Comment

Comment by John Hanna on December 28, 2011 at 11:12am

Gee Whiz Eric another really long one.

Well, yes, things will change as we adjust our notion of what wealth is.

And the world is pressing on the US to live what they have brought -

we brought famine to Cuba with the Russian grain embargo a few decades ago

and yes they cooperated with each other and grew food - now most of their food is grown within their cities

and they are much healthier than us.

It may be more difficult to grow food on rooftops - unseen underlying rot and the weight of water

but it won't hurt us, lose weight better health better appreciation of nature - to grow a lot of our own food personally and it will change our perception of value.

Dryer is OK to replace if you work somewhere where they don't disrespect a bit of wrinkle or dingy due to a hand washed shirt but wow ten loads of a large family twice a week!

but that hydrogen cycle is something else

Water electrolysis takes a lot of electricity (from solar cells, steam generator from wood?) and makes a lot

of heat which I have trouble controlling when making enough hydrogen to run a cycle and

the molecules are very small and hard to store and only dangerous when mixed with the also produced oxygen

but then they can be very dangerous

He didn't mention that the small amount of driving he did in the video

took all the hydrogen he produced in a day.

but I am all for hydrogen production

use those small nuclear reactors the Japanese produce and put them off the coast to make the

hydrogen from sea water and ship it in in cylinders that can be replaced on the side of cars and viola !

Apparently the electrolysis of sea water is much more difficult than

separating pure water doped with a conductor due to handling the impurities

Solar cells will never be cheap on this planet

but produce them on the moon and whoop ! Abundant silicon - no contaminating air, low gravity

solar furnaces hot enough to melt rock at no cost , just focused mirrors, a dream for solar cells

and the rocket material for returns to the US is right there

plenty of free iron, titanium, aluminum, zinc and sulfur laying about in the regolith

which is about all you need (short of electronics) to make a big rocket

Yep and a cooperative attitude - thanks