Would you vote for Kerry if...?

If John McCain was his running mate? I think there is still talk of that being the ticket, which would be pretty interesting. If it was true I'd think Bush would definately lose the election.

McCain seems to me to be the only real honorable Republican out there. Plus he's a regular on The Daily Show, so he gets even more points for that.

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<font color=blue> "Trying is the first step towards failure." </font color=blue>

No. McCain flatly said it wasn't true.

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As an outsider to the US, I haven't heard much about Kerry.

Is he just an ex-vet, turned political peacemaker, or is he a decent prospect for the Whitehouse?

...or is he just the fresh thing on the menu if you hate Bush?




I reckon there will be a few terror alerts before the election both there and here in the UK. Whether real or not, I reckon both governments will see another term.

<b><font color=blue>~ <A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=324&s=58e94ba84a16bedfebbf0f416d5bac48" target="_new">System Specs</A> ~<font color=blue></b>

Well, it is either Bush or Kerry for the main candidates, so... Nader is running, but he isn't a real contender.

I personally don't like Kerry, but would think more of the ticket if McCain ran as the VP. I might actually vote for him if that was the case.

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<font color=blue> "Trying is the first step towards failure." </font color=blue>

He would be the richest president ever

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<font color=red>You are all going to go to Hell!

You mean like the Healthy Forest and Clear Skies Initiatives?

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<font color=blue> "Trying is the first step towards failure." </font color=blue>

LOL, you want to hear a long story?

Let me begin by saying the Republicans, by faking it, occasionally do something good by chance or mistake. Democrats, through there sincerity, usually come up with plans that are no more or less effective than the half hearted Republican attempts to pacify their constituency. In other words, neither one of them are much good.

OK, let's begin with recycling: Recycling hurts the environment. I'll go mostly with automobiles since I understand that subject intamately! Recycling a car involved turning most of it's soft parts into landfill and burning the rest, releasing toxic chemicals. It consumes a huge amount of energy as well, as does making a new car from the steel. It's so bad in fact that you could drive your car twice as long, rather than recycle it twice as often, and still come out ahead environmentally even when your old car is blowing black smoke out the tailpipe.

Now, one of the major polution sources in California are oil cracking plants. They make gasoline of course, as well as motor oil...and many of the things you need to make most plastics...and so forth. Cleaning up the plants was so prohibitavely expensive that several companies decided it would be cheaper to pay the fines. Californians, being good citizens, had to come up with a new solution, as fines don't clean the air. Their solution was, rather than raise the fees and drive the business out of state, they would offer a comprimise. That comprimise was to allow the big oil companies to purchase emissions credits by doing "good deeds" cleaning up the environment elsewhere. And one of these "good deeds" was a car scrapping program, where oil companies would pay $500 per car to remove old poluting cars from the road. The rules state that the cars have to be recycled in entirety, they can't be scrapped for used parts at all!

The effect of all this? The oil companies still produce just as much polution as before, but reduce their fines by buying old cars! Poor people can't drive to work, because all the $500 cars have disappeared from many places in California. And those who still HAVE old cars have to buy new ones, when available, because the old parts are gone too. And the production of those new parts is a contributor to economic destruction. And the energy used to turn those old cars into new cars is greater than those old cars would have consumed during the rest of their barely-usable lifespan. And the polution caused by all of these processes is greater than the difference these cars would have caused during the rest of their short remaining lifespan. Net result: More polution, more middle class and foreign jobs, more suffering for the poor. A Republican should have come up with this!

Now, there's the push for Zero Emissions Vehicles, both battery and fuel cell powered. 60% of our electricity comes from Coal. Coal power plants produce more more polution per killowatt of energy than modern Gasoline engines. But what of the other 40% of electricity? It might as well not exist, because 40% of the power produced, by a power plant, to power an electric car, vanishes. Where does it vanish to? Inefficiencies in the power grid, ineffiencies in the batteries, inefficiencies in the electric motors on the cars! Net result: It's a wash, standard vehicles (which have fairly strict regulations on polutions) contribute no more to air polution than electric vehicles (through power plants). But what of Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles? Wow, the same problems exist as battery powered vehicles, except that hydrogen fuel cells are only 70% efficient! That's one more step of power loss, which means more electricity, more coal, more polution.

The solutions are simple, but discouraged: Low Emissions Vehicles powered by GASOLINE produce LESS air polution than power plants making power for electric/hydrogen fuel cell cars. We could clean those cars up even more fueling them with alcohol if a proper initiative existed. Another option exist, and it's even cleaner: METHANOL fuel cells. They produce water and carbon dioxide, which is non-toxic and consumed by plants! But what of the greenhouse effect? Considering electric power is the alternative, you're producing LESS CO2 with Methanol than with Electricity as long as coal fired plants make up anything close to a majority of our power!

But what about non-impacting sources? Are you willing to increase our short term polution while you wait for them? You'd need a solar cell the size of Texas to take care of all this country's power needs. I'll watch you be the first to vote to blacken our skies with them. Wind power is cool, but there's not enough wind, and lo and behold it kills birds. Nuclear power is the best way we could go right now, then I'd be 100% behind fuel cells! But what of all the nuclear waste? RECYCLE it! Japan gets nearly all of their electricity from recycled fuel rods. You take the remaining high level material and separate it from the low level stuff. They have to get their spent fuel rods from other countries, because that's illegal here! Japan even powers generation plants with PLUTONIUM! We have hords of that stuff here we can't use because, rather than put it to use under high security, we lock it down. It's illegal here to recycle spent fuel rods because they contain plutonium and enriched uranium, it's illegal to power plants with either, so we have all this nuclear waste just sitting there burning holes in the ground (figuratively speaking). Where are the initiatives there? If anyone introduces them, it will likely be a Republican...and of course he'll be demonized for it. And shot down by fellow Republicans over security issues.

BTW, France, the most liberal country in the world, uses nuclear fuel. I'm fairly certain they're the ones selling spent fuel rods to Japan for recycling.

Recyling is only a good option when the object going into the process is useless, sparing us from stripping more natural resources. Republicans, under pressure from Archer Daniels Midland, have pushed for YEARS to spread the use of low polution Ethanol. The reasons for that push are obvious, ADM produces most of the nations corn, ADM lines their pockets with campaign funds! Yet it would yield lower emissions. And democrats mostly don't favor it because of the fact ADM would get rich from it. Dem's damning the corporations at the expense of the environment, or Rep's helping to save the environment out of greed? Your choice. I haven't even voted for president in the last 2 elections because I was appauled by the policies backed by either candidate!

California's Zero Polution Vehicle push WILL help clean the air in California WHILE producing more polution at the same time! How? California gets most of their power out of state! They refuse to allow ANY power plants to be built that that...could produce an adequate amount of power! Fossile fuel plants are blocked, Nuclear power plants are blocked, and non-polution plants cost more to make than the power they'll ever produce. The net result is, California gets clean air by moving the polution source, the Coal Fired electric plant...out of state and downwind! BTW, cars only made up 5% of California's air polution overall (14% of their N20 however), most of it was caused by 2 sources, oil cracking plants and power plants!

Now, all these obviously backfired attempts to cure our environmental woes were sponsered by which party?

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LOL, I should have said "France, the most HYPOCRITICAL country in the world" because they have so many regressive triats hidden behind their "progressive" front.

Ask them, they consider themselves the most progressive, eg liberal.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
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Doh! And where do you think the HYDROGEN comes from, the air? Electrolisis, which means the grid, which means Hydrogen Fuel Cells get their HYDROGEN from DIRTY ELECTRIC POWER just like battery powered cars. But fuel cells are likely less efficient than batteries, my test showed around 70% peak efficiency for an experimental fuel cell, my research showed similar findings.

In my opinion, which is based on several hard facts, Methanol fuel cells contribute less to air polution than Hydrogen fuel cells simply because we get the Hydrogen from an electrical process. But they don't get much press or any favors from political action groups because they do produce "some" polution directly, while hydrogen fuel cells produce NO polution directly but MUCH polution indirectly due to the need for...electric production. It amazes me to think that people "smart" enough to follow the LONG food chain from the dung beatle up to the Rhinocorus can't follow the short chain from "polution free" H2 powered cars back to dirty electric plants. "Save the dung beetles" and "drive H2 powered cars" is a contradiction.

You do have to admit that it seems ironic in an erra of political correctness, that big money, corporate power, and greed are pushing for alternative fuels that would greatly help reduce the "huge" polution contribution of automobiles (5% of total air polution huge).

BTW, internal combustion engines produce a LOT of NO/N02 (whichever, as opposed to N20) at 17% of total production of this one polutant. So instead of seeing things like "cars produce 5% of our total polution" you see things like "cars produce 17% of our polution" based only on that one polutant. I think the WORSE polutant is sulfer dioxide...acid rain...power plants! Can't remember the exact number...think it was around 22%.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

Displacing pollution is no secret. Now I'm not sure about you, but would you rather have an alternative energy vehicle that is 70% efficient or a combustione engine vehicle that is 20% efficient? They're both going to pollute the air in one way or the other for the time being.

Combustion engine vehicles are heaters. They waste all their fuel energy on friction and heat.

Think about that next time you drive your car. You spent $2.50 a gallon for fuel and $2.00 of that wasn't used to get you from point A to point B.

<font color=blue>________________________</font color=blue>
<font color=red>You are all going to go to Hell!

I thought you didn't know exactly what hydrogen fuel cells were, that is why I said that. It is very doubtful that a hydrogen generation plant would get its power from the common grid and would actually most likely have its own power plant.

Theoretically, a plant that is used to seperate hydrogen could be self sufficient, as burning the hydrogen (not using it in a fuel cell) produces more useable energy than it takes to seperate hydrogen from methane. Therefore, a hydrogen production plant could possible burn the hydrogen it produces to make more, and have more left over that can be used for a "hydrogen economy." And, burning hydrogen is clean (although the heat of it does create more sulfur compounds from pollution already in the air) compared to fossil fuel combustion.

But, slamming fuel cells because of the pollution caused by the generators that are needed to produce hydrogen isn't really fair, because that situation could change easily, by like I said, cleaner and more effiecient power generation techniques being used by those facilities.

About solar power... Someone I know who went to CalTech actually thought up plans for building a huge solar array in the California desert. I think the plan called for several, or tens of billions of dollars being needed to invest in it, but if completed would produce I think it was over half of all of California's energy needs. That was more like a pipe dream though, doubtful to ever come true. Solar and wind power are still very viable alternatives, but I think big oil companies are the biggest opposition to making it happen.

An interesting group I just started reading about is the <A HREF="http://www.apolloalliance.org" target="_new">The Apollo Alliance</A>, who are trying to get billion invested in building America's infrastructure and replacing our reliance on foreign oil by building new plants capable of making energy in a very clean and efficient manner.

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<font color=blue> "Trying is the first step towards failure." </font color=blue>

Oh, I'm also saying that people who've put Hydrogen fuel cells in the spotlight are either:
1.) Too ill informed to be making suggestions to anyone in the first place, "Look, polution free power!" without understanding the source that energy is comming from, or
2.) Too thick headed to consider the problems associated with Hydrogen, and too narrow minded to consider better alternatives such as Methanol fuel cells

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Just read the latest National Geographic, in which the main article was on oil, then remembered yall had been talking about it. Some of you guys may find it interesting.

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{FTM}

Using your math for a combustion engine puts efficiency at 10%

<font color=blue>________________________</font color=blue>
<font color=red>You are all going to go to Hell!

We've already been through that, 70%=30% when you get your hydrogen from coal fired powerplants. Economically speaking, the whole dependance on foreign oil is a shame, but considering the polution it takes to produce that hydrogen at the new fueling stations, Gasoline is actually better for the environment...than coal. And while we debate this we could be switching to ethanol internal combustion and methanol fuel cells.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
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There are two ways to do methanol, Direct Methanol and Hydrogen via a reformer. I'm fairly certain that Direct Methanol uses both the hydrogen and carbon, with the carbon being consumed in the process and output as CO2. Meanwhile there's hydrogen via methanol conversion, and yes I'm fairly sure it's a less efficient process. Funny thing is there's so much political force behind Hydrogen fuel cells that most Methanol powered fuel cell vehicles use the reformer. There's simply very little money to perfect Direct Methanol fuel cells, compared to hydrogen fuel cells. They powers that be want us on electricity.

This is really a funny thing because direct methanol is being almost completely overlooked as people search for the perfect way to store hydrogen. They've looked at fuel tanks filled with microtubes, many experimental cars use refrigeration and extreme pressure to keep it liquid at like -200 degrees at high pressure, and then there's people saying "Put the hydrogen back into Methanol, then take it out...then put it back!". Which is why reformers are more common than direct methanol...everyone wants hydrogen NOW.

It's unlikely that we'll ever see large scale transportation of hydrogen tanks, due to the fact that a huge tanks holds very little of the fuel at acceptable pressures and ambient temperature. Microtubes are a great idea but I'm not seeing a lot of progress there, sounds almost like science fiction except that they really DO exist (they're simply not that easy to produce).

I don't have my research handy, nor my project sumaries or any of that, I don't keep it in my portfolio because telling people Hydrogen isn't a good solution (and won't be for many years) is like telling them you'd like to steal their baby.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
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