Re: population growth & physics ed

["Tom K. McCarthy" <mcca6300@spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov>]

On Wed, 24 Jul 1996, Paul Camp wrote:

> Also, there is a problem with making the stuff. Unless a practical 
> means is developed for using solar energy to crack H2O, you have to 
> electrolyze it using either nuclear or petroleum generation for you 
> electricity and then you're back where you started.
> Somebody whose name I can't recall was working on a 
> solar facility to simply make the water so hot that it spontaneously 
> dissociated but I don't know if anything ever came of that.

Hydrogen and oxygen are the products of an electrolytic solution 
involving sulfuric acid, where the acid acts as a catalyst.  With a few 
volts, water easily decomposes.  It would seem that this could be 
"easily" extended to huge designs with the use of solar.

> Mostly, though, I expect the biggest reason is the enormous economic 
> investment in distribution and production facilities for petroleum. 
> Likely we won't change to anything else until we've burned all the 
> oil.

This is very disheartening but, if things get bad enough, the end of oil 
could occur much sooner.


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TK McCarthy, PhD   Email:mcca6300@spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov