[ausev] hydrogen efficiency

[Gil Dawson]

This message has three subsubjects: 1) Capacitors in Austin, 2) 
Hydrogen in the atmosphere, and 3) A new plea for Production electric 
cars.


1) Capacitors in Austin

At 2:02 P -0500 6/2/08, Ian Ward wrote:
>we also have a local company working on potentially amazing capacitors.

In Austin?  Oh, who, Ian?  Tell! Tell!


2) Hydrogen in the atmosphere

At 12:57 P -0500 6/2/08, m. edmund howse wrote:
>I can't believe hydrogen if set free could escape the atmosphere

You're quite right.  Some does leave* (it's lighter than helium, 
after all), but most is reabsorbed into the soil or, as you pointed 
out, recombined into other chemicals.  So much is constantly being 
generated that there's plenty of hydrogen gas (H2) still here in our 
atmosphere.

I Googled "hydrogen in the atmosphere" and got several very 
authoritative-looking papers measuring how much hydrogen gas (H2) is 
in the atmosphere and how it's changing (automobiles emit a lot.) 
You're right -- there's tons of hydrogen gas -- H2, not part of any 
other molecule -- in the atmosphere**.

Helium does get lost to space***, apparently, but then there's much 
less of it being generated (from radioactive decay.)


3) A new plea for Production electric cars

As we're off topic anyway, I'd like to point out that advances in 
technology are not needed for us to own electric cars.  Most messages 
on this list (until this past week) are all about people building 
electic cars with technology that's on shelves somewhere right now.

Those of us unwilling to do the work to make ourselves a car, 
however, don't have much in the way of alternatives.  Here's a cool 
video posted just hours ago that laments this lack in an engaging way:

 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOVdEKuQR1g>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOVdEKuQR1g


--Gil


References:

*-Hydrogen is ... the most abundant [element] in the universe... 
Because hydrogen gas is so light, most of it escaped from the lower 
atmosphere early in the Earth's history.

    http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/1001.php


**-The troposphere has an estimated 155 Tg of hydrogen gas:
    [I think Tg means Teragrams. --Gil]

    http://www.princeton.edu/~chm333/2004/Hydrogen/h2_atmosphere.htm


***-Helium, the second most abundant element in the universe,... 
makes up about 0.0005% of the earth's atmosphere. This trace amount 
of helium is not gravitationally bound to the earth and is constantly 
lost to space.

    http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele002.html


--Gil
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