I started off reading the article thinking it would be some crackpot idea, but I think the idea is good although written in crackpot style. Nuclear power is still the finest option available. Nuclear power plants produce easily manageable SOLID waste, and nuclear power plants actually release less radiation to the envinronment during operation than do coal plants. The idea of electric cars is very good, but would require a means of quick refueling for long trips. Maybe the hybrid is the best answer for that.
I was hoping the guy wouldn't jump to ethanol as a fuel source. Currently it takes more fossil fuels to make enough ethanol fuel to drive 100 miles than it takes to provide gasoline to drive 100 miles. This may be improved with the use of genetically engineered bacteria to breakdown plant material that normally goes to waste, making the process more efficicient.
The hydrogen fuel cell idea is also not too good. I think his objections are valid. The problem, as usual, in this country is that idealism runs much higher than does pragmatic thinking. So the republicans hardly address practical domestic issues instead concentrating on religious topics like the right to pray in school and democrats are obsessed with Utopian solutions to every domestic issue that don't pan out for working class middle Americans. Hydrogen fuel cells are a sort of dreamy panacea in that way. They may be possibe someday, but without an interim compromise (nuclear power), we will be in this current predicament for many more years. Somehow I think we'll have to hope for a republican to save us from our fossil fuel dependence.
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I started off reading the article thinking it would be some crackpot idea, but I think the idea is good although written in crackpot style. Nuclear power is still the finest option available. Nuclear power plants produce easily manageable SOLID waste, and nuclear power plants actually release less radiation to the envinronment during operation than do coal plants. The idea of electric cars is very good, but would require a means of quick refueling for long trips. Maybe the hybrid is the best answer for that.
I was hoping the guy wouldn't jump to ethanol as a fuel source. Currently it takes more fossil fuels to make enough ethanol fuel to drive 100 miles than it takes to provide gasoline to drive 100 miles. This may be improved with the use of genetically engineered bacteria to breakdown plant material that normally goes to waste, making the process more efficicient.
The hydrogen fuel cell idea is also not too good. I think his objections are valid. The problem, as usual, in this country is that idealism runs much higher than does pragmatic thinking. So the republicans hardly address practical domestic issues instead concentrating on religious topics like the right to pray in school and democrats are obsessed with Utopian solutions to every domestic issue that don't pan out for working class middle Americans. Hydrogen fuel cells are a sort of dreamy panacea in that way. They may be possibe someday, but without an interim compromise (nuclear power), we will be in this current predicament for many more years. Somehow I think we'll have to hope for a republican to save us from our fossil fuel dependence.
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