[Waaaaay OT but who cares its cool] We might be able to turn anything in Oil soon.

[buzzard]

Wow, what a horrible analogy.

We aren't talking about adding a small amount of a substance into a comparatively botommless reservoir. In this instance, we're talking about what might happen when we pump the results of the entire world's power generation into the atmosphere - an atmosphere that is demonstrably vulnerable to human-population-scale outputs.

You say it wastes resources to look at things. Well, the value of such research depends upon the risk. Risk is a combination of the probability and the amount you stand to lose. The atmosphere is unique, and we die if we muck it up too much. Even with low probability, the risk is high. Thus, spending a little money and time before moving en masse to fusion power would be justified.

I suggest you learn more about fusion power.
The amount of helium which will produced is likely to be fairly small. do you think that a whole lot of uranium is used by a nuke plant? No, it's not very much at all, and fusion reactions are even more energy intensive per input than fission plants. We're not talking coal plants here. Nuclear reactions are several thousand times more efficient in terms of energy created per reaction mass vs. chemical reactions. It is closer to the kid peeing in the ocean than you might like to think.

However I wouldn't object to seeing what the effects of ionized helium might be (though it should be done in the context of a comparison to the effects of other ionized gasses already present in the atmosphere). I'm willing to lay odds that the effects will be negligible. I also would not like to let luddites stop fusion power because of low probability scares.

buzzard

 

[Desdichado]

Blanket statements about what will, and won't, be the technology of tomorrow are notoriously weak Go take a look around at fuel cell technologies, and you might be surprised.

For fuel cell vehicles to take over from internal combustion engines we'd need to see 1) government regulation to give auto makers incentive (or mandates) to produce such vehicles, 2) tax breaks or some other kind of incentives to entice customers to buy such vehicles and 3) an all new infrastructure of "recharging stations" or some such to replace all the gas stations.

I think the hybrid vehicle line-up is probably the way to go for the shorter term, but the Toyota and Honda cars are pathetic: wait until someone releases something that doesn't look like a futuristic golf cart if you want to actually see some on the road. We've got a Focus and an Escape hybrid model coming out in the near term that will have real car styling, better than their traditional counterparts in gas mileage (after all, that's the whole point of the hybrid system) and better or equivalent performance and not much of a cost premium. I think something like that could potentially work in conjunction with tax breaks to give customers an incentive to shell out the extra few thousand bucks a hybrid system will cost.

 

[Umbran]

I suggest you learn more about fusion power.

I'm a grad student finishing up my doctoral thesis in physics. I'm well educated on both fusion and fission power. But thanks for the suggestion.

The amount of helium which will produced is likely to be fairly small.

From moment to moment, the amount of helium produced is small, yes. But if the entire world is getting their power from fusion, over decades, it can add up. When you think environmental damage, you should be thinking long term, what will be happening over generations.

I'm willing to lay odds that the effects will be negligible. I also would not like to let luddites stop fusion power because of low probability scares.

You are probably correct, in that the effects are probably negligible. But better to be safe than sorry.

Plus, at this point wouldn't we look really, really stupid if we went ahead without checking, and something did go wrong?

If luddites wanted to stop fusion power, there's far better candidates to pick on. Heat pollution could be a biggie. Another might be the effects that "mining" the oceans for deuterium and tritium might have on oceanic ecosystems. Not that the ocean cares about which isotope the water's made from, but getting the stuff calls for sucking up a lot of seawater, and spewing it back out again. Unless you do it properly, you might risk oceanic habitats.

 

[Umbran]

3) an all new infrastructure of "recharging stations" or some such to replace all the gas stations.

This is straightforward. Fuel cells don't need "recharging", any more than your gasoline car needs "recharging". They burn hydrogen. You need a hydrogen pumping station. Not cheap, but not difficult, either.

I think the hybrid vehicle line-up is probably the way to go for the shorter term, but the Toyota and Honda cars are pathetic: wait until someone releases something that doesn't look like a futuristic golf cart if you want to actually see some on the road.

The Toyota Prius (which can be seen here) looks like a four-door sedan. Not a "futuristic golf cart" in the least.

The biggest barriers to hybrid systems currently are:

1)perception that they lack "performance". No, they don't hop-to like a v-8 engine. But they'll get you from point A to point B. We need to get over our infatuation with speed and muscle, anyway.

2)cost - hybrid vehicles are, of course, a bit more expensive.

3)public ignorance - (Note above the preconceptions that they don't get good mileage, and that they look like golf carts) Unfortunately, the manufacturers aren't spending too much money on correctign misconceptions about the cars. A few ads on the back of Scientific American is not enough. Of course, the manufacturers are also not willing to throw away money on advertising before they're sure they have a market. Catch-22.

4)Questions of long-term reliability. The manufacturers claim the batteries they use are designed to last the life of the car, but since the cars are new, that's yet to be seen in practice. If the things do wear out, they call for several thousands of dollars to replace.

 

[med stud]

This is straightforward. Fuel cells don't need "recharging", any more than your gasoline car needs "recharging". They burn hydrogen. You need a hydrogen pumping station. Not cheap, but not difficult, either.



The Toyota Prius (which can be seen here) looks like a four-door sedan. Not a "futuristic golf cart" in the least.

The biggest barriers to hybrid systems currently are:

1)perception that they lack "performance". No, they don't hop-to like a v-8 engine. But they'll get you from point A to point B. We need to get over our infatuation with speed and muscle, anyway.

2)cost - hybrid vehicles are, of course, a bit more expensive.

3)public ignorance - (Note above the preconceptions that they don't get good mileage, and that they look like golf carts) Unfortunately, the manufacturers aren't spending too much money on correctign misconceptions about the cars. A few ads on the back of Scientific American is not enough. Of course, the manufacturers are also not willing to throw away money on advertising before they're sure they have a market. Catch-22.

4)Questions of long-term reliability. The manufacturers claim the batteries they use are designed to last the life of the car, but since the cars are new, that's yet to be seen in practice. If the things do wear out, they call for several thousands of dollars to replace.

5) An extremely strong oil lobby that will try to stop this kind of projects to preserve their position. Depending on how X-files you are feeling, this may be big or small, but it defenitly exists.

 

[Tidus4444]

Helium is not KNOWN to have any detrimental effects, because much of it tends to easily escape into space. There's no telling what might happen if massive quantities of helium were to be ejected into the atmosphere, and while hydrogen may feel abundant now, the day will come when we must save our hydrogen, or start stealing it from other planets.

Well, if we're following through with the humans in space theory this is accurate, but not a problem. Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, because it is so easy to "make." Indeed, some scientists think that all other elements come from things fusing with Hydrogen.

 

[kenjib]

6) Lack of options. I have a family of four and am a musician that needs to cart lots of gear around. When I bought my car a year ago I was looking for a station wagon. There are no station wagons, no minivans, no vans, no suvs, no pickup trucks. Sure, the latter of these are all notorious for bad mileage and wasteful for many people but some of the people who buy them actually do need them. Aside from car classification, you still only have a few cars to choose from (so too bad if you think they all look ugly) and they are all in the same price bracket -- no luxury cars for example.

 

[Umbran]

5) An extremely strong oil lobby that will try to stop this kind of projects to preserve their position. Depending on how X-files you are feeling, this may be big or small, but it defenitly exists.

The oil lobby may be pretty good at keeping some incentives for hybrid buyers off the books (though some tax incentives do exist). They haven't proven very good at keeping the car manufacturers from moving ahead at a reasonable business pace.

Currently, there's the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight and Civic Hybrid. Ford's putting out an electric hybrid Escape (hoping to bring the SUV mileage into a reasonable range). Ford's also making a fuel-cell hybrid Focus, which uses no gas at all, as well as ethanol, natural gas, and propane cars.

 

[trancejeremy]

The real reason we won't see any radical shift away from gas engines in the near future is that oil is simply very very cheap.

Gasoline prices have stayed about the same for geeze, probably the 80s.

If you factor in inflation, gas prices are cheaper now.

People don't realize just how much oil there is in the world. Lots and lots and lots and lots. People think the 70s oil crisis was natural (for some reason), and not artificially induced by Opec.

And while I'm not saying pollution's not a problem, there was a pretty much solid study just recently which demonstrated quite well that the Earth was much warmer back in the middle ages. (And in the 70s, the big thing, along with the oil crisis, was the forthcoming ice age...)

 

[DM_Matt]

The oil lobby may be pretty good at keeping some incentives for hybrid buyers off the books (though some tax incentives do exist). They haven't proven very good at keeping the car manufacturers from moving ahead at a reasonable business pace.

Currently, there's the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight and Civic Hybrid. Ford's putting out an electric hybrid Escape (hoping to bring the SUV mileage into a reasonable range). Ford's also making a fuel-cell hybrid Focus, which uses no gas at all, as well as ethanol, natural gas, and propane cars.

For that matter, they were not even powerful enough to prevent the Bush administration, which is by all accounts about as pro-oil as it gets, from initiating a $1.3 Billion Hydrogen Car research program. Hydrogen cells are the one aspect of alternative energy policy that everyone but the oil lobby itself supports: Elected officials all over the political spectrum (except libertarian types, who dont like the government doing much of anything), car manufacturers, and environmentalists.

Unless they are divided or fully replaced by an even better idea (this oil maker might slow progress, which will be bad for the environment of course), fuel cell cars are inevitable.