Charles's Comments

Thank you, Tom:

Production of hydrogen electrolytically at night when there is generally excess electrical generating capacity is an excellent use of excess generating capacity.

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

Thank you Elizabeth:

The hydrogen produced could also be used as a transport fuel when there are enough vehicles set up to be fueled with hydrogen.

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

Thank you, Tom:

In general excess energy is generated at night when usage is generally relatively low compared with usage during the day.

Electric vehicles which can be charged at night when electricity usage is low is an excellent way to store excess electrical energy produced at night when demand is relatively low.

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

Thank you, Darsun:

I think that the best source of hydrogen would be hydrogen generated electrolytically from electricity produced by wind power.

Current costs for electricity produced by wind power are approximately 5 cents per kilowatt hour.

Current equipment available for electrolysis requires about 50 kilowatt hours to produce an amount of hydrogen with an energy content equal to one gallon of gasoline.

Cost to produce an amount of hydrogen with q energy content equal to one gallon of gasoline is $2.50.
(5 cents/KWH X 50KWH)

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

I think that Ford and Westport deserve a great deal of credit and our thanks for their investment in this project.

This will help get vehicles powered by hydrogen in commercial prduction and on the road much sooner than expected.

Also deserving of a great deal of credit and our thanks is the hydrogen car company of southern California. They will sell you a new car that they have retrofitted to run on hydrogen, or they will retrofit your car to run on hydrogen. They will do this today. You do not even have to wait for the manufacturers.

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

Thank you, Tam:

That sounds great!

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

Tam:

Thank you, for a great article.

I lived in Santa Barbara in 1969. I remember the oil spill very well.

Yes, it was a huge mess.

Can you impagine how much natural gas could be saved if we were to retrofit the homes and businesses in California with solar thermal to heat hot water and also to contribute to the heating of the interior as well?

I would like to see a solar thermal initiative similar to the million solar roofs initiative that we had for solar photovoltaic systems.

If the legislature will not pass it, maybe we could get the PUC to implement it.

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

Thank you for this information. I think that this is a step in the right direction.

The critics of this will point out that storing hydrogen produced electrolytically, then burning that hydrogen in an internal combustion engine to produce electricity at a later time is inefficient.

However if the electricity is not stored when more electricity is produced by wind power than is needed at the time, 100% of that electricity is lost.

As I see it, that is really inefficient.

In my opinion, it is better to store the xcess energy, and get a fraction of that back at peak times when more electricity is needed, than to lose all of that energy because there is no way to store it.


Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

(continued)

Also, critics will point out that a fuel cell is much more efficient than an internal combustion engine, and therefore fuel cells, not the internal combustion engine should be used to generate electricity.

If there is adequate capital available to buy fuel cells that is true. However, in many cases the capital is not available to buy the fuel cells which are many times more expensive to buy than the internal combustion engine for the same amount of generating capacity.

I suspect that limited capital is the main reason they chose to use an internal combustion engine here.

In my opinion, sometimes it is better to go with what you've got and what you can get rather than to wait and hold out for perfection.

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

Thank you, Louis:

When I present a statement of fact I always have multiple sources although for purposes of brevity I generally only cite one of those sources.

There does seem to be some objection to my citation of the Friends of The Earth for environmental damage and threat of extinction of the Sumatran Tiger and the Orang-utan, done by palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Maylasia.

The other source that I have for the points that I made is from a study done at the Air Command and Staff College, Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The document is Distribution A: Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited, so I can share that document with you.

(continued)

The title of the document is:

Indonesia: An Environmetal Security assessment. The study was performed by Elizabeth B. Borelli, Major, United States Air Force. The study was performed in partial fulfillment of the graduation requirements for the Air Command and Staff College, Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

In the study, Major Borelli also points out the environmental damage done by the palm oil plantations and the threat of extinction of the Sumatran Tiger and the Orang-utan because of the environmental damage to the rain forests in those countries.

The study is 87 pages long, and I cannot do it justice at merely 1,000 characters at a time. However, if you will give me your mailing address, I will mail you a copy.

All 87 pages.

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

The State of the Union Address indicated an excessive reliance on nuclear power plants for the future electrical generating capacity of this country.

According to the contacts that I have in the electric power industry there are proposals for 50 to 100 nuclear power plants to be built in this country by the year 2020.

If these nuclear power plants plants are built they will displace renewable energy sources for the following 40 to 60 years.

We need to get the politicians seeing renewable energy sources, such as wind power as the source of new electrical generating capacity, not nuclear power plants.

We have elections coming up this year for the Senate and Congress. We will be electing a new President in 2008. We need to get active on those campaigns now, so that we will have a voice with the new members of the Congress, Senate, and the President.

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

The hydrogen generated at this unit will use natural gas as a feedstock. This is disappointing but not surprising.

At the rate natural gas prices are rising, it will be much cheaper to generate hydrogen electrolytically using electricity generated by wind power, a renewable resource, rather than natural gas, a greenhouse gas forming fossil fuel.

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield

Reply to Jon Reese:

I am quite surprised that in your response to my point about palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Maylasia, you indicated that you thought that I was talking about Ecuador. I never mentioned Ecuador at all. Did you even read my response very closely before replying to it? I doubt it.

Also, your response accusing me of Marxist rhetoric is completely inappropriate and false, and defamatory. You merely used the Marxist epithet because you did not like my respose.

I recommend that you refrain from false and defamatory responses in the future.

It is pointless to to use renewable energy sources that do more damage to the environment than the fossil fuels they replace.

Palm oil is one of those renewable energy sources that the growing of the crop does more damage to the environment than the fossil fuel it replaces.

Marx has nothing to do with it.

Charles Butterfield

Reply to Jon Reese continued:

You indicate that you are concerned with the farmer trying to make a living. There we have something in common. I am also concerned about the farmer trying to make a living.

Palm oil competes with oils grown in the United States, such as soybean oil.

The producers of Palm oil undercut farmers in the United States.

The producers of Palm oil also do an extroardinary amount of damage to the environment.

This is in contrast to farmers in the United States who do very little, if any harm to the environment, compared with the Palm oil producers in Maylaysia and Indonesia.

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield