Suzuki Enviro friendly motorcycle

a story about a bike I ran across

Struck me as very interesting

I wouldn't call it "Green" since being hydrogen powered it just shifts the pollution upstream.

AFAIK, there are only two ways to obtain hydrogen in quantity, blast natural gas with superheated steam (which will drive my heating bill to astronomical heights), or build a large number of nuclear power plants to produce the electricity to make hydrogen (and I'm not convinced that's a good idea either).

Hydrogen-powered cars and trucks that use fuel cells to drive electric motors instead of internal-combustion engines could potentially eliminate tail-pipe pollution and dependence on foreign oil. But hydrogen is not an energy source. It is only an energy carrier that must be produced from a primary energy source, such as natural gas, coal, nuclear fuel, wind or solar radiation.

There are two main methods for making hydrogen. The dominant commercial method uses natural gas and steam to produce ultimately hydrogen and carbon dioxide. In this process, called steam reforming, less than 80 percent of the input energy is left in the hydrogen; then another 15 percent or more is lost converting the hydrogen to liquid or compressed gas. Thus, at most only two-thirds of the original energy ends up as useful hydrogen. Moreover, natural gas is an expensive non-renewable fossil fuel that is in short supply. Furthermore, natural gas has many other important uses, such as heating our homes and serving as a feedstock for many chemicals.

The other main way of making hydrogen is by electrolysis. This process is straightforward, but costs three times as much as steam reforming to make the same amount of hydrogen. It uses an electrolyzer, in which a current is passed through water, to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen.

www.commondreams.org/views05/0619-23.htm

Steells, correct, but even using fission power to produce the H2 will cost more than coal fired electric generation. A show I saw recently said that, at this time, it costs about 15% more to produce electricity by fission than coal fired production. About the only way to produce enough electricity to electrolize H2O for H2 are fusion generators, and those really don't exist, at this time. Besides once there is a method to produce H2 for fuel production, cheaply. The "greens" will want to stop that also, because water vapor is more of a "greenhouse gas" than CO2 (carbon dioxide). Which is why they were deliberatly left off the 1st "Clean Air Act"
The purpose of the "religious environmentalists" (greens) is not to "save the earth" but to impose world socialism.

Wow.... I didn't realize I was part of a world socialism plot, thought I just liked reducing waste...

One nice thing about moving the waste "upstream" is that is can be better processed... It is hard to make sure all the tail pipes in the nation have proper working cat converters, and thats about all you can do on the tail pipe end...

another nice thing is once hydrogen, bio-diesel, ethanol, electric and/or other fuel sources are in use the price of gasoline should drop with reduced demand and increased competition (uh-oh that sounds like capitalism I guess I am about to be tossed out of the green revelation!!! )


Honestly; everyone has different views, blanket statements like yours are ignorant and uncalled for.

Hi rock, don't get me wrong. I don't have any problem w/ Conservation. I've backpacked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and bathed in hot springs in Yellowstone and glacial pools in the Olympics. Owned the Whole Earth Catalog when it was new and a subscription to Mother Jones. The US invented the Park system and Conservation as well as the science of Agronomy. We've cleaned/or are cleaning up most of our industrial waste w/the Clean Air/Water Acts. I would love to build an efficient, "eco-friendly" home and lifestyle...but I as a US taxpayer have absolutly no legal, financial, moral or ethical obligation to pay for the pollution of China or India or any of the "emerging worlds" economic upgrades. Not to mention the ecological disasters left over from the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Don't blow smoke up my butt and tell me I'm "saving the world" while picking my pocket, tell me how, using conservation methods, I can save money and upgrade my lifestyle.
My use of the phrase "religious environmentalist's" was deliberate and specific to those that stop windfarm construction because it "hurts birds" and "ruins the view" or prevent a desert solar generator from delivering the energy it can produce because it's held up in courts because the power line will go through a "sensative" area, etc, etc. US use of ethanol is literally taking the food (corn meal) from the mouthes of poor people of the 3rd world and the exhaust may be more polluting than gasoline, as well as almost unuseable in our classic bikes. While the US has had this idiotic morutorum on the construction of new generation fission generators Western Europe derives most of it's power from fission.
Stop, think, are the "greens" really looking out for your self interest or their own?
That's all I'm sayin'

Yeah, I don't think current ethanol production methods are a good idea either, and I think a bunch of local people who jumped on the bandwagon to build a bunch of ethanol plants locally are going to lose their shirts (I tried to warn them).

But if the process to convert cellulose into ethanol becomes economically available, then it's a different story. I'm all for that (so far at least).


Ethanol plants that were actually under construction a year ago are being completed, looks like all the others are holding back now (one is a mile from me).

I think there are 10-15 ethanol plants under construction or in the planning stage within a 10 mile radius of me. I think someone wants to make Indiana the "Ethanol Capitol of the World"

Locally, ethanol has driven the price of corn up, so farmers cut back on planting soybeans and planted corn instead. That's going to reduce the amount of soybeans available and drive up the price. Got any idea what that's going to do to the price of everything that's made with soybeans?

Kind of a "double whammy" on our food supply, and haven't there already been riots in Mexico because the price of Tortilla shells has increased to the point that many people can not afford to buy them??

Ethanol made from our foodstocks is a terrible idea in so many ways

Oh well, guess I'll just wait and see what happens

Post edited by: steell, at: 2007/12/26 22:12

I don't think i will worry until there are riots in Detroit... as Mexico has many other problems which make them reliant on cheap crops. I think its a good thing, with interest low, inflation high, and the price of crops rising farmers will be able to easily cut their debts, expand their farms and generally do well.

I remember a professor telling me that the farmers of America and their general well being is a good predictor for the long tern ecconomic well being of the country. I know professors are often wrong, so i looked for some good reading material but came up only finding stuff about the economics of running a farm. His basic argument was that few other nations can produce food in the quantities that we can, so when the cost of food rises the US farmers stand to make a good profit.



As for to many ethanol plants, I would imagine that if one plant goes under another (hopefully slightly more successful plant) will make good use of their machinery. There are always winners and losers (not everyone gets to found STD. Oil) but if ethanol can relieve some of the demand for gas then someone will stand to make a killing.

Well, if you have a family of four and your food bill quadruples it seems to me that you would be concerned

And the increased migration due to the increased difficulty of supporting a family in Mexico affects everyone in this country (at least indirectly).

As for me personally, the request for a permit to build an ethanol plant nearby doubled my property taxes. Idiot nimby's petitioned to have this area annexed into a local city to stop the construction, their petition was successful in annexing the area (and doubling the property taxes) but like anyone with half a brain knew would happen, it didn't stop the permit process.

Locally, the price of milk, bread, eggs, etc have doubled, and the money left to spend on my hobbies has decreased markedly, so ethanol has had a direct negative affect on me.

I guess since i only have my own mouth to feed i never really considered that point of view.

Now i am kind of curious, I know how ethanol is directly connected the the rising food prices, but what about the cost of gasoline and low interest rates and the general inflationary trend that they seems to be causing...

If I'm not mistaken, H2O is a greenhouse gas, but we don't worry about too much water vapor in the atmosphere because it condenses back to liquid and drops out of the equation. CO2 does not. This means if we create hydrogen from that condensed vapor, in theory, the net increase in water vapor in the atmosphere is zero. The water would also get purified in the process. The real problem is the cost of the process.

BUT...If this pans out, I may get on the fuel cell bandwagon. But I doubt I'll be selling off my KZ's in the next couple decades.

BTW, that bike in WildWaterSKier's link at least LOOKS very cool.

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2007/12/27 13:07

Sure, it condenses out, Loud. As you said, it condenses out as water vapor or water droplets, in other words clouds, humidity and rain or snow. The amount of water vapor, the atmosphere can absorb, is dependant on temperature and pressure, among other things. Cosmic rays may even have an effect on cloud formation. My point is that, as well as being a monster "greenhouse gas", it will increase humidity and bring humid conditions to areas not used to humidity and clouds go w/the wind. I personally have no problem w/using H2, except for the expense. I'm saying that when/if H2 does become commercially viable the "ecos" will bring up the above as well as anything else they can think of, to stop what they see as "capitalist corruption".
Hard, using food to increase ethanol production isn't just gonna effect the 3rd world, that uses corn meal for it's primary food source or the midwesterner w/a family who's property taxes have quadrupled. I don't know if you are a meat eater but feed grain acreage is also being moved to fuel grain production. That's gonna force the meat producers to buy less feed to support less stock. Less stock on the ranch means higher prices in the supermarket. Hope you enjoy tofu, but then Steell has indicated they are taking soy acreage out of production for fuel grain, also...hmmm. Peanuts anyone?
Your Prof was correct, Hard. The American farmer is probably the greatest asset the US has...at producing FOOD, not fuel.
Me, I think diesel is the best interim solution, until H2, fusion or RT superconductors are commercially viable.

Thnak you, ronjones, for injecting some facts and a lot of sanity into what has become an "insane" debate.
You are bang-on with your asessments. Further, YOUR projections are as valid as ANY expert's are.....after all, NO ONE can predict the future....even so-called "experts". If they COULD predict the future, they'd be playing the stock market and living in mansions in Hawaii....right ?? Instead their "guesses" are widely reported as gospel in the media and people run around saying the sky is falling, etc etc.
The whole thing makes me want to throw up.
Again, ron, thanks for throwing the light of sanity on much of this debate.