Hello Paul!
Replying to a message of Paul Muehlbauer to John Meroth:
 JM>> The BEST solution is fusion as one of its byproducts is
 JM>> hydrogen, which can be burned in fuel cells. The lowe
 JM>> efficiency (lower than IC engines), is more than offset by
 JM>> burning a 'waste' product of fusion and the combustion of the
 JM>> hydrogen is totally clean. The by product is water.
 PM> I beleive such a system is, at best, a few years off???? :) Decades,
 PM> more likely. I've heard that another byproduct is radioactive
 PM> material. 
I would guess that it will be shortly after the turn of the century.
15-20 years
 PM> Don't know how acurate my info is, but I think we are
 PM> finding that there is no 'good' answer to this question. To produce
 PM> power, we end up affecting something.
Physics, pure & simple. 
 PM> As to the elecric car from GM - we do not currently have a
 PM> lightweight, efficient, and portable way to store massive amounts of
 PM> electricity. This is the hold-up on any realistic electric vehicle.
 PM> Califorina can pass all the laws it wants - nothing useful will come
 PM> of it until we find a better battery.
Better rechargeable batteries will NEVER happen. The exchange of electrons 
without permanently decomposing the chemical components dictates MASSIVE 
weight for the storage media.
Fuel cells running on hydrogen or alcohol are much more efficient and, 
IMNSHO, will be the solution to the electric auto's problem.
 PM> And, as many have mentioned, even then an electric vehicle doesn't
 PM> lower energy use - it only moves the negative effects from within the
 PM> cities to out wherever the power plant is.
Unfortunately, we are all 'blessed' with the 'out of sight, out of mind' 
syndrone.
 PM> Can you imagine the power brown-outs at 5:30pm when everyone pulls
 PM> into their driveway & plugs in the vehicle???
They'll blame it on the air-conditioning.
 PM> Electric vehicles may find their nitche, but they have too many
 PM> problems to offer any solutions in the near future.
How true.
TTYL,
John Meroth
--- FleetStreet 1.17 NR
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