downside right now to Hydrogen is not production but the cost of the engines (or stacks as they call them). Those right now cost 40K. But the manufacturers (I think it was GM.. but I am not sure) said they plan to start selling them within 2 years for the 20-25K range for a comparable model to the current Prius. There will be cheaper models as well as more expensive. If they can create, with unprecendented government support, models for 10K (with subsidies for folks who need them) I think the plan could work. I haven't heard any plan from anyone that even begins to solve anything. If we use 100% of our Soybean and Corn production for nothing but ethanol, that is only 10% of what we need. And we'd all starve. Wind won't do it. Solar won't do it. Even if we max those out right now, it won't solve anything. BUT... getting 100% off of fuel powered cars and using it only for trucks and planes until solutions come around there (or perhaps they'll never really be needed) we CAN solve it.. and we can go back to using corn for food.

Is my idea going to be hard? Sure. So was WWII. But we geared up and our economy, even with the cost of war, exploded and only in the 70's did it really crash. It hasn't yet crashed this time, but it's headed there.. and this time it might be far more painful. Not to mention enviromental problems and national security. If Iran and Venezuela cut us off or hold us blackmail, we'll have to go into War where the entire world will lose. If you think the Iraq war is bad.. wait until gas becomes so scarce that the entire world is thrown into panic.

We've already waited too long for a painless shift.. it will only get more painful. But I am open to other ideas. What are yours?

Brian

Brian