RE: hydrazine hydrate

Paul,

Sorry that before I posted my comment on Sunday I didn't get chance to read
several of your previous email traffic on the entire hydrazine hydrate (HH)
fuel discussions. I thought you were just talking about hydrazine and not HH
liquid fuels.... my apology.

However, I still believe that "lugging our transportation to the energy of
the Sun" is the best bet for the long (or even short) term profitability of
the automakers or for the US competitiveness and national security in the
increasingly global economy. Yes, there may be a need of a transition period
to use GEM plug-ins liquid fuels before the EVs could come to dominate the
commercial market.

Best regards,

Feng

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Godwin
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 11:45 AM
To: 'Paul J. Werbos, Dr.'; Feng; BobKrone; 'Global
Energy Network'
Subject: RE: hydrazine hydrate

Paul is right in many respects.

The issues are only partly engineering ones. We know that technically there
are many things that we can do with our engineering dream list.

But in the down and dirty daily grind of business, the profit motive is all
powerful. This all powerful icon is powered not just by technical knowledge,
but also by marketability to the consumer. If the consumer doesn't like it,
for whatever reason then it's not going to sell. There are many reasons that
the consumer might not buy something, one of which is the price. Most
"consumer units" just try to survive on a day to day basis. They would love
the leave a clean planet to their children, or probably not to buy oil from
the middle-east, but their pocketbook might dictate otherwise.

These are the issues that need equal billing with technical proficiency. If
we don't understand this then we have no chance convincing the power brokers
in industry. (not politicians because they'll support anything that might
help them get re-elected)

Am I preaching to the choir here?

RG

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul J. Werbos, Dr.
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2007 1:06 PM
To: Feng; Bob; richard; 'Global Energy Network'

Subject: hydrazine hydrate

One of you stated:

>Look, High altitude wind can make 10,000 times more energy than the
>current human energy budget. So can deep geothermal. And solar
>is also adequate. All can be converted to electricity, and we can
>run transportation quite easily on 90% electricity.

Being an engineer, I know full well how reality is rather different
from the kind of logic that
somehow seems to survive in the worlds of talk shows and political advocacy.

To learn what real engineers think about these issues, look at least at:

http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/phev/program.asp

IEEE -- the world's largest society of engineers and scientists --
strongly supports the idea of
electrification, as you can see from any of our slides. (Click on
names to see them.)
But as engineers, we have an obligation to present the truth as
objectively as we can.
We strongly support the research which has maximum POTENTIAL to lead
to all-electric cars
acceptable to the consumer. HOWEVER, it would be grossly dishonest at
this time to pretend
we know for sure that we are ready to produce batteries good enough
and cheap enough
to allow an all-electric car and truck system acceptable to the
consumer. And most of us
think it would be both unrealistic and undesirable to propose to
FORCE everyone to buy
cars with 40-mile driving range when 300-mile range is available elsewhere.

In fuzzy bar-room type thinking, people seem to feel you have to
worship the omnipotence and
omniscience of the One True Fuel, or else you must be a traitor, a
heretic and an enemy.
OK -- I declare that electricity is not the One True God. IEEE likewise.

But -- we will never be able to solve the complex energy problems we
face if we descend into
that kind of bar-room thinking and intellectual dishonesty.

It is not proper or politically realistic to imagine the US
government picking winners and losers
between oil and electricity. More precisely -- the only politically
realistic possibility out there
right now like that is continued enforcement of the monopoly by the
fuel which is presently in charge,
good old fashioned conventional oil. The most powerful advocate in
the US government right now
happens to represent a company with headquarters in Dubai.

Our only realistic hope is to build a coalition which represents the
more traditional American policy
of COMPETITION -- and that means opening up the market to stuff we might
like
and stuff we might not like, and let the consumers decide.

IN ADDITION: when people draw extreme conclusions based on the
assumption that methane, ethane, ethanol and methanol
are all the same thing, or that hydrazine is the same thing as
hydrazine hydrate with additives,
then we are in very deep trouble. I understand how people might not
know about these things, but to act dogmatic
AS IF one knew while getting it totally wrong... will not help us
solve the life-or-death problems we face.

========================================

Best of luck to us all,

Paul

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