Mike Johnston's Comments (41)

“My ex wife, also named Christine, died 2 days ago at 41. Totally unexpected and for no obvious reason. Weird coincidence with this story. My son may find it helpful.”

“Sounds like a scene from a cheech n chong movie :-)”

“HMO executive salaries (from 1996): http://www.harp.org/hmoexecs.htm

Just one more cost between patient and doctor...”

“Yeah, all the substance stripped out and replaced by pork based fillers :-)”

“luckily there are many other ways to get TV and if AT&T is making a mistake they will see their market share dry up and change the practice.”

“According to the Wall Street journal, the US Postal Service DIDN'T choose natural gas trucks and as a consequence their flex fuel fleet vehicles burn MORE gasoline than regular gasoline fueled vehicles...

Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/05/21/going-postal-with-flex-fuel-trucks-postal-service-burns-more-gas/”

“But that is the reality of the consciousness of the American public. That is how things got so out of control. It is also why citizen journalists are making such an impact. They keep issues in the public attention far longer and in more detail that major media ever did and why corporations are changing their behavior. Support the changes and watch them to make sure they follow through. Don't rely on the boob-tube-stupefied masses to do it as they never will. We NEED major corporations to make a green economy happen.”

“do they use clean energy vehicles? Do you know? Does it even matter to you as long as they support liberal causes? What kind of weird double standard is that!?!?”

“So if Verizon went to clean energy vehicles that would be ok? Please. The end result is a better world no matter who does it. If I convert my personal vehicle to clean fuel the impact will be very small. If huge companies like AT&T, UPS and Wal-Mart do it the impact will be huge. Please don't snipe over the "worthiness" of companies or individuals to join in the clean energy movement. As long as their actions match their words there is certainly room at the table for them!”

“most of the hydrogen in the world is in water....”

“fuel cells are much more efficient than internal combustion engines. Reformers do significantly reduce hydrocarbon fuel consumption on internal combustion engines though because 40 to 60 percent of the hydrogen fuel the vehicle runs on comes from the water used in the reforming process.”

“it is CO2 that is produced by the reformer reaction. The carbon from the hydrocarbon joined with the oxygen from water.”

“you can also add veggie oil, biogas, charcoal, alcohol and sugar to the mix of fuels that can be reformed into hydrogen”

“Please understand what a fuel reformer is. A prototype on-board fuel reformer was developed in 2004 by the Pacific Northwest Lab. They showed that the reforming process could be made to be exothermic to the point where the reactions involved were self-sustaining. This means that the vehicle doesn't have to contribute any of the energy produced by the engine of the vehicle to produce the hydrogen fuel.

The reaction(s) involved combine a carbon or hydrocarbon "fuel" with water at elevated temperature in the presence of a catalyst. The result is that the oxygen from the water combines with the carbon and the reaction releases the hydrogen from both the water and the hydrocarbon. So up to 60% of the hydrogen fuel the car is running on comes from the water, not the hydrocarbon.

Technically you can use almost any carbon or hydrocarbon source for this process including coal, vegetable oil, ethanol, methanol and even glucose (sugar). In each case a large percentage of the fuel produced comes from the water. Because of this any fuel source can be made much, much cleaner.

In addition this technology could produce fuel for an internal combustion engine just as easily as for a fuel cell vehicle. Wide implementation of such technology could end our dependence on foreign oil in a short amount of time. Please don't shoot the messenger in this case as it is a fantastic technology with huge potential.”

“show me a photosynthesis battery please...”

“I think that will be part of the stimulus package...”

“Tesla was working on the same thing a hundred years ago. I like to compare the evolution of the energy business to the breakup of Ma Bell. That breakup gave us both lower prices and new forms of service delivery such as cell phones and now web based phones. There is no reason that a similar opening of the energy market could not have the same result.”

“The Toyota Prius has not been blocked from the free market and has done very, very well in it. The main block to innovation is the American consumer. If the auto companies would make hybrid mustangs, Navigators, F-150's, etc the public would buy them but asking most people to accept a new technology in a new package just doesn't work very well.”

“Very good, you do see the potential...”

“Yeah, everyone could grow their own hemp in their basement or closet utilizing currently available hydroponic technology hehehe”

“Pickens is calling for natural gas to be used primarily to fuel medium and heavy duty trucks. CNG produced in North America could fuel trucks and we really have no other source for this market. Natural gas is 90% cleaner than diesel and emits 25% less CO2. Even if we only converted to CNG in urban areas imagine the air quality improvement!”

“It isn't about ideology it is about results. Pickens is advocating a clean energy future and spending millions on advertising to those ends. This is a free country and Pickens started out as a geologist and built what he has from there. YOU or anyone else can do the same thing. If you want some of the pie you have to get yourself to the table. Start your own alt energy firm and work to build it. Eventually maybe you can be the billionaire everyone seems to envy and then you can judge the free market from a different perspective.

That said, the free market as it has been defined by the Bush crowd is very simply lawless anarchy and was idiocy from the beginning. A free market must have laws and regulations to keep the playing field level and to protect both business and consumers. Just as we citizens are free within a set of laws which govern our behavior for the common good so should business be free under the same sort of situation.”

“my scooter says Harley Davidson on the side.....hehehe”

“I think that Mr. Pickens supports small scale grids but such grids need to be tied into the national network and we need to go to a "smart grid" so that energy produced by whatever means can be distributed nationally to where it is needed. Such a "distributed energy" future is what I think is pretty much inevitable with both small and large producers having their niche to fill.”

“There are designs in solar thermal collectors which are really cool as well to provide both hot water and a radiant heat source. It might be interesting to couple such a heat source with geothermal systems to boost their heating capacity.”