Newsgroup sci.energy 66443

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 don't forget mood rings and lava lamps.
--
Steve Spence
sspence@sequeltech.com
Http://www.sequeltech.com
SteveSpence@worldnet.att.net
Http://www.areaairduct.com/spence
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BetaID# 254651
ICQ 2063316
____________________________________
Scott Nudds wrote in article <5qktvv$edj$5@main.freenet.hamilton.on.ca>...
>Steven Hales (shales@pipeline.com) wrote:
>: If the desire wasn't present in a
>: person to begin with no amount of advertising could bring it to life.
>
>  This is nonsense of course.  Can Steven Hales tell us who desired spray
>on hair before the product existed?
>
>  Perhaps he can discribe for us the pent up desire for pet rocks that
>existed before their invention.
>
>  Advertising is a powerful force in peoples lives that not only informs
>them of products that exist, but also influences how they react to such
>products.
>
>  There are many instances where a product is released only to flop, and
>then released again with an alternate advertising campaign and succeed.
>
>  The difference was not the product, but how it was sold to the public.
>
>  Steven Hales denies what marketing managers know and use on a day to day
>basis.   How sad.
>
>
>
>

"Nineball"  writes:
>
>Interesting series about dams entitled Cadillac Desert recently aired 
>on PBS. Made me think of dams
>from an entirely different perspective. 
 There was also an interesting article (in Science News, I think) about 
 seismic instability that might be caused (or, more precisely, exacerbated) 
 by the Aswan High Dam in Egypt and might lead to a quake that would 
 make the dam fail catastrophically.  The effect would be familiar to 
 any player of "Civilization", only worse.  That might change one's 
 perspective as well. 
 And this is relevant to you geologists. 
-- 
 James A. Carr        | Commercial e-mail is _NOT_ 
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       | desired to this or any address 
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  | that resolves to my account 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    | for any reason at any time. 

 race car drivers use a safer fuel tank, it is called a fuel cell ( not to
be confused with fuel cells that generate electricity) usually foam filled
and very sturdy. any hot rod catalog carries them. jegs comes to mind.
--
Steve Spence
sspence@sequeltech.com
Http://www.sequeltech.com
SteveSpence@worldnet.att.net
Http://www.areaairduct.com/spence
MSMVP, MSDN, ClubIE
BetaID# 254651
ICQ 2063316
____________________________________
David Hatunen wrote in article <5qla94$o3s$2@news.wco.com>...
>In article <33CBD207.1F17@geol.niu.edu>,
>Neil Dickey   wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>It is my understanding that pressure vessels containing hydrogen under
>>pressure as a metal hydride are considerably more resistant to
>>explosion than conventional tanks containing gasoline.  It wasn't a
>>hard scientific work, I admit, but a "Sci-TV" program some years
>>back examined this question and showed experiments comparing the
>>behavior of various types of fuels and containment schemes.
>>
>>The tanks were set up at a safe distance, with a source of ignition
>>handy, and then shot with a high-powered rifle.  LPG and gasoline
>>behaved spectacularly under these circumstances, while the hydrogen
>>in its metal-hydride tank burned in rather subdued fashion.  The
>>point was, I believe, that metal-hydrides release hydrogen rather
>>slowly.
>
>Now I am confuse: which was it? metal-hydride tanks (which are not under
>pressure) or pressure tanks?
>
>If a gasoline tank were built as sturdily as a pressure tank, I doubt
>whether a shot from a high-powered rifle would do much of anything. I'm a
>little surprised that the high-powered rifle didn't just make two small
>holes throught the gasoline tank which simply leaked a small stream.
>
>The point here is as I noted elsewhere: you need to know that the
comaprison
>was fair. The hydrogen tanks are quite expensive, and how would a similarly
>expensive gasoline tank compare?
>
>Furthermore, there are ways to render gasoline safe in such circumstances,
>such as jellying, but the extra expense for the jellying and modification
of
>the engine is not deemed worth it.
>
>The explosive potential of a vehicular hydrogen tank is definitely being
>overplayed, though. Certainly the problems are not dissimilar from methane
>and propane power. The disadvantages of hydrogen are considerable without
>such concerns.
>
>[...]
>
>--
>    ********** DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@netcom.com) **********
>    *                Daly City California:                *
>    *       where San Francisco meets The Peninsula       *
>    *       and the San Andreas Fault meets the Sea       *
>
>

 as has been said before, wood is not the only source for biomass, india is
doing well with biogas from manure, and some communities are having varying
results from garbage. more R&D; can perfect these technologies.
some sources are better composted aerobically and others turned into methane
anaerobically. burning the raw material is usually not the best solution, as
their are beneficial byproducts in the conversion processes. And no, you
don't have to use hydrocarbons as the fuel to support these conversions. We
have a huge alchoholic beverage and tobacco industry that would be better
focused on generating energy. That way we would not be using "food for
fuel".
--
Steve Spence
sspence@sequeltech.com
Http://www.sequeltech.com
SteveSpence@worldnet.att.net
Http://www.areaairduct.com/spence
MSMVP, MSDN, ClubIE
BetaID# 254651
ICQ 2063316
____________________________________
Magnus Redin wrote in article <5qjf19$ifo$1@newsy.ifm.liu.se>...
>geoffh@wtl.co.nz (Geoff Henderson) writes:
>
>> Greig Ebeling recently made some absurd claims about biomass
>> technology.
>
>> The most absurd was that biomass technologies for power generation
>> do not exist, whereas nuclear power does.
>
>Yes, that is an absurd claim.
>
>> He also claimed a price for wood of $1000/tonne, although I had made
>> the point that I can (and do) get firewood commercially delivered to
>> my home in Christchurch for about $100/tonne. So $50/tonne at
>> industrial/power generation scale seems feasible.
>
>One thing that worries me about large scale use of biomass burning in
>Sweden, large enough to replace a noticable ammount of our nuclear
>power is that it would require a much more intensive forestry. It
>would be a large enough change to marginalize a lot of species and
>change vast areas of forest, probably to a poorer state in a
>biological sense. (It would however make my fathers small forest worth
>more, oh well. ) And Sweden have lots of forests compared with our
>population, few countries are gifted wich such vast biomass recources.
>Biomass its no alternative at all in denser regions.
>
>Regards,
>--
>--
>Magnus Redin  Lysator Academic Computer Society  redin@lysator.liu.se
>Mail: Magnus Redin, Rydsvägen 214B, 584 32 LINKöPING, SWEDEN
>Phone: Sweden (0)13 260046 (answering machine)  and  (0)13 214600
>
>

In article <33CBD320.F07@geol.niu.edu>,
Neil Dickey   wrote:
>David Hatunen wrote:
>
>> But tell us: how hot does the metallic hydride have to be to allow the
>> hydrogen to be released?
>
>In another post of this date further up in the thread I note a "Sci-
>TV" program I saw some years back which was looking at the practical
>aspects of using hydrogen fuel in cars.  Some tests were done to
>determine how dangerous metal-hydride fuel tanks would be, and they
>were found to be safer than virtually all other feasible fuels,
>including gasoline.
I might suggest that even recently shown SCi-TV shows be taken with a large
grain of salt, and that memories of shows some years back would require the
consumption of halite rocks.
>My memory is that no special heating was necessary for the tank to
>work.  Ambient temperature was sufficient.
Then perhaps they showed the near-cryogenic charging system?
-- 
    ********** DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@netcom.com) **********
    *                Daly City California:                *
    *       where San Francisco meets The Peninsula       *
    *       and the San Andreas Fault meets the Sea       *

In article <5qimfp$mfb@milo.mcs.anl.gov>,
	Michael Richmann   wrote:
>eggsoft@sydney.dialix.oz.au (Greig Ebeling) wrote:
>>
>>As Mike P. says, it is to be reused in nuclear fuel.
>
>Not in this country.  Seems there's a political side to the equation
>as well as a scientific one...
At least the political winds have the ability to change, whereas
the laws of physics do not.  Maybe if we're sucessful in stamping
out ignorance, and making people realize that Carter's purpose for
banning recycling (hobbling nuclear proliferation) just had the
opposite effect as other countries developed their own recycling
capabilities, and as a result such a ban is now pointless, we'll
be able to recycle nuclear fuel like we recycle paper and plastic.
Of course, whether it's economically feasable to do so is another
question -- the US has vast amounts of energy resources that other
countries do not have, so it may be that we can well afford to
throw away 97% of the energy in nuclear fuel, whereas other
countries cannot.
	-Michael Pelletier.