Bush's solution to global warming?

Question

so obviously president bush doesnt give a crap about the environment. hes actually paid by the oil companies to shut up about. but what makes me laugh more is his stupidity. hydrogen technology is probably the cleanest and best way we can stop global warming. president bush know about it, what he do? well hydrogen can be produced 2 different ways...out of water....and out of fossil fuels. he signed a paper stating hydrogen must be taken from fossil fuels, which gives the oil companies more money, and it still pollutes that way! so what do we do now? take it in our own hands?

Answer 1

Eric, exactly what "paper" did president Bush sign stating that hydrogen must be taken from fossil fuels? Perhaps this is something you dreamed up last night.

Firstly, you are incorrect in your statement that hydrogen can be produced in 2 different ways. There are several ways that hydrogen can be produced, electrolysis from water being the simplest process. However, the draw back of electrolysis is that it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than is yielded by the resulting hydrogen. To produce hydrogen as you suggest results in a net loss of energy as well as producing more greenhouse gasses.

The most common way of producing hydrogen today is by steam reformation of natural gas (a fossil fuel.) This method also produces an excess of carbon dioxide, but is a more efficient way of producing hydrogen. Of course, this does NOT give the oil companies more money because oil is not involved.

Nuclear power can also be used to produce hydrogen by an electrolysis method using the extreme heat produced be the nuclear reaction. However, since nuclear power is not prevelant in the US, this method will never be able to produce enough hydrogen for a 'hydrogen economy.'

So, the two most common ways of producing hydrogen also produce greenhouse gases, and one of the methods uses more energy than is produced. How does this make hydrogen technology the "cleanest and best way we can stop global warming?"

As far as president Bush not caring about the environment, why have the levels of the six principal air pollutants continued to decline since he has become president despite the fact that population, energy consumption and vehicle miles traveled have all increased? Odd statistics for someone who "doesnt give a crap about the environment."

Its funny, you comment on the president's "stupidity" but you show a remarkable lack of understanding of the issue.

Answer 2

I think you are a little off on that one. take a look at what is below and ask yourself who cares more enviroment. If starts at home. one must lead by example and unfortunately Al Gore is unable to.

Two Houses

HOUSE # 1:
A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern "snow belt," either. It's in the South.

HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private residence of the
President of the United States, George W. Bush.

Answer 3

It is also much more cost effective to produce hydrogen from hydrocarbons than from water. All commercial hydrogen production today is via steam reforming of hydrocarbons, primarily methane, because it is the most cost effective way to produce this gas. Also, the process produces an almost pure carbon dioxide stream that can be collected and sequestered, thus preventing its emission into the atmosphere. There are in fact several projects currently in development to use this process to strip the carbon out of natural gas and sequester it and use the hydrogen for power generation.

The production of hydrogen via electrolysis of water is much less energy efficient and the energy must come from somewhere. You should check the facts before making statements of this type. And you should also learn to use proper grammar before you try and convince people you know anything.

Answer 4

Even if global warming were true, what are you going to do to stop it? Seriously, what? Throw a plastic bottle in a bin so it can be reused? have people forgotten that plants absorb CO2 and spit out O2? Or that carbon dioxide reacts with other constiuents in the air?

People who support global warming say they are a minority and ostricised by society . Look just on the responses to this. who is getting all of the thumbs down? All the "deniers". And the researcher at NASA who got recently crucified by the media for saying global warming is not a top priority. It goes farther than that even.

you want another tip on how to lower carbon dioxide? Stop breathing because you exhale carbon dioxide.

Answer 5

Bush has no solution to global warming and it doesn't really matter that he doesn't. The solution will be solar power, and solar will soon be so profitable that no government need give it a helping hand.

Right now, the solar market is being altered by a German law that creates special incentives. Supply is ramping up, but Germany has especially large demand.

A US solar plan will benefit from the Germans going first. Germany will have old equipment, we'll have the newer next-gen equipment with better performance and lower cost.

Answer 6

Bush's environmental record makes him a laughing stock - not just in the US but around the world. He seems intent on making the US as insular as possible.

Hydrogen technology isn't particularly advanced or effective. The processes for extracting hydrogen are energy intensive and the net result can be a greater contribution to global warming then is offset by using the hydrogen.

Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons (molecules of hydrogen and carbon), remove the hydrogen and the carbon remains. The process doesn't simple leave a lump of inert carbon but produces quantities of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

Looks like Bush is again attempting to take a step forward by walking backwards.

Answer 7

nicely, the connies will now might desire to ask your self why their baby-god now believes in climate substitute issues... Bush is very previous due with this and can't due something yet stay away from staining his legacy with lack of expertise on the subject. he's purely proposing an valid stance in direction of attempting to realize suggestions so the destiny generations will think of he actually tried, while surely, he did no longer something for 7 years as President.

Answer 8

Any way you try to get hydrogen, it takes a lot of energy to produce it, which means more power plants. You feel good that you are driving a car not poluting, but the energy to get the hydrogen will be poluting more than we have now. The best thing at this point is solar, hydro and wind for electricity and biofuels for cars, and Bush might be onto something with his swichgrass praise

Answer 9

Bush is simply a placeholder for the next Republican President, he's irrelevant and never cared about the environment anyway, (he's a Texan and an Oil Man). Get ready to vote and tell everyone you know to get out and vote for who ever you think will be best suited to get the US on a decent course.

Answer 10

With current (pun intended) technology, the extraction of H2 requires more energy that we can recover from its use.

Since there are no natural deposit of H2, at this time it is a false hope and those who are swallowing the hydrogen hype are deluded.

Wind power and tidal power are better options for non-petroenergy.
Solar panel technology has also progressed a long way, but it has a large pollution factor during manufacture that no one wants to acknowledge.

If hydrogen could be economically produced, then that would be the way to go.

However, there is hope for H2 on the horizon.

Scientists at North Carolina State University have discovered a nanoscale method for extracting hydrogen from water that requires only half the energy of current hydrogen production methods
The current method for extracting hydrogen from water involves heating water molecules to 2,000 degrees Celsius. The high temperature “breaks” the molecule, and hydrogen is released.

“We studied water for many months and ran many different calculations, and we ended up showing that if you want to break a water molecule, you spend a lot less energy if you do it on this defective carbon material than if you do it by simply heating the molecule until it breaks,” Buongiorno-Nardelli said. “You can reduce the energy necessary by a factor of two – you can do it at less than 1,000 degrees.”