Weekend reading 4

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1. 

   ask Posted 8:29 am
   13 May 2005

   Watch out for Hydropower (title 2)The Energy Bill's hydropower provision (title 2) isn't posted on the Senate Energy Committee's web site yet, but keep an eye out for it.
   The hydro title would give power companies special privileges and essentially silence the voices of fishermen, American Indian tribes, hikers, boaters, and the public at large when it comes to decisions about our rivers.
   Get more info at http://www.americanrivers.org/hydroreform  

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2. 

   Ana Unruh Cohen Posted 8:34 am
   13 May 2005

   Heinous HydroYep, the House hydro title was heinous. And reversed a compromise brokered with the various stakeholders in the 107th Congress. Here's hoping the Senate will do better! And prevail in a conference committee if it gets that far....
   
   "The book of nature is always open." - Louis Agassiz

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3. 

   Rebecca Sherman Posted 8:38 am
   13 May 2005

   Worst is yet to come for riversThe Senate is also considering some nasty language that - not too shockingly - gives an energy industry a backdoor exit to avoid complying with basic environmental protections.
   Title II ("Renewables") will probably hand the hydropower dam industry an exclusive right to appeal environmental conditions to the Adminstration's crony political appointees.  Are you envisioning dark room deals too?
   Even worse, these jeopardized environmental conditions are too precious to leave on the chopping block.  Just in the last year, we won two agreements that will open over 400 miles of historical habitat to salmon in the Pacific Northwest.  Forced to repair the rivers that their dams broke, the industry went crying to get the rules changed - and sadly, they found an audience in Congress.
   
   

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4. 

   odograph Posted 9:07 am
   13 May 2005

   hydrogenHmmm. $495,000,000 for hydrogen in 2006 and increases for each subsequent year.
   This despite:
   [start quote]
   Various energy fads also find their way to the federal trough. The highest profile example is President Bush's $1.7 billion "Freedom Car" initiative, which promises commercially viable hydrogen powered fuel cells in a couple of decades, though it fails to require that Detroit actually make any vehicles with these new engines.
   A bold new idea? Hardly. The same initiative -- accompanied by the same promises -- was part of President Nixon's "Project Independence." Unfortunately, hydrogen-powered fuel cells are only marginally closer to commercial viability today than they were 30 years ago.
   [end quote]
   and the news that 30 years later, we are still 30 years away:
   [start quote]
   Three researchers, who contributed to the report prepared by the National Research Council and the National Academy of Engineering on the prospects for a hydrogen economy, conclude in new article that, if achievable, it will take "several decades" to overcome technical challenges standing in the way of the mass production and use of hydrogen fuel cell cars.
   [end quote]
   I saw similar pessimism from a Ford researcher:
   [start quote]
   "This is not a moon shot, it's a Mars shot," counters Vance Zanardelli, Ford's chief engineer of hydrogen internal combustion R&D. "It's a long ways off, but the promise is so good that we want to do everything we can to make it happen." Zanardelli and Wright don't underestimate the huge challenges of hydrogen production, transportation, storage, codes and standards development, and infrastructure. Wright says mass commercialization of hydrogen vehicles is 25 to 30 years away.
   [end quote]
   I'm sorry folks, but this really looks like a financial rat-hole.  Throw in as much money as you like!
   
   

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