Branson pledges three billion dollars to fight global warming

[Kärnfysikern]

http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/06092....yils7wzl.html

"We have to limit our dependence on fossil fuels," said Branson. "We hope that this contribution will help in some small way to enable our children to enjoy this beautiful world."

Branson said Virgin Group would invest all future profits from its airline and train businesses in renewable energy initiatives within and outside the company.

To demonstrate that commitment, the company said that all "dividends, realizations and share sales" from Virgin's transportation interests "will be invested into renewable energy initiatives ... to tackle emissions related to global warming." That commitment was estimated at three billion dollars over the next 10 years.

"Basically, what we are saying is that any monies that the Virgin Group makes from our transportation business, which we'll put into developing new fuels, building ethanol plants, and hopefully, if we can come up with the right kind of new fuel, hopefully we can actually make some money out of it, which we can reinvest in more fuels."

[Kale]

I fart a lot and that must contribute, I wonder if he will give some to me

[Kärnfysikern]

I fart a lot and that must contribute, I wonder if he will give some to me

lol better watch out before environmentalist put a bounty on us polluting bodybuilders. Im sure we add our fair share of gases to the atmosphere. Maby they will take away our protein powders those bastards.

[Logan13]

http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/06092....yils7wzl.html

that 3 billion could do a whole lot more for the starving people of the world.

anyway, once we combat this "global warming", perhaps we can start concentrating on how to stop the sky from falling as well........

[spywizard]

global warming is a farce.. it is the natural eb and flow of the globe, natural progression..

remember, we have only been on the planet 6000 years..

[J.S.N.]

global warming is a farce.. it is the natural eb and flow of the globe, natural progression..

remember, we have only been on the planet 6000 years..

satire? we've been on the planet around 100,000 years, and the the variation in temperature over the past 20 years or so goes way beyond any spikes seen in the ice caps over the past 10,000 years or so.

[Kärnfysikern]

that 3 billion could do a whole lot more for the starving people of the world.

anyway, once we combat this "global warming", perhaps we can start concentrating on how to stop the sky from falling as well........

ohh yes. Someone cant armchair quarterback through world problems. But its allright to be a armchair scientist solving the worlds environmental problems Those pesky experts, what do they know. Its not like they have a edjumacation or anything in the field

[Kärnfysikern]

global warming is a farce.. it is the natural eb and flow of the globe, natural progression..

remember, we have only been on the planet 6000 years..

yupp but we have measurements for 100 000 years. Either way even if global warming isnt happening he sure will profit from investing in alternate fuels. Sooner or later we will have to switch from oil and when that happens he will cash in on it.

Branson is a cool character. Encouraging and investing in space tourism and now this

[Phreak101]

satire? we've been on the planet around 100,000 years, and the the variation in temperature over the past 20 years or so goes way beyond any spikes seen in the ice caps over the past 10,000 years or so.

100,000 years?? Who are you kidding? The human race is no more than 15,000 years old...

[Phreak101]

DP

[Logan13]

ohh yes. Someone cant armchair quarterback through world problems. But its allright to be a armchair scientist solving the worlds environmental problems Those pesky experts, what do they know. Its not like they have a edjumacation or anything in the field

aaaaaaaahahahahaaha

[Lavinco]

Combat shombat my ass. 3 billion on finding alternative fuels??

WTF!

When are they going to finally admit that you can use water as fuel? As soon as they can figure out how to make money off it I guess?

It's not even a new technology.

Water is made up of 2 things. Hydrogen and oxygen. All's you have to do is separate the hydrogen from the oxygen and you have burning fuel.

The separation is done through electrolysis (charging water). Big word for such a small task.

I tested this in my garage and it really works.

Just take a bowl of water and throw in the positive and negative terminals of a 12 volt charger and watch the magic happen.

Not quite a 3 billion dollar experiment so this also shows me that Richard Branson is just looking to make another profit.

It turns the water swampy green and creates bubbles on top of the water. These are hydrogen bubbles that are flammable. Hydrogen gas is flammable yes but not when mixed with pure oxygen or else you just have water, but separate the two and you have your solution to global warming.

I would like to take credit for this information but it's available to anyone that want's it.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=joe+cell

[Kärnfysikern]

Lavinco, if it was that easy it would have been done.
Hydrogen fuel cells are a big research area. But it hasnt been solved how to store the neccesary ammounts of hydrogen safetly. You cant store it as high preasurised gas because the container would be to heavy and it would be like driving around on a bomb. You can not store it by freezing it to a liquid because that would be insanely expensive. The solution is to store it in metalls that acts like a sponge and absorbs the hydrogen. But that also has its problem, but like I said its beeing research alot right now and the solution will be here soon.

It is also he fact that it consumes energy to produce hydrogen, you use more energy to seperate the hydrogen form the oxygen then you get back form combusting the hydrogen(or well in reality its exactly equal ammounts but all the heat energy can not be used so the net energy to us is smaller). The hydrogen acts as a battery not a fuel.
If we are going to consume electricity in order to produce fuel we need to make sure the electricity is produced cleanly.

If we used coal powerplants for instance to make hydrogen fuel the co2 released would be greater than if you run the cars on oil. This is EXACTLY why I want the world to build nuclear power plants and lots of them. That is the only realistic way for us to get rid of oil dependancy and combat polution at the same time. But offcourse the environmentalist morons are against it and because of that they are hurting what they are trying to protect.

Today we dont have close to the electricity capacity to even run a few % of cars on hydrogen.

[Lavinco]

Have you even looked into this yourself at all or just coming up with your theories on your own because it has been successfully figured out. As a matter of fact it is so simple that this is why it has been so hush hush for years. Because there is still BIG money in oil and until we actually get close to running out, there is no way that every car will be allowed to run on water.
Our government just will not allow that because it would kill the economy.

It only takes 12 volts and 1 amp to produce hydrogen from water. A car battery with it's existing alternator is more than sufficient to power a fuel cell. Furthermore, some people claim that they can get 400 miles to the gallon of water they burn.

There are several ways to produce hydrogen gas too. There is Browns gas, the Joe cell and a hydrogen fuel cell to name a few. Each one is different from the other but comes up with the same end result.

GM is currently working on incorporating this technology into its vehicles, but one can only assume that they have not done so yet because of the threat to the oil industry.

The world revolves around oil. Think about it! No more gas stations. What would life be like without gas stations?

Gas stations are the ones that make it possible for the government to get paid. In the US, they automatically charge you over 40 cents a gallon just for tax.

I have friends who own Gas stations and it is a fact that the only value gas is to a store owner is the draw. To get people in there store to purchase other products. The milk is always in the back of the store so that customers are forced to walk through the store and possible impulsively buy something else.

If gas is selling for $2.999 a gallon then their wholesale cost is only a few cents below the retail cost. Here's how they lose their ass; Now the gas prices are coming down. Lets say today retail gas sold for 2.999 and the 10,000 gallon gas tanks were just filled up at a cost of 2.95. There is a potential to profit $490.00 from that tank if no one drives off. The problem is tomorrow when the retail gas prices drops down to $2.799. Now the gas station owner is losing .15 cents a gallon. before the gas truck comes back to fill the tank again at a lower cost. This is why gas prices go up faster than they come down because the loss on the way down can sometimes close a business.

The government never participates in any losses to gas. Just because the retail cost goes down does not mean that the tax on the gas changes. If the store owner does make any profit from the gas, when he does his taxes at the end of the year, he will also have to pay taxes for his profit. Another loss to the store owner of 30%.

So in conclusion, until the government can figure out how to tax us for water, then they will not allow mass production of alternative fuels.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...57&q=fuel+cell

Lavinco, if it was that easy it would have been done.
Hydrogen fuel cells are a big research area. But it hasnt been solved how to store the neccesary ammounts of hydrogen safetly. You cant store it as high preasurised gas because the container would be to heavy and it would be like driving around on a bomb. You can not store it by freezing it to a liquid because that would be insanely expensive. The solution is to store it in metalls that acts like a sponge and absorbs the hydrogen. But that also has its problem, but like I said its beeing research alot right now and the solution will be here soon.

It is also he fact that it consumes energy to produce hydrogen, you use more energy to seperate the hydrogen form the oxygen then you get back form combusting the hydrogen(or well in reality its exactly equal ammounts but all the heat energy can not be used so the net energy to us is smaller). The hydrogen acts as a battery not a fuel.
If we are going to consume electricity in order to produce fuel we need to make sure the electricity is produced cleanly.

If we used coal powerplants for instance to make hydrogen fuel the co2 released would be greater than if you run the cars on oil. This is EXACTLY why I want the world to build nuclear power plants and lots of them. That is the only realistic way for us to get rid of oil dependancy and combat polution at the same time. But offcourse the environmentalist morons are against it and because of that they are hurting what they are trying to protect.

Today we dont have close to the electricity capacity to even run a few % of cars on hydrogen.

[Kärnfysikern]

Have you even looked into this yourself at all or just coming up with your theories on your own because it has been successfully figured out. As a matter of fact it is so simple that this is why it has been so hush hush for years. Because there is still BIG money in oil and until we actually get close to running out, there is no way that every car will be allowed to run on water.
Our government just will not allow that because it would kill the economy.

Producing hydrogen has been know for a long time yes. Hell we had blimps floating on hydrogen and the space shuttle is launched on hydrogen-oxygen rockets.

But it is NOT known how to store it safetly. Like I said you can not store it in gaseous form because of the explosive risk. Imagine a big gas tube exploding when a car crashes. Both cars and everything near it would be blasted to hell.

Also hydrogen difused though most materials so that is another problem.

What they are researching is metalls that suck up the hydrogen like a sponge and release it later on when put under electricity. As far as I know they still need to increase the ammount of hydrogen the metall can absorb before its economic.

It only takes 12 volts and 1 amp to produce hydrogen from water. A car battery with it's existing alternator is more than sufficient to power a fuel cell. Furthermore, some people claim that they can get 400 miles to the gallon of water they burn.

Ok let me explain.
If you use all the power in a battery to produce hydrogen and then run a car on that hydrogen it would be like trying to run the car on the electricity in the battery, you wouldnt get far.

You use exactly as much energy producing hydrogen as you get back from burning it. But you can not use 100% of the heat energy from hydrogen combustion. So if you produce hydrogen with a battery and then use the hydrogen to run a car you have less energy to run the car on than if you ran the car on the battery in the first place.

So you can not use a car battery to produce enough hydrogen to run a carb. There is not enough energy in the battery. This is simple and basic thermodynamics.

There are several ways to produce hydrogen gas too. There is Browns gas, the Joe cell and a hydrogen fuel cell to name a few. Each one is different from the other but comes up with the same end result.

What way you produce the hydrogen in is unimportant, the bottom line is, you will always use more energy to produce the hydrogen then you get back from burning it, if that wasnt the case you would have a perpetuum mobile. This is not my "own" theory. This is basic thermodynamics and energy conservation.

GM is currently working on incorporating this technology into its vehicles, but one can only assume that they have not done so yet because of the threat to the oil industry.

GM doesnt controll the various universities in various countries researching hydrogen fuel cells. There is no cover up in the academic world about this. The problems are well known and about to be solved.

So in conclusion, until the government can figure out how to tax us for water, then they will not allow mass production of alternative fuels.

they wouldnt have to tax the water, they would earn money from electricity tax. The bottom line is, if we want to run the cars on hydrogen we must increase our electricity production ALOT. Hydrogen is only a energy storage medium, not a energy producer.

[Lavinco]

Well seems how you know everything about hydrogen gas, I guess you have no need to do a Google video search and see how people have successfully powered cars off water without the use of mass electricity.

If you read in my first post, I told of how I did my own garage experiment with a simple 12v trickle charger. It really does not take much but for some reason you disagree.

The hydrogen that I was able to produce was flammable. I know because I lit it on fire. It is flammable not not extremely explosive because the hydrogen atom is not being split like you are thinking and how hydrogen bombs are made.

[helium3]

that 3 billion could do a whole lot more for the starving people of the world.

anyway, once we combat this "global warming", perhaps we can start concentrating on how to stop the sky from falling as well........

i like the sentiment but if we dont get our act together the whole world will suffer not just the starving.global warming is one thing,its the human condition thats needs altering!

[Kärnfysikern]

I am not trying to be rude here. I am just trying to explain a misconception you have so please read this post carefully now. What you are saying is impossible. Its not something I am pulling out of my ass. Its something every textbook and every physcisist and every chemist would say aswell.

Well seems how you know everything about hydrogen gas, I guess you have no need to do a Google video search and see how people have successfully powered cars off water without the use of mass electricity.

I dont know everything about hydrogen gas. But I do know everything I need to know about reversible reactions. No ammount of goggle videos changes the baisc laws of physics. I also assume I am the only one in this thread that has acctualy studied the structure of the hydrogen atom and physics of chemical bonds and thermodynamics.

If you read in my first post, I told of how I did my own garage experiment with a simple 12v trickle charger. It really does not take much but for some reason you disagree.

I dont disagree that it is simple to produce hydrogen out of water. I have never said its hard to produce hydrogen

[U]I am simply stating that the energy required to produce 1 gram of hydrogen is exactly equal to the energy released when burning that one gram of hydrogen.[/U]
That is theoreticaly, in reality you gain back much less usable energy from the flame than you put in as electricity.

Its not only what the laws of physics stats, Its also pure logic.
think about it. If it is like you are claiming.
Say it takes 1 joule(just pulling this number out of my ass) to produce one gram of hydrogen. Now say that letting 1 gram of hydrogen react with one gram of oxygen produces 2 joules of energy.
You could use those 2 joules of energy to produce 2 grams of hydrogen that reacts with oxygen, releases 4 joules and you make 4 grams of hydrogen that reacts with oxygen and releases 8 joules and so on. That is a perpetum mobile(energy from nothing) and you would get a nobel prize for solving the worlds energy problems. It doesnt work that way.

The hydrogen that I was able to produce was flammable. I know because I lit it on fire. It is flammable not not extremely explosive because the hydrogen atom is not being split like you are thinking and how hydrogen bombs are made.

Uhm I know hydrogen is flamable. Where did I ever mention fusion? Maby there is a communication error somewhere. I dont dispute the fact that you have produced hydrogen.

I agree that it is very very simple to produce hydrogen. The process to do that has been known forever.

What I am simply stating is that you dont gain any energy from producing hydrogen and then putting it on fire. If you dont belive me ask any chemistry or physics freshman on any university in any country in the entire world and they will tell you the same thing. Energy in=energy out.


If you dont belive me read here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-te...e_electrolysis

During electrolysis, the amount of electrical energy that must be added equals the change in Gibbs free energy of the reaction plus the losses in the system. The losses can (theoretically) be arbitrarily close to zero, so the maximum thermodynamic efficiency of any electrochemical process equals 100%. In practice, the efficiency is given by electrical work achieved divided by the Gibbs Free energy change of the reaction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis

The energy efficiency of water electrolysis varies widely. The efficiency is a measure of what fraction of electrical energy used is actually contained within the hydrogen. Some of the electrical energy is converted to heat, a useless by-product. Some reports quote efficiencies between 50–70%[1] This efficiency is based on the Lower Heating Value of Hydrogen. The Lower Heating Value of Hydrogen is thermal energy released when Hydrogen is combusted. This does not represent the total amount of energy within the Hydrogen, hence the efficiency is lower than a more strict definition. Other reports quote the theoretical maximum efficiency of electrolysis. The theoretical maximum efficiency is between 80–94%.[2]. The theoretical maximum considers the total amount of energy absorbed by both the hydrogen and oxygen. These values only refer to the efficiency of converting electrical energy into hydrogen's chemical energy. The energy lost in generating the electricity is not included. For instance, when considering a power plant that converts the heat of nuclear reactions into hydrogen via electrolysis, the total efficiency is more like 25–40%.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/p.../hydrogen.html

Hydrogen does not occur free in nature in useful quantities. It has to be made, usually by splitting water H2O to get the hydrogen. This requires all the energy you are going to get from burning the hydrogen and a bit more on account of inefficiencies. Therefore, hydrogen is an energy transfer medium rather than a primary source of energy. Hydrogen is obtained by splitting water (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen. The energy to split the water should be nuclear or solar. Nuclear is cheaper.

So you se, if we where to run all cars in the world on hydrogen we would need ALOT more electricity production. It would take more electricity then if we where to run all vehicles on pure electricity since the hydrogen conversion isnt 100% efficient.

[Kärnfysikern]

I have to state aswell that I personaly think hydrogen is the only realistic option to oil since ethanol doesnt seem to promising right now.

But here are the disadvantages.

1. Takes alot of electricity(not a problem if we expand our nuclear power capacity). In the end its more expensive than oil because of this.

2. there is no safe and economic way to store the hydrogen as of right now.

3. There are considerable safety risks because of how explosive and flamable hydrogen is. Look at what happend to the Hindeburg.

4. Our existing fuel distribution network, gas stations, pipelines and so on, wont be any good in switching to a hydrogen economy since they are useless to transport hydrogen through.

[Lavinco]

Ok Mr. Encyclopedia. You just love to argue until everyone agrees with you.

If you know so much, what the **** are you doing wasting your time here talking about it for?

[Kärnfysikern]

Im going to try and make you see my point one last time, because no Im not just trying to argue with you to boost or feed my ego. Im trying to make you se where you went wrong since I know you are interested in science.


Lets say we have a simple molecule, two hydrogen atoms bonded. When the hydrogen atoms are bonded into a molecule they have less potential energy than if they where free from eachother, lets call this energy E2, this is what makes atoms want to bond togheter to form molecules. Everything always want to get into the lowest energy state.

Now if you want to separate the molecule into two atoms you must give it enough energy to break the bond. That means you have to put in a ammount of energy equal to the bond energy. That is E2.

If those 2 atoms later on bump into eachother again they bond and emitt the energy they gain from bonding and that energy is once again E2.

So energy you put in to separate=E2
Energy you get out when they react as free atoms=E2

1./ Electrolysis of water is just breaking the molecular bond betwen H and O2.

2./ Letting hydrogen burn in air is just letting H react with O2.

2 is the reverse reaction of 1 and vice versa. Energy in=energy out.

Like I said Im not trying to be rude even though I might come off as a dick sometimes. But this IS how nature works. If you choose not to belive in that by all means go ahead. I could go into more detail on why a molecule has a lower potential energy than free atoms. But what I wrote above is realy all that is needed.

[stocky121]

i dont normaly come in here much but i know branson is a really good guy he has made his billions from nothing at all he is really down to earth and the fact he is going to donate so much money just go's to prove that

[Lavinco]

Im going to try and make you see my point one last time, because no Im not just trying to argue with you to boost or feed my ego. Im trying to make you se where you went wrong......

And that's where I quit reading your reply.

[Kärnfysikern]

And that's where I quit reading your reply.

By all means, do as you wish. I cant force anyone to let go of a missconception.

[RA]

yupp but we have measurements for 100 000 years. Either way even if global warming isnt happening he sure will profit from investing in alternate fuels. Sooner or later we will have to switch from oil and when that happens he will cash in on it.

holy shit that would be one old toyota!