Click here for the MP3 soundtrack to this article. Energy solutions have long been a topic for the Think Tank. In fact, we've been buying shares of publicly traded energy companies to help educate ourselves on the industry.
An article about fuel cells started the following chain reaction:
FuelCell Energy, Inc. (Nasdaq:
FCEL - News) and Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT - News) are
expected to win a contract
to install one of the nation's first advanced utility-scale
fuel cell power plants designed to
power from a substation into a local electric distribution
system. The innovative project
award is the first by the state of Ohio, which is investing
more than $100 million in a
three-year initiative to expand fuel cell research and
development, including increased fuel
cell generating capacity.
Sidd's Science Center responded:
fuel cells are not really gonna do anything ....
where is the fuel (hydrogen) gonna come from ..?
So, I say:
Hmmmm.. what if ya bust up H2O ?
and, then the bi-product of the fuel cell is H2O again, right?
Sidd's Science Center responded:
u need energy to break h2o... and the energy for that comes from...
u guessed it... conventional power plants....
I thought to myself for a while... then, I let it out --
pre q: what is the difference between fission and fusion?
ok... i'm working on trying to thread together a bunch of great email pieces ya'll have helped with
thanx.
but, before i could start on the hugeness of it all... i hadda lil' question about a smallness that ran through almost all the threads:
energy
production
pollution
economics of
war over such, death, bombs,
coverup, etc
q: if we are to *produce* (mess with) energy on earth, why do we not produce energy the same way the sun does?
ps sorry don't mean to be split atoms... er, a... hairs over this
Sidd's Science Center responded:
cant do fusion yet
fission is the way to go ... anti nuke activists notwithstanding
but the political costs in this country are too hi
and the oil/car lobbies too strong
this may b the payback for hiroshima .. the huge costs of the
oil infrastructure ...
Finally, I thought to myself:
If we are to spend so much time and money on energy, why not spend it on fusion?