A Golf course has a lot in common with a road when you get right down to it. That's not a popular view though, is it? It's a little like saying, "hey, your mother's ugly" or worse, meeting your friend's new baby and saying it's head isn't the right shape.
When you go out golfing you do it for the sport, for the exercise, maybe even for the cameraderie, but rarely, if at all, to criticize the developer of the golf course for having made the thing in the first place.
Face it, the guy who developed your local greens is probably outside more often than you and he knows a lot more about things like walkways for ducks and geese or how to keep offending critters and the dung they leave behind in someone elses backyard. He alone cares what is under the tender footfalls of the avid bunch teeing off in the morning mist.
He knows the lie of the land and how to arrange it so there isn't a bunch of junk in the middle of everything like beer bottles, cans of pop, fast-food wrappers, barrels of PCBs and used needles. He is a saint for the sake of his property. He does what Tolkien does in "Leaf by Niggle". He tends his garden and earns his wings as his satisfaction grows in accomplishment.
Meanwhile, as he grows older and he diverts a stream or two to make way for expanded fairways or a creek runs dry from suburban encroachment, he sprays pecticides for grubs and anti-fungal agents to combat leaf mold.
Then he gets cancer and dies at home with his loving family in attendance all around him. He goes to the big golf course in the sky and leaves his earthbound riches to his children. And suddenly it doesn't matter that his son has the worst slice of anyone he's ever seen swing a driver or that it is his daughter whose handicap is pro-ready also has a head for business.
He lived. He golfed. He died.
Friday, March 19, 2004
hemp bindings -- it's a family thing
The time I went to the southern shore of Lake Scugog to see members of my extended family, I was late. Of course nobody said it out loud, but I reminded an awful lot of people of my great uncle who kept his own time no matter what the occasion.
I can only imagine that from the dawn of humanity’s advanced knowledge of hours, minutes and seconds, my family has produced at least one person in every generation who has always missed the cukoo.
Read the Rest
A little taste of short fiction from my files.
I can only imagine that from the dawn of humanity’s advanced knowledge of hours, minutes and seconds, my family has produced at least one person in every generation who has always missed the cukoo.
Read the Rest
A little taste of short fiction from my files.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
fuel strategy hasn't evolved
An evalutation of fuel policy clearly shows trending toward increased performance of gasoline powered vehicles, not in a decrease upon the dependancy of the automobile industry and resulting economies (hence social structures) on the use of oil.
It is generally accepted that automobile manufacturers, on average, increase gasoline fuel efficiency roughly one per cent per year using gasoline as the fuel of choice. This statistic reflects a continuation of feature-sets now expected by customers such as air-conditioning, anti-lock brakes, and an increase in automation and in-cab power usage which drain engine power resources and by that token have an impact on efficiency.
Nat'l Academies Press, Review of the Research Program of the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles: (1998), page 72, in chapter 5 Fuel Strategy
Several key technologies are said to prevent the commercialization of fuel cell technology in transportation. The first, and perhaps the most important development required, is a 'safe' hydrogen storage system. Current designs using up to 5000 psi tanks are considered too dangerous by industry insiders, even a security threat by government regulators, as any explosion could be fatal. Fortunately several properties of hydrogen make the gas less dangerous than gasoline. It takes more concentration of hydrogen than gasoline to ignite, and as a gas hydrogen dissipates into the atmosphere quickly and without toxic effect.
The second hurdle for fuel cells is cold starting. In this, the development of either a system to prevent water from freezing, or a chemical additive to water that does not decrease the electrical efficiency of the chemical reaction need to take place. True, there is heat during this chemical cycle and water is a byproduct of combining oxygen and hydrogen in this process, but the water required to run a fuel cell does not originate from the fuel cell during start-up. It has to come from an external source because it is on a different side of the electrolyte.
The startup water is used to make the 8 micron Nafion (TM) membrane between cells wet as an aid to protons from the hydrogen to pass through to the cathode side of the cell.
It is this polymer membrane, licensed by Dupont to companies such as Ballard Power Systems, that is the 'electrolyte' of the fuel cell 'battery'. In lead acid batteries sulfuric acid is the electrolyte used in the chemical storage/release of electricity.
Ice would not allow the fuel cell vehicle to start to begin the process of reaching it's optimum operating temperature of 80 degrees Celcius, as in the case of the Regenerative Proton Exchange Membrane-based fuel cell.
To some extent gasoline powered vehicles have a similar limitation in climates where the needle routinely dips below minus 30 degrees. The author of this piece knows this intimately as on the evening of his first child's birth he forgot to plug the car in at the hospital and could not start the car to get home in the morning, although the birth turned out just fine, thank you.
The solution, as mentioned, is to plug a gasoline-powered car in to avoid the cold cranking problems associated with frozen batteries having too little amperage in that state to turn the car over. Putting further pressure on this behavior is overly thick (viscous) oil in the pan requiring more battery power to get the crank shaft and related assemblies started. The usual end result is a dead battery and/or the need for a cold boost.
At their current stage of development fuel cells would likely require plugging-in during down time to allow cold starting at any time, a scenario many of us are quite used to. Admittedly, this ice idea is a slight oversimplification of the problem, but it does serve to illustrate how the market overcomes gaps in technology which may not always be designed for universal acceptance -- as the passenger vehicle of today is not designed for universal use rolling off today's assembly lines.
Several aftermarket initiatives and/or dealer options, however, are available to deal with the severity of climate. One is an electric blanket used to shroud batteries during non-use that plug into standard electrical outlets. Another is a 'glow' plug inserted into the lower portion of a vehicle's engine block to warm the oil there and yet another performs the same task in the form of a heated dipstick.
A combination of these methods are used to avoid the cold-cranking difficulty, all of which require power from an external source on the order of one 40 watt incandescent light bulb.
The impact of these technological shortfalls in fuel cell vehicles is to delay their entry into market. The British government, Ballard Power Systems, The US government and others all have documents stating fuel cells will not begin entering into the marketplace until 2010-2012.
One source in Great Britain's Department of Trade and Industry is an Energy Innovation expert in Fuel Cells; Systems Electricity Technologies. This source agreed that the reason Iceland predicts it will not enter a hydrogen economy until roughly 2040 is that its market is too small to fuel hydrogen product development. Keeping in mind that this nation of approximately 200,000 people has nearly limitless geothermal electrical generation capability to produce a 'clean' supply of portable energy and it becomes apparent that what happens in the United States with respect to fuel policy has important and long lasting consequences for everyone.
While Iceland waits for the rest of us to catch up the most recent fuel policy amendments in the US call for ethanol to become more important in the marketplace.
Like gasoline from crude oil, ethanol is hydrogen rich. A new process to convert ethanol to hydrogen for use in a high-temperature fuel cell (approx. 120 degrees Centigrade) recently made public by researchers at MIT hasn't been commercialized yet. The promise of this technology is to extract three times the electrical energy from ethanol as hydrogen for use in a fuel cell than is available from the fuel by burning it in an internal combustion engine (ICE).
Comparatively, in terms of emissions and net energy density this makes ethanol an important choice in the transition to hydrogen as the fuel of choice.
No other policy comes as close to realizing the dream of hydrogen as a fuel source from renewable and relatively 'clean' energy.
And tomorrow I will tell you the reason why pumping this wonder fuel into the next generation of empty tanks is not in the best interests of business, government or consumers despite the apparent equilibrium its adoption would maintain within this economic backbone.
It is generally accepted that automobile manufacturers, on average, increase gasoline fuel efficiency roughly one per cent per year using gasoline as the fuel of choice. This statistic reflects a continuation of feature-sets now expected by customers such as air-conditioning, anti-lock brakes, and an increase in automation and in-cab power usage which drain engine power resources and by that token have an impact on efficiency.
Nat'l Academies Press, Review of the Research Program of the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles: (1998), page 72, in chapter 5 Fuel Strategy
Several key technologies are said to prevent the commercialization of fuel cell technology in transportation. The first, and perhaps the most important development required, is a 'safe' hydrogen storage system. Current designs using up to 5000 psi tanks are considered too dangerous by industry insiders, even a security threat by government regulators, as any explosion could be fatal. Fortunately several properties of hydrogen make the gas less dangerous than gasoline. It takes more concentration of hydrogen than gasoline to ignite, and as a gas hydrogen dissipates into the atmosphere quickly and without toxic effect.
The second hurdle for fuel cells is cold starting. In this, the development of either a system to prevent water from freezing, or a chemical additive to water that does not decrease the electrical efficiency of the chemical reaction need to take place. True, there is heat during this chemical cycle and water is a byproduct of combining oxygen and hydrogen in this process, but the water required to run a fuel cell does not originate from the fuel cell during start-up. It has to come from an external source because it is on a different side of the electrolyte.
The startup water is used to make the 8 micron Nafion (TM) membrane between cells wet as an aid to protons from the hydrogen to pass through to the cathode side of the cell.
It is this polymer membrane, licensed by Dupont to companies such as Ballard Power Systems, that is the 'electrolyte' of the fuel cell 'battery'. In lead acid batteries sulfuric acid is the electrolyte used in the chemical storage/release of electricity.
Ice would not allow the fuel cell vehicle to start to begin the process of reaching it's optimum operating temperature of 80 degrees Celcius, as in the case of the Regenerative Proton Exchange Membrane-based fuel cell.
To some extent gasoline powered vehicles have a similar limitation in climates where the needle routinely dips below minus 30 degrees. The author of this piece knows this intimately as on the evening of his first child's birth he forgot to plug the car in at the hospital and could not start the car to get home in the morning, although the birth turned out just fine, thank you.
The solution, as mentioned, is to plug a gasoline-powered car in to avoid the cold cranking problems associated with frozen batteries having too little amperage in that state to turn the car over. Putting further pressure on this behavior is overly thick (viscous) oil in the pan requiring more battery power to get the crank shaft and related assemblies started. The usual end result is a dead battery and/or the need for a cold boost.
At their current stage of development fuel cells would likely require plugging-in during down time to allow cold starting at any time, a scenario many of us are quite used to. Admittedly, this ice idea is a slight oversimplification of the problem, but it does serve to illustrate how the market overcomes gaps in technology which may not always be designed for universal acceptance -- as the passenger vehicle of today is not designed for universal use rolling off today's assembly lines.
Several aftermarket initiatives and/or dealer options, however, are available to deal with the severity of climate. One is an electric blanket used to shroud batteries during non-use that plug into standard electrical outlets. Another is a 'glow' plug inserted into the lower portion of a vehicle's engine block to warm the oil there and yet another performs the same task in the form of a heated dipstick.
A combination of these methods are used to avoid the cold-cranking difficulty, all of which require power from an external source on the order of one 40 watt incandescent light bulb.
The impact of these technological shortfalls in fuel cell vehicles is to delay their entry into market. The British government, Ballard Power Systems, The US government and others all have documents stating fuel cells will not begin entering into the marketplace until 2010-2012.
One source in Great Britain's Department of Trade and Industry is an Energy Innovation expert in Fuel Cells; Systems Electricity Technologies. This source agreed that the reason Iceland predicts it will not enter a hydrogen economy until roughly 2040 is that its market is too small to fuel hydrogen product development. Keeping in mind that this nation of approximately 200,000 people has nearly limitless geothermal electrical generation capability to produce a 'clean' supply of portable energy and it becomes apparent that what happens in the United States with respect to fuel policy has important and long lasting consequences for everyone.
While Iceland waits for the rest of us to catch up the most recent fuel policy amendments in the US call for ethanol to become more important in the marketplace.
Like gasoline from crude oil, ethanol is hydrogen rich. A new process to convert ethanol to hydrogen for use in a high-temperature fuel cell (approx. 120 degrees Centigrade) recently made public by researchers at MIT hasn't been commercialized yet. The promise of this technology is to extract three times the electrical energy from ethanol as hydrogen for use in a fuel cell than is available from the fuel by burning it in an internal combustion engine (ICE).
Comparatively, in terms of emissions and net energy density this makes ethanol an important choice in the transition to hydrogen as the fuel of choice.
No other policy comes as close to realizing the dream of hydrogen as a fuel source from renewable and relatively 'clean' energy.
And tomorrow I will tell you the reason why pumping this wonder fuel into the next generation of empty tanks is not in the best interests of business, government or consumers despite the apparent equilibrium its adoption would maintain within this economic backbone.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
murk my wurds
OK. This Chinese thing is really bugging me.
I hate to be self-referential, but I recently posted some hazy welcome to China into the fold of industrialized polluters with little regard for how truculent my words must have sounded.
I'm sorry. I should have mentioned that China should be applauded for its announcement after winning the open bid to host the Olympics in Beijing that Tiananmen Square has been officially declared a counter-revolutionary plot and that the nation was entirely within its mandate to protect its citizenry against such an outrage of student rebellion.
But, you know... for some people that isn't just water under the bridge like it is for me.
http://www.iht.com/articles/509824.html
Mainland China. Wow. What a concept. I just want to take a moment to lay out the foundation upon which the next round of market wars should be played out.
From a humanist's perspective then it is my belief that legislators in 'democratic' nations seeking to slow the perceptible impact of Chinese labor and production costs for quite worthy high quality products should now consider drafting tariffs designed to slow Chinese economic growth on three key areas: environment (the company's from democratic nations who flood markets with disposable products made in China should help pay for the cleanup of garbage); human rights auditing (wages and working conditions are important facts contributing to stability -- do we want blood on our hands if the bottom suddenly falls out and the machine is turned to war); ...
Awww fiddlesticks.. who am I kidding? It should be the Chinese themselves that levy new tariffs on these and similar issues. Slowing growth and making money to run the government are good things. And what better way is there to make money than to focus on the well being of worthwhile people who just want to live and have fun watching their child grow up?
-- nobody said it was going to be easy for me to be right --
I hate to be self-referential, but I recently posted some hazy welcome to China into the fold of industrialized polluters with little regard for how truculent my words must have sounded.
I'm sorry. I should have mentioned that China should be applauded for its announcement after winning the open bid to host the Olympics in Beijing that Tiananmen Square has been officially declared a counter-revolutionary plot and that the nation was entirely within its mandate to protect its citizenry against such an outrage of student rebellion.
But, you know... for some people that isn't just water under the bridge like it is for me.
http://www.iht.com/articles/509824.html
Mainland China. Wow. What a concept. I just want to take a moment to lay out the foundation upon which the next round of market wars should be played out.
From a humanist's perspective then it is my belief that legislators in 'democratic' nations seeking to slow the perceptible impact of Chinese labor and production costs for quite worthy high quality products should now consider drafting tariffs designed to slow Chinese economic growth on three key areas: environment (the company's from democratic nations who flood markets with disposable products made in China should help pay for the cleanup of garbage); human rights auditing (wages and working conditions are important facts contributing to stability -- do we want blood on our hands if the bottom suddenly falls out and the machine is turned to war); ...
Awww fiddlesticks.. who am I kidding? It should be the Chinese themselves that levy new tariffs on these and similar issues. Slowing growth and making money to run the government are good things. And what better way is there to make money than to focus on the well being of worthwhile people who just want to live and have fun watching their child grow up?
-- nobody said it was going to be easy for me to be right --
babblestalking defined
Sometimes I surprise even myself. The awful part of it is that I get away with it. Really, surprising yourself sneaks up on you like the smell of a distant and very veiny looking cheese. Vericose veiny if you know what I mean?
Lately, I have been writing letters to people because I caught a bug, and I can feel its presence as if it were alive... I have become exactly what the bug infected me for in the first place. I have become a Babblestalker.
And it doesn't confine me to stalking people with my babble in just one rudimentary language or in some glottal atonality. No, I use Internet translation services to hack my vernacular slants into other languages and send off what I consider to be VIM (Very Intelligent Missives) to 'deserving' parties.
The only true cure will come with a flood of VIMs from other Babblestalkers with bugs bigger than mine. Then my bug would learn its worth, and like some vampire staked to the elemental earth it could die its mortal death like the rest of us.
-- babblestalk me if you care --
-- babblestalk me if you dare --
-- babblestalk me high --
-- babblestalk me low --
-- babblestalk through your dreams --
-- until babblestalking grows --
Lately, I have been writing letters to people because I caught a bug, and I can feel its presence as if it were alive... I have become exactly what the bug infected me for in the first place. I have become a Babblestalker.
And it doesn't confine me to stalking people with my babble in just one rudimentary language or in some glottal atonality. No, I use Internet translation services to hack my vernacular slants into other languages and send off what I consider to be VIM (Very Intelligent Missives) to 'deserving' parties.
The only true cure will come with a flood of VIMs from other Babblestalkers with bugs bigger than mine. Then my bug would learn its worth, and like some vampire staked to the elemental earth it could die its mortal death like the rest of us.
-- babblestalk me if you care --
-- babblestalk me if you dare --
-- babblestalk me high --
-- babblestalk me low --
-- babblestalk through your dreams --
-- until babblestalking grows --
immuno-intelligence
When she came to the door yesterday the young woman with the badge that read 'In Training' wanted me to sponsor a child for World Vision. Since the moment she walked away with a happy expression on her face and a spring in her step I haven't been able to live with myself.
It was like she knew I wasn't the person I tell people I am the entire time she spoke with me. In the dull tones that I gave her, in my refusal to even touch the brochure with the picture of a happy young lad she had proffered to me, I gave away the essential, tight-fisted, and ultimately, lamentable me.
Silently, I even questioned the value of going into a developing nation and teaching people for which there may be no economic opportunity. Maybe waves of immigration to my country will follow from putting expectations in someone's head who can not possibly capitalize on any of them. The gulf would exist between the educated and their ability to use what they know within a system that doesn't operate the way it is 'expected'. A new intelligentsia following blindly the dominance of market capitalism with an iron rule.
Would I be funding sustained development or would I be putting some future oligarchy into power? An entire nation into the hands of capable and experienced corporate raiders who would carve out resources as 'cost effectively' as possible and flood markets with 'inexpensive' goods.
How could I be sure that my investment would guarantee human rights, honest wages, pollution control or any of those things I can barely expect from my own countrymen? Shouldn't my money go into educating the powers-that-be in my sphere in how to manage something they barely understand themselves?
Predictably, these are the paltry pseudo-intellectual arguments I have against spending my money to save a child from a life of squatting along the edges of a landfill. A landfill that represents the only economic opportunity for the families of children who must perform a job usually reserved in my country for multiple repeat offenders on parole. The difference here is that here the parolee gets a full range of protective gear, two fifteen-minute breaks, a half-hour lunch and occasional access to the bulldozer.
-- garbage may make money as long as you are willing to risk status --
It was like she knew I wasn't the person I tell people I am the entire time she spoke with me. In the dull tones that I gave her, in my refusal to even touch the brochure with the picture of a happy young lad she had proffered to me, I gave away the essential, tight-fisted, and ultimately, lamentable me.
Silently, I even questioned the value of going into a developing nation and teaching people for which there may be no economic opportunity. Maybe waves of immigration to my country will follow from putting expectations in someone's head who can not possibly capitalize on any of them. The gulf would exist between the educated and their ability to use what they know within a system that doesn't operate the way it is 'expected'. A new intelligentsia following blindly the dominance of market capitalism with an iron rule.
Would I be funding sustained development or would I be putting some future oligarchy into power? An entire nation into the hands of capable and experienced corporate raiders who would carve out resources as 'cost effectively' as possible and flood markets with 'inexpensive' goods.
How could I be sure that my investment would guarantee human rights, honest wages, pollution control or any of those things I can barely expect from my own countrymen? Shouldn't my money go into educating the powers-that-be in my sphere in how to manage something they barely understand themselves?
Predictably, these are the paltry pseudo-intellectual arguments I have against spending my money to save a child from a life of squatting along the edges of a landfill. A landfill that represents the only economic opportunity for the families of children who must perform a job usually reserved in my country for multiple repeat offenders on parole. The difference here is that here the parolee gets a full range of protective gear, two fifteen-minute breaks, a half-hour lunch and occasional access to the bulldozer.
-- garbage may make money as long as you are willing to risk status --
Monday, March 15, 2004
a note on my panes
In my house the sun moves through windows that do not use thermal panes, are not filled in the gap between panes with argon gas and that are efficient only as a reminder of extremely high gas and electricity bills.
To provide the efficiencies required to assist in lowering my drag on greenhouse gas emissions from electrical power generation using fossil fuels I estimate it will cost me roughly $30,000. The figure is so high because not only will windows and doors have to be replaced, but all exterior walls will have to be torn out and replaced for insulation to be installed.
Add to this that the house is a storey-and-a-half without a 'proper' or more energy efficient roof design and you begin to see how little just one change will begin to pay for itself.
I seem stuck with this infrastructure like we all seem stuck on fossil fuels and the supporting role such choices play in our economic well being. Fossil fuels grease the gears and form the foundation of the 'modern' western world.
Automobile companies are stuck with their infrastructure too. Transportation, it could be argued, is the single most important technology behind our economies with the most impact on our social structure than anything man has yet to devise. Its supply chains are just that. Chains to imperfect technology made to depend on itself for creating a market. The side effect is jobs. And so, with perfection and with change automobile manufacterers act with a conservative kind of sluggishness, placing aftermarket parts in front of emission controls, weakening legislation by failing at targets for the simple fact that it is not in the interest of cash flow or product turn over. Why else would car manufacturers float the suggestion that cars of the future that would last longer would also cost more...
Fuel companies too are hardly able to take any of the studies they fund on the growth of the renewable energy market and market penetration of renewables seriously because it would devalue the immensity of their resource and power base. An infrastructure that turns to dust isn't worth selling to anyone. And if that's where your equity is and where your business turns a profit then it is very difficult to accept change other than in word, certainly not in deed. Funny enough government is now in collusion with these powerful interests -- on your behalf.
When was the last time you questioned how much tax money was spent in finding oil or natural gas deposits domestically or within easy trade-reach of your government?
In Canada the Sierra Club makes annual 'Green Budget' recommendations. Perhaps the most disturbing point to be made about Canada's readiness for decentralized, distributed power generation in the latest issue relating to using renewables is the absolute lack of centralized planning using resources that are otherwise engaged in sourcing fossil fuels. Canada has not performed a national wind mapping analysis, yet there are field personnel still working on finding and exploiting fossil fuel deposits in cooperation with the oil industry. Should the oil companies be on the tax payer's welfare role or is the way our money is spent merely a way for a nation to finance future energy security?
And if security is a matter of priority wouldn't a nation be best served by producing energy from renewables domestically?
This is where the hydrogen economy makes no sense. In reality the hydrogen economy will not fully materialize unless vehicles use hydrogen as a fuel. Similarly, decentralized power generation from renewables will not materialize unless the cost per Mw in capital costs is brought down. It is perhaps relevant then to join fuel cell vehicles using hydrogen to 'store' electricity and the distributed generation electricity grid. Making 'electric' cars that could carry a certain amount of hydrogen and that would recoup this same supply by recharging (electrolysing water to form hydrogen and oxygen) would serve emissions standards by zeroing emissions and place a demand on power from the grid.
With foresight and the appropriate legislation beefing up the power grid could be accomplished using renewable energy from decentralized sources.
As it stands, my personal infrastructure has to be paid for so that the roof over my head doesn't leak. It doesn't make me any money maintaining this. It just keeps me comfortable. That is the difference between the infrastructure my money buys me and the infrastructure car companies and fuel producers build to shelter themselves. Their infrastructure exists to earn money. Mine exists to burn it.
-- the candidate is chosen for nascent intelligence, a fertile mind in which to plant the seeds of obeisance under mentorship, and the wisdom to keep silent any secret learned --
To provide the efficiencies required to assist in lowering my drag on greenhouse gas emissions from electrical power generation using fossil fuels I estimate it will cost me roughly $30,000. The figure is so high because not only will windows and doors have to be replaced, but all exterior walls will have to be torn out and replaced for insulation to be installed.
Add to this that the house is a storey-and-a-half without a 'proper' or more energy efficient roof design and you begin to see how little just one change will begin to pay for itself.
I seem stuck with this infrastructure like we all seem stuck on fossil fuels and the supporting role such choices play in our economic well being. Fossil fuels grease the gears and form the foundation of the 'modern' western world.
Automobile companies are stuck with their infrastructure too. Transportation, it could be argued, is the single most important technology behind our economies with the most impact on our social structure than anything man has yet to devise. Its supply chains are just that. Chains to imperfect technology made to depend on itself for creating a market. The side effect is jobs. And so, with perfection and with change automobile manufacterers act with a conservative kind of sluggishness, placing aftermarket parts in front of emission controls, weakening legislation by failing at targets for the simple fact that it is not in the interest of cash flow or product turn over. Why else would car manufacturers float the suggestion that cars of the future that would last longer would also cost more...
Fuel companies too are hardly able to take any of the studies they fund on the growth of the renewable energy market and market penetration of renewables seriously because it would devalue the immensity of their resource and power base. An infrastructure that turns to dust isn't worth selling to anyone. And if that's where your equity is and where your business turns a profit then it is very difficult to accept change other than in word, certainly not in deed. Funny enough government is now in collusion with these powerful interests -- on your behalf.
When was the last time you questioned how much tax money was spent in finding oil or natural gas deposits domestically or within easy trade-reach of your government?
In Canada the Sierra Club makes annual 'Green Budget' recommendations. Perhaps the most disturbing point to be made about Canada's readiness for decentralized, distributed power generation in the latest issue relating to using renewables is the absolute lack of centralized planning using resources that are otherwise engaged in sourcing fossil fuels. Canada has not performed a national wind mapping analysis, yet there are field personnel still working on finding and exploiting fossil fuel deposits in cooperation with the oil industry. Should the oil companies be on the tax payer's welfare role or is the way our money is spent merely a way for a nation to finance future energy security?
And if security is a matter of priority wouldn't a nation be best served by producing energy from renewables domestically?
This is where the hydrogen economy makes no sense. In reality the hydrogen economy will not fully materialize unless vehicles use hydrogen as a fuel. Similarly, decentralized power generation from renewables will not materialize unless the cost per Mw in capital costs is brought down. It is perhaps relevant then to join fuel cell vehicles using hydrogen to 'store' electricity and the distributed generation electricity grid. Making 'electric' cars that could carry a certain amount of hydrogen and that would recoup this same supply by recharging (electrolysing water to form hydrogen and oxygen) would serve emissions standards by zeroing emissions and place a demand on power from the grid.
With foresight and the appropriate legislation beefing up the power grid could be accomplished using renewable energy from decentralized sources.
As it stands, my personal infrastructure has to be paid for so that the roof over my head doesn't leak. It doesn't make me any money maintaining this. It just keeps me comfortable. That is the difference between the infrastructure my money buys me and the infrastructure car companies and fuel producers build to shelter themselves. Their infrastructure exists to earn money. Mine exists to burn it.
-- the candidate is chosen for nascent intelligence, a fertile mind in which to plant the seeds of obeisance under mentorship, and the wisdom to keep silent any secret learned --
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