Science Round-up!
March 24th, 2006 | by Paul Merda |Did you know that “Southpaws” are not only better pitchers but they have a survival advantage in Nature as well?
Scientists believe that Humpback Whales have grammar rules which allows them to have more complex communication.
This one is really good, a House Republican (ok, he is right here) Bob Inglis is introducing legislation that would give out a series multi-million dollar prizes for work into Hydrogen Fuel. Will Dear Leader veto this bill?
Finally, the cyborg era comes closer with the advent of artificial muscles that will use an energy rich fuels instead of bulky wires for power, Terminator anyone? Hey, it will also lead to better prosthetics for amputees…
5 Responses to “Science Round-up!”
By John Rogers on Mar 24, 2006 | Reply
If Congress gave out million dollar grants to scientists working on making horses talk, would be any closer would the human-equine dialog?
Where exactly are we going to get all this hydrogen?
From water via hydrolysis? Powered by what? Via some catalyst? Composed of what extremely rare and expensive metal? How will it be cost effective?
The only way to get large amounts of hydrogen is through fossil fuels. That would still help our Arab friends and it would produce large of amounts of CO2 anyway (which could be perhaps be sequestered - very expensively) ….
There are some things governemnt can’t do. Rewriting the laws of thrmodynamics is one of them.
Making horses talk is another…..
By Paul Watson, Cranky Brit on Mar 24, 2006 | Reply
John,
Powered by what? May I suggest wind power. After all, if you’re creating a fuel, the sporadic nature will be far less important than it is for converntional power generation.
Also it’s prizes, not funding. If no one gets the procedure to work, no money is given out. It worked for the X-Prize. I see no reason why it won’t work here.
As for politicians making horses talk, I always thought they were pretty good at getting the wrong end speaking.
By LiberPaul on Mar 24, 2006 | Reply
John,
I understand what you are saying, it just doesn’t mean that there is NO answer to the dilemma of where to get the H2. A few years ago, a Japanese team isolated a catalyst in plants that aids in separating H2 and O in water. I havent’ seen or heard much about it since then, but there could be an answer and we will never know unless we try. Besides, the research that will be done for this will, like all research before it, provide some answers to questions not even related to H2 fuel. We may never get what we want out but that doesn’t mean we won’t get something out of it. Baby-steps, baby-steps…… Like Paul said too, the prizes will be awarded if they get something to work, this isn’t about funding the research but rewarding those who meet the criteria.
There is work being done on using Oceanic tides for power generation which is far more predictable than wind. There is some work on this front being done in the Hudson River as we speak (er, um write)…..
By John Rogers on Mar 24, 2006 | Reply
Cranky Brit and Liberpaul:
“As for politicians making horses talk, I always thought they were pretty good at getting the wrong end speaking. ”
Good point.
Windpower? Sure. But we can do that now. The problem isn’t the technology. The problem is the economics. There just isn’t a market for power that is going to cost ten times more than it does now, and a bout of massive government spending isn’t going to solve that. And we can’t even build a wind farm out on the sea - for Pete’s sake - How are we going to build them in our national forests?
As for catalysts: Plant derived catalysts are interesting, but the problem is in the scale up. A plant may produce a bubble of H2 in a 24 h. That’s great.
But only a politician says: “well we just need to grow 50 billion of those plants!”
Scientists just laugh. Scale up is what I do for a living, and it ain’t that easy. I might be able to make 10 mg of something, but that doesn’t not mean I can make 5 g - at least not in a cost effective manner.
But if you pay me to do it, I’ll tell you its worth a try.
As a scientist who will likely lose his private sector job someday, I’ll take your money - at least until the government runs out of money.
We could design really efficient phosphine-ligated Palladium catalysts that don’t get poisoned too easily and can convert 100 g of water into 11 g H2 in 24 hours.
I might forget to tell you that there isn’t enough Palladium in the world to do that on a scale that produce enough H2 for the US…Hell, I’d lose my funding.
By Paul Watson, Cranky Brit on Mar 24, 2006 | Reply
John,
The problem is, the market doesn’t exist until there is enough fuel and until there’s a market no one will invest to create the fuel. Classic catch 22.
And as oil becomes scarcer and the price rises, especially if some techonolgoy can improve the efficiency (and I know that’s not a given, and may not even be possible) hydrogen becomes more economic. I agree it isn’t now, but that doesn’t mean it will ever be thus.