[Battle_Scarred_Galactico]

The importance here is that hydrogen can help mitigate negative impact during a transition period.

I love this line, it makes it sound like the problems only short term then we can get right back to traffic jams and cheap flights.

This isn't Charlton Heston grabbing a rifle and surviving for an hour, it's permanent, for good.

[small_steps]

They didn't mention what the transition will be to!

This idea that we should look at hydrogen as an energy carrier is nuts, so the best energy carrier we have is being stressed, so lets find about the worst energy carrier we can, and focus our efforts on improving it! Yeah, that kind of thinking is ubsurd. How about improving what we have, and looking at manufacturing fuels that use that hydrocarbon bonding? Guess what? That is achievable, not some pixie dust induced hydrogen happy talk that ends up being just proposal after promise.

Monty - you seem more pragmatic than before, welcome back..

[Micki]

Guess you're right MonteQuest, I don't get it.
Or let me re-phrase it. I don't think You get it.

You said;
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ydrogen must be made from an existing energy source.
Currently, that is mostly natural gas which will go into decline shortly after oil.

[Doly]

Micki, I think you have proved you get the general idea.

I'm a bit more optimistic than you, by the way, but I don't think we can replace our current transportation system, where everybody has a car.

Monte, before telling people "you don't get it" (your favorite catch-all answer), try to understand what they are saying.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Micki', ' ')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Montequest', 'H')ydrogen must be made from an existing energy source.
Currently, that is mostly natural gas which will go into decline shortly after oil.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', 'M')onte, before telling people "you don't get it" (your favorite catch-all answer), try to understand what they are saying.

[zoidberg]

Perhaps some of the problem is that people see solar/wind and other renewable sources as unlimited and free to acquire. This leads to some interesting conclusions regarding their use.

But I dont see why we need to convert that electricty to some liquid fuel when we can apply it to our new mag-lev trains that will soon criss cross the country! Well maybe some turn of the 20th century light rail technology in urban centers to start with .

[Micki]

To MonteQuest.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')ow I know you really don't get it. We don't use natural to generate electricity to make hydrogen. We take the CH4 methane and strip off the H2.
Does it matter that I don't know the actual process?

[MD]

Dieoff is inevitable, it's only a matter of timing.

Through that entire process, there will be prosperous communities of humans here and there. Those communities will be producing vehicles by any means at their disposal.

Personally I prefer an electric vehicle over cleaning up my horse's shit bag.

I will take whatever I can get.

[MD]

As for the whole "water as fuel" question:

Solar powered electrolysis of water is the only long term hygrogen source available.

Hydrogen visionaries see massive solar arrays producing hydrogen fuel for transport.

The infrastructure costs and technological challenges are so great that it may be better to not even try, since such efforts only delay and intensify the coming dieoff.

[sch_peakoiler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'A')s for the whole "water as fuel" question:

Solar powered electrolysis of water is the only long term hygrogen source available.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sch_peakoiler', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'A')s for the whole "water as fuel" question:

Solar powered electrolysis of water is the only long term hygrogen source available.

[MD]

With honorable mention going to the Lunar-Earth tidal pair. Their energy will take quite a while to wind down also.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'G')ood point. However when I say "long term", I mean centuries, not decades. The Sun is our only true long term source of energy, and has been all along.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Micki', 'I') think you just wanted to show off your superior technical knowledge.

[Last_Laff]

All Hail MonteQuest Hail! Hail!

All Hail MonteQuest Hail! Hail!

You've helped me to understand the broader view on both side of arguements.

And more than half of your posts have no nonsense theologies.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yesplease', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'G')ood point. However when I say "long term", I mean centuries, not decades. The Sun is our only true long term source of energy, and has been all along.

[Micki]

MonteQuest, that was not a very comprehensive response to my post.
Furthermore you avoid responding to the relevant posts/questions.

To anser you, yes I have read your post; "tip of the iceberg".
And you say for instance;
[quoteSo, the transition we need to do is not from fossil fuels to renewables, but from an infinite growth mindset to one of sustainability based upon the received solar flux and the earth’s ability to absorb our impact through the environmental sinks[/quote]
Why is that? Why can't we migrate to renewables AND move away from the "infinite growth" model. Even if we do scale down, oil and NG will eventually run out and we will then need other means of transportation.

I conclude again that you only see the world in blac and white.
Either people want everything to go on as before or we have to cut loose all development the last 200 years.

Hydrogen based technology can be used in all sorts of scenarios;
1) as an alternative in the 'business as usual world
2) as a transitional stage towards a more sustainable world
3) as a necessity after the great PO/PNG decline and die-off when the few remaining suvivors try to make a reasonable life.
AND we can still power down in all these scenarios, cause power DOWN doesn't necessarily mean power OUT.

In fact besides the caveat that we must not drive unsustainable growth further and you stating that we shouldn't develop any alternative energies, I don't see any real reasoning in that post why we shouldn't or couldn't develop hydrogen based transportation.


Even if you don't have time to respond to my last post, I would very much appreciate if you attempted to respond to these very brief questions;

1) Can improvements technically be made to allow better harnessing of alternative energy conversion to fuel?

2) Imagine that I could have a fuel cell vehicle that I can charge up with solar panels, would that be OK with you?
If I can have it can others have it as well? If not, can you give me a reason why not?

3) If sufficient number of petrol fuelled cars were replaced with solar powered fuel cell run cars, could that lower dependence on oil and potentially be a step towards a more susteainable world?

4) Could people generally cope better with transition and after PO world if they had some access to vehicles (private, public, emergency services, food transportation)
than if they did not?

5) Am I trying to push for an unsustainable world model just because I think there could be vehicles in the (near) future that can be charged up with for instance solar/wind power?

Don't you agree that we may end up in a power down model AND still have some forms of transportation, even if it is not used to drive billions of people between job-MCDonalds-WalMart?
(Once again, avoid package it all up into some thinking that the mere existence of hydrogen based transportation system somehow only would keeping the world running as it is.)

6) Besides hydrogen (and other alternative fuels) not being scalable or technically sufficient (yet) why do you actually say we should not make further developments in this area? (I assume now that you understood my reasoning that this has nothing to do with an ever expanding economy/population etc. Hydrogen could be used in small scale forinstance to keep priority transportation going.)

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Micki', 'M')onteQuest, that was not a very comprehensive response to my post. Furthermore you avoid responding to the relevant posts/questions.

[quizz]

Monte:

In a perfect world (I mean really perfect world with Biointensive gardening or similar, eductated populations migrating to arable land, nuturing of the land, etc. etc.),what do you think the world's population carrying capacity? I'm thinking twice as many or slighty more (until it's brought back to equilibrium).