Friday, December 13, 2013

Please don't give up, things are startin to change...

I heard a conversation down at the diner the other night that was the most hopeful thing I've heard in ages.  I heard a couple of rather red-neck good ol' boys discussing climate change... and they weren't cussing it as a lie, they were putting some serious common sense to the problem, the kind of thought that in the long run is what just might turn the problem around.  A most hopeful thing, most hopeful.  These are the guys who feed the nation, and a bunch of folks beyond that, they're the ones who live closer to mother nature than 99% of folks, and they were talking like they were convinced the lady needs some help.  Yup, it was a most hopeful thing because these guys are the kind where if a lady needs help you put the beer back in the cooler and postpone the friday fistfight until you've gotten her taken care of.

I'm not among their number, I'm tolerated after a fashion as one of those crazy damn liberals who every now and then makes a little bit of sense.  But when I heard them talking about how to farm major plots of land without diesal power, when they were talking about the legacy technology of steam and starting the process of figuring out how to bring it back better than it was I was totally amazed, and totally delighted. 

I didn't butt in, I just listened, but I'm totally onboard with the idea of replacing diesal engines with hydrogen fired steam, and for more things than just farming.  Peterbuilt, Kenworth, Volvo, are you listening?  Totally clean burn, nothing but water in the exhaust and plenty of power to take a side stream and leave the combustion air cleaner than you found it.  And, being a crazy liberal and all I was looking a bit further down the line and thinking there's is an awful lot of sunshine falling on the south pacific that could be harvested to crack hydrogen off of sea water, essentially unloading at least part of the energy burden off the land areas.  As a side benefit of significant impact such a change would go a long way towards restoring the merchant marine as a major employer, someone would have to go fetch the full fuel cells and do the maintenance on the production bouys riding the currents.  That... would get the sailors back in the game, and if there's one bunch of folks who can compete with the farmers for making it happen one way or another it's the sailors.   
© FWT22319, aka at

4 comments:

  1. pipQuixoteDecember 13, 2013 at 6:18 PM

    like i've been sayin', 'nos, there's still some room for optimism. sometimes believing in a lie just requires too much self-delusion. somebody said, "the truth will out". can't remember who it was, but i heard 'em...

    ;) pip

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  2. jochanaanDecember 13, 2013 at 8:42 PM

    Good, hopeful signs indeed! I also take comfort in how Nebraska ranchers blocked the Keystone XL pipeline through the Nebraska Sandhills. (The corporate lawyers who tried to force these ranch folk to cede their lands for this boondoggle of an environmental disaster--well, they tangled with the wrong folks! I grew up in the Sandhills. Those folks are sensible and tough, and their eyes are being opened. Yes, they still like the Tea Party despite its megacorporate backers, but they're starting to realize just how badly they're being screwed. For more information, browse Keystone XL or the "I Stand With Randy" campaign.)

    We can only pray that it's happening fast enough and in time...

    (How viable is hydrogen fuel? As someone with a more technical background than I, perhaps you can address concerns about whether we can actually get more energy out of burning hydrogen than we put into its production.)

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    Replies
    1. Cyranos DeMetDecember 14, 2013 at 1:31 AM

      I'm down with the idea of the hydrogen fuels for mobile power provided they're being generated from an ambient, ie solar, energy source. The pacific ocean is a huge area with lots of sun, and very predictable currents... a place to employ the drone/robotic technologies in the form of an unmanned system of solar powered production buoys floating with the currents. Trying for a balanced energy load on the planet... any form of fossil fuel is in essence just fossil sunlight being released along with the carbon that stored it for us, IMO the first step in cleaning up the eco-systems involves converting to a power source based on current energies, not ancient ones. I don't advocate building a whole bunch more nuclear power plants, but again IMO those already in service should spend the remainder of their commissions generating hydrogen for fuels while the drone buoys are being built and deployed (and of course, continuously improved for efficiency and yield). The problem of their waste materials is already on the table anyway, use them to minimize the transition times. And of course best effort to cut the loading on the domestic power grids so the nukes can pull off to power the farmers and the transport fleet, and, and yea... it's a huge subject and in reality mobile power just one facet to be considered.

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    2. jochanaanDecember 14, 2013 at 9:31 PM

      Well, if solar power can be the motivating force--and as you say, all of our power ultimately comes from the sun, either present or past--I'm for it too.

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