>>Steve decided to take him at his word as to the efficiency of >>"burning" hydrogen >>but I disagree with this, as hydrogen fuel cells are making good progress and >>can be expected to make some more over the next ten or twenty years. > >Yes, I think that's right, but I do tend to take issue with the >enthusiasts who tell me it's right around the corner and will solve >all our problems tomorrow, or here right now and I just haven't >noticed, because I've been hearing that for the last three decades.
Yes, I absolutely agree with this statement. Enough is enough with the whole fuel cells are the answer right now thing. We should be told the whole scoop and not just the rosy stuff. For example, the need for expensive precious metals, typically used in catalytic converters, is part of PEM fuel cell schemes, that I understand. This need has been reduced but not eliminated that I understand. Also, very interesting: awhile back I was having this conver. with another guy somewhere else and he claimed that fuel cells were not really that efficient yet without cogen, not even 40 or 50% energy efficient in many cases. My initial reaction was to be upset, but he was right on the mark. All of this talk about energy efficiency beating IC engines for example, but without some cogen, or without a somewhat exotic fuel cell scheme, the efficiency is better but not that much better. Now, don't get me wrong, under some sort of idealized conditions I think they can get up there in the 70 or 80 percent range, depending on the tech, but I'm not sure what percentage of that is cogen (i.e. use of waste heat).1 >>If I were to invent such an invention as you describe, I question whether I'd >>release it to anyone, as it would likely bring me nothing but >>miserable years in >>the courts, at best. Patent protection for such a device would be >>inadequate at >>best , and as to giving it away, which I would not want to do, but if I did >>that, I'd expect the world to foul it up somehow, hard to predict how. > >Hiding such a light under a bushel might also bring you nothing but >miserable years as you kept seeing more and more what a gift it could >be and how much suffering it might end, but you just went on sitting >on it. Do you think you could really do that? > >I'm sure you'd think of a better way. Courts, sure, and you're dead >right about patents. Patents don't mean much these days, unless >you're a big corp, and not even then - the big corps spend a lot of >time and money fighting each other over patents, Just to be clear: I would not spend more than two iotas of my time in courts or on phones with people in courts. It would not, and will not, happen. Life is so goddamn short. Of the dozens of publicly traded companies that I follow, the majority of them are run or owned by folks who have some variant of world-beating energy-converting device, and almost all of those folks have made the trade-off and been seduced into spending the brunt of their lives trying to be businessmen instead of inventors, and trying to do this or that stock-trade consideration or fighting for patent rights to the exclusion of rational productivity in fighting for the marketing of their inventions. In this process it is often clear that the invention is not necessarily single-handedly going to save the world, or it has flaws or it is out-of--its-time-period or whatever. Sometimes the system works the way its supposed to to cut an invention down to size so that it's valuable but the inventor needs to understand it is not the be-all-end-all-to-end-all-troubles thing he obviously convinced some shareholders it was. But this system-working-the-way-it's-supposed-to aspect does not adequately cover the lack of productivity and, yes, happiness, that is induced in these excellent and interesting people who otherwise could offer us so much more. I have said before, and will say again now, the lack of protection of their rights, and the lack of public debate and concern with these particular folks, inventors and specifically those whose general area is energy-related-inventions, is very very striking now that national energy policy has become a matter of national debate, now that we are all very much desirous of solutions to different facets of the energy deficit. It is arguably the most important issue in the collection of energy policy issues... the protection of the rights of those whom we ask to solve the problem... and it is arguably the least talked about and the least likely, therefor, to get solved. I have frankly never really heard it brought up in any forum public or private, by anyone else, with the exception of, say, the response that I'll occassionally get from folks like yourself. I have never heard a single legislator bring up the issue. The response to the Cold Fusion craze was interesting (never mind that the invention was viable): it immediately became a matter of Congressional interest, the Trillion Dollar Value of such a thing was bandied about, and while it was clear the purported inventors and University would be made wealthy, it was also made crystal clear at least this was my perception of Congressional intentions) that the real wealth was to be guarded for the powers-that-be. >Maybe you'd be looking for ways to give it away to ordinary folks, so >that ordinary folks could keep hold of it. Hey, you might even get >rich doing that, who knows? If you managed to do such a thing for the >world I don't think it'd let you starve. I think it might. I'm not sure. Tesla didn't die that wealthy. Not to be a Tesla-head, just making a brief point that I don't take the largesse of my fellow man that for-granted if only because sometimes the system might not work to carry out this morality play even if many of my fellow men might intend to pay me properly. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/k6cvND/n97DAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
