Defeatism can never win

That's almost a Yogi Berra'ism.  I've been spending a lot of time on this subject and I think that a solution is possible.  Why can't Ford do it with all the resources that they have?  They can't do it if they give up, which looks like what this is saying.

Napoleon Hill, in this book , tells how Henry Ford developed the new Ford V8 motor, which was state of the art at the time.  He told his people to stay on the problem until they got a solution.  He wanted it, and by golly, he got it.  Ford wouldn't have become the great automobile manufacturer that it became if he gave up as easily as they seem to be doing nowadays.

Leadership at all levels must do better.  This won't cut it.

Republicans are going to blow it

Yep.  I think its possible.  There was a report (sorry, I forgot the link) that said a few of the senators in Wisconsin are weakening.  It wouldn't surprise me if they caved.  The reason is that the Democrats are just more aggressive, that's all there is to it.  If it goes down this way, it will demonstrate that the Republicans just can't cope with the Democrats strategies and tactics.  It will be a failure and the failure will belong to the party for allowing this to happen.

It appears that the Republicans like to do a big show, but when it comes down to actually producing anything, they are worthless.  I'm going to label this as Politics Schmolitics.  The honor of conning the suckers this time belongs to the Republicans.  They are conning their followers into believing that they are serious about cutting the Big Government down to size.  It appears that they have no real stomach for doing what it takes to do just that.


Update:  As long as I am in a political mood, let's put up this new video with a political twist.

About this methanol electrolyzer

I found the patent, or what I believe to be the patent, on the web.  It looks to be a detailed document and so forth.  One of the co inventors does not seem to be anywhere to be found.  The phone number given on the JPL report does not work.  A search for one of these people did not result in any records.  There are several of these people listed.  So, what do I do?  Go through the process with each and every one of them?  This is costly and time consuming.

The people who produced this have to be somewhere.  This did not drop out of the sky, I presume.

Update:  Perhaps a twitter entry will provoke a response somewhere.  I just tweeted the question:  Is there such a thing as methanol hydrolysis, with a link to the pdf file that I've been discussing here.  Anybody interested in this question?  This would be a big deal if it worked.  Anybody care?

Update:
I found something here.  Maybe there's an opportunity here for somebody.

Update:

Here's somebody that makes these hydrolyzers.  Oops!  Scratch that.  Those are reformers, not hydrolyzers.

Update:

I'm adding this link to the sidebar.

Phoenix Motors, Part 3

It seems pretty intriguing that this company takes a shell vehicle and converts it in an electric vehicle.  What does that shell vehicle cost?  I'm a little curious.  What if you were to replace the batteries with fuel cells along the lines I mentioned before?  Perhaps you could still find a use for batteries, but they wouldn't have to be as large.  Consequently, the costs could be reduced.

How to Evaluate Ideas

By Paul Sloane

He seems to be a pretty good source, worth following on Twitter.  That's where this link came from.  With respect to this blog, it may be good advice for evaluating any new ideas I come up with here.

In reference to brainstorms, the idea did occur to me to sell timeshares to a range extending device on battery powered automobiles, like the Nissan Leaf.  You see, with timeshares, it wouldn't be necessary to buy the entire package.  Just plan the time in which you will need it, say for a vacation, then buy a timeshare to coincide with that time.  When you're done, turn it in, and you're back to all battery operation.  This makes the car more affordable than buying the whole package and more versatile for the times you will really need it.  Maybe you don't need all that range all the time.  Why let that big investment go to waste?  Share it with someone, or a lot of people.

What would be an attractive price point?  A thousand dollars for a week?  For two weeks?  Or a month?  What would work in this instance?   Let's say you add a few thousand dollars to the sticker price as an option to use one of these devices on a timeshare basis for x number of weeks per year.  Would this work?

HowStuffWorks calls it Fuel Processors

Anything having to do with electrolysis invariably seems to come back to water.  If one looks for the hydrolysis of methanol, good luck.  As mentioned in the title, it may be more fruitful to look it up as a fuel processor.  The interesting thing about this is that the thing being hydrolyzed or processed is none other than gasoline.  Funny how that seemed to get into the discussion.  Especially since the technology has existed since 2002 for hydrolyzing methanol.  Could it be that someone doesn't want the hydrolysis of methanol to work?  Somebody would have a lot to lose if a new way to power a vehicle becomes a viable option.  That may sound like conspiracy mongering, but one can't help but sense a pattern to certain developments like this.  If the powers that be are threatened, they are not about to let something disturb their dominance over the scene.

Update:

Here's a video of the HySeries Drive from Ford.  It is a fuel cell/ battery hybrid.  This is fine, but it would be even better if you get rid of the hydrogen storage.



Update:

More on fuel cell problems.  One of these is the cost of platinum.  If you mine the asteroids and the Moon for Platinum Group Metals, you just might get the price down toward a competitive level.  Also, the hydrogen storage problem goes away if you don't have to store it at all.  Which is what I am trying to figure out.

Update:

Here once again from the JPL pdf file; which is the pertinent information on how it can be used in an automotive application.

NASA Tech Brief Vol 26, No. 6 Chun, Valdex et. al, JPL Report number NPO19948

Either the authors are incorrect as to this potential, or this technology is being consistently overlooked.

Apologies to the Beatles

Lyrics to the song "Drive My Car" were taken to make this video. Well, my excuse was I was thinking about cars, and what have you, and this idea for this video popped into my head. You can't play it to music, you have to imagine it.

People may forgive dummies for acting like dummies. So these dummies can't sing nor dance. They can just repeat the words to the song. Anyway, I hope somebody finds this amusing. Here goes.

Posting has been light

But I've been busy.  This business about hydrolyzing methanol may be a dead end, but I haven't given up on it yet.  There was this one thing last night.  I may have to buy the pdf file to learn about it, though.  It costs over 30 dollars.  Do I want to spend it?  Not now.  Only if I need to in order to move this along.

The thing is about making the hydrolyzer apparatus.  That's because the one that I was looking at before is almost 9 years old and the people who put it together didn't update the info, and the only way to get more info on it is to send an inquiry to a mailing address.  This could mean forever to get an answer.  And the answer may not be worth spending time on because it is too old.

So, switching gears, there was this webpage here.  It is a bit of a mystery as to how it got on this computer.  I sent an email asking about it, after getting to a point that it interested me.  By the way, Phoenix never did answer my email.  It could mean that they have no real product to ship, otherwise known as vaporware. Hopefully, these guys won't pull a Phoenix on me and go vaporware.

After sending that, I went over to YouTube and starting looking at some videos.  I noticed something that didn't make me very happy.  But it did give me an idea for another video.  But people do not seem to like my videos.  I think they are too bland.  These Xtranormal videos have to be very raw in order to overcome their robotic tendencies.  Anyone who can make these seem lively must have a real writing talent because they are robots and it is obvious that they are robots and robots are boring.

Sarah LaCroix, who is one of the artists ( in her case, a musician)  that I found through TbonePearson, said that all of her stuff is interrelated.  Guess what?  So are mine.  The YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and this blog are supposed to reinforce and support each other.  I think that is called synergy.

But the synergy ain't synergizing yet.  Yeah, that is a made up word.  I have to keep in mind that not all my readers are Americans.  Yes, I do have a contingent of Europeans and Asians who come here from time to time.  They sometimes even outnumber the Americans!  I don't know what that means, but I have a bad feeling about it.   Anyway, an American might get it, but someone who doesn't speak the language may miss some of what I am saying here.  In the case of synergy, and the word synergizing, I just took a noun and made a verb out of it.  But not to worry.  I think it may be self evident what it meant.  If not, do not be shy about asking.

 What's next?  I have no specific plans for today.  And the weekend is almost here already.  Where did the week go?  Time is flying.  I am having a blast with this, I tell you.  But all good things must come to an end.  But I won't beat that dead horse much more.  I'm sure people are getting quite bored with my bellyaching.

Master Plan

I guess I've said it before on this blog.  It bears repeating, but this time it gets its own post with an easier to remember title.

What I want to do is to put a hydrolysis electrolysis unit on a hydrogen fuel cell powered car.  I want to procure supplies of platinum group metals mined from space ( Moon or asteroids).  The reason for this is these are rare on Earth and if everyone is to drive one of these, we are going to need a lot of these metals.  If the fuel cell powered car is successful, that is.

I want to do this because I think it is important for the USA to stop importing so much oil.  It will secure our energy future, and for that matter, the energy future for the entire world.  Methanol is relatively easy to make, the ancient Egyptians were familiar with it.  At present, USA uses ( according to memory) about 20 million barrels of oil daily.  Using methanol in this fashion could eliminate a lot of these imports.  As a result, it would help with the trade deficit and help the dollar.    In connection with the space program, it will provide jobs and put people back to work.  It will make prosperity possible.  It is not possible under the current conditions.

I think it should be a high national priority.  Given the political instability in the oil producing regions of the world, it could mean the difference between war and peace.


Update:  With respect to the methanol hydrolyzer electrolyzer, I can't find any information available about this except the pdf file I've been referencing.  My best guess is that this device is not being built at present.  If it is, it is a big secret.  No, it is probably not being built anywhere.  Evidently there is something missing here.  In order to discover this, I may have to run the experiment myself.  Or find the patent(s) on file, and attempt to take it from there.

This pdf file had a phone number to contact someone about it, but that number has been disconnected.  There is a mailing address, so I suppose I could write to inquire about it.  That seems a bit shaky.

Update: March 3 approx 6:30 am cst

I overlooked something, but it doesn't appear significant at this time.  It is DMFC's , which are being built already.  The site I visited claims these can be used in vehicles, but that doesn't look like the case to me.  Not powerful enough.  Too big for the power generated, too.  These may have some limited usefulness for range extension for batteries, as far as I can tell.

Stand alone fuel cells do have enough power for a vehicle, but how to handle the hydrogen issue?  That's what I'm trying to find out.

Gold is acting fishy

Here's an explanation why.

Update:

After thinking it over, I don't necessarily agree with this analysis.  Anybody who thought the market was topping out would have been the ones selling.  If a new Fed chairman was imminent, and inflation was kicking into high gear, I'd say we would be closer to a top than not.  Bernanke is still there and maybe he will continue long enough to keep this rally going.   At any rate, those who sold recently didn't sell at the top.  It remains to be seen what that will be, but evidently we're not there yet.

Update 2: 8:15 am

This looks like a good prediction so far.  Note when it was originally written.

Update 3: approx 9 am

This is why gold will continue to rise.  Until Washington actually starts dealing with problems, as opposed to merely throwing money at them, the dollar and the nation's finances will suffer.  Eventually, there will be collapse.

Don't know if I'll do this myself

But I guess I can write a little about it.  I've been looking up some ruthenium plating information on the web.  It looks like you can do this yourself or find someone to do it for you.  The idea was this:  based upon the videos I watched yesterday, I would set up an apparatus just like it in order to hydrolyze water.  Once I get that to running, I would then start to experiment with methanol solutions and using ruthenium as a catalyst.  I would be interested in seeing what kind of yield I could get for a similar sized apparatus.

Update: 3/2/11 approx 9:15

What I've seen with these hydrolyzing videos is that this isn't going to produce anywhere near enough hydrogen for running a car.  But this was with water and it is not the same technology as JPL was discussing in the pdf file that covered previously.  That's another item on the agenda.  In the meantime, I'm busy with other stuff.  Don't know when or if I will get to this.  A lot of it depends.

Doesn't surprise me

But what did surprise me was how long it took.  Gold way up today.  I think this is a new high.  According to Yahoo Finance, fear of high oil prices has Wall Street worried about the economic recovery.  What did I tell you?

Tour of JSC

This sort of makes up for not finishing my trip to Kennedy Space Center to watch the launch.  It would have been really great to get a Tram Tour like I just did for JSC here in Houston.  By the way, if you haven't ever done this before, a word of advice:  Take the Tram Tour.  You will not regret it.

Space Center Houston, Tram Tour

Update: 3/2/11, approx 4:40 am

I am adding this page to my sidebar, but not in interesting reading.  I think I will put it in the spot with JP Aerospace, Space Related Blogs.

This is why I could never be a Democrat

By way of Instapundit, I came across this at Legal Insurrection.  My reaction is disgust.  Why are we even having this conversation?  Since when do Democrats get a mulligan?  Even if the polls did favor them, it would still be wrong.  The real election was held in November and that election is binding.  Not what these polls claim to say.  The election has been held and that is what is legal.  This business they are doing in Wisconsin does not have the force of law and neither do the polls.  The discussion of them is irrelevant.  Bringing it up only gives them a fig leaf for what they are doing, which is morally and ethically wrong.  It may not be legally wrong, technically speaking, but if it wasn't wrong- why are they hiding?  Re g!@#$%^&d diculous.

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

Here's another one for the sidebar.  Instead of driving to Florida, I could have done this.  But I would have missed the Tallahassee Antique Car Museum.  Can't have everything.

Make that two for the sidebar.  I included the car museum link as well.

Musings on the decision about what comes next

3 options, a-c, significance, consequences or risks

a) keep mum on my ideas because I won't get paid here for my ideas
as) means go back to work, quit blog cold turkey
ac) can I live with possibility that I am selling myself short?

b) talk about ideas, but do nothing about them, leave it to somebody else
bs) can probably do this part time and work full time
      risk is low, it is a good play it safe strategy, but risk is that nothing happens with my ideas
bc) can I live with that?

c) try to do something about at least one of my ideas
cs) means all out, balls to the wall commitment to make something work
cc) risk is that you'll fail and go broke, not a good time in life for that

Feel good about today

Today was a good day.  It may not seem that way sometimes to someone casually observing events here.  But it felt good to me.

It was also the day I may be crossing over to the Field of Dreams side, which may not be a good thing according to my usual sensible self.  I think I can snap back to the sensible side if I need to.  I don't need to right now.

If you want to get scientific about it, perhaps this is all something buried in the subconscious that is trying to work its way up to full recognition in the world of reality.  Or it could be just a useless fantasy.  Either way, it isn't necessarily a bad thing if it doesn't get out of hand.  I don't think it has yet.

To put in concrete terms, it may be possible to construct an electrolyzer that won't cost that much.  Then it becomes a matter of getting the other stuff to put this thing together.  That may take some doing.  And yes, it may not be possible to make any of this work.  But while finding that out, it just may be a lot of fun in the meantime.

Properties of Platinum Group Metals as Catlysts for fuel cells

Here's something I pulled up from a google search.  It is a list of abstracts about using Platinum and Ruthenium as catalysts for Direct Methanol Fuel Cells.  It isn't exactly the same as what I was suggesting earlier with respect to hydrolyzing methanol.  DMFC's work on methanol directly, whereas what I suggest is to separate the two reactions.  First by electrolyzing the methanol, then by using the hydrogen produced by this in order to provide fuel to the fuel cell.  I am putting the link in the sidebar of Interesting Reading and setting up the label as Sidebar.  Now you will know how it got there as I indicated in an earlier post.

Here's how it appears in the sidebar ( not all of this is there, the bottom link is missing, but leaving it in there isn't a bad idea).

How to make electrocatalysts more active for direct methanol oxidation-avoid PtRu bimetallic alloys!

Read more: http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Chemicals-plastics-and-rubber-industries/Effects-of-redox-state-of-PtRu-electrocatalysts-on-methanol-oxidation-activity.html#ixzz1FIccYVaK

This is pretty good

Fuel cell device on video

Here's an example of what I'm writing about, except this is still water being electrolyzed. Water requires much more energy to separate into hydrogen and oxygen. Whereas, methanol can be separated into carbon dioxide and hydrogen with a lot less energy. Now, as I mentioned, you can produce this hydrogen on demand to feed into a fuel cell (as demonstrated in this video) which can run a motor which can power a car.

By the way, there's a lot of superfluous talk here about oil fields and such. What interests me here is an energy source which splits the water into hydrogen and oxygen, which gets feeds into a fuel cell which in turn powers a motor.

Another comment: there's a lot going on here. I wonder about that.

Watching electrolysis videos

There is an entire playlist that I've constructed on my YouTube channel.  If you are interested, check it out.  It is gregmeadows5593.  This playlist shows how to construct a electrolyzer for water.   It uses common materials.  Plus there's another one there done by another guy.  He installed his on his truck.  Supposedly this improves gas mileage.  I wrote about this idea a few months ago.  Check the Energy label and look back a little to find it.

Superhero and Sidekick

This is a video response to Wolfbracker's Xtranormal vid here:



Now, here is the response video:



I think Wolfbracker's jokes and dialogue are a bit better. But Xtranormal's rendering of dialogue makes it too stiff and mechanical. That's where live actors can punch up the dialogue and make it work better.

Update:

This reminds me of something. After watching lots of Hollywood productions on DVD, I got into the habit of watching/listening to the commentary. The thing I am reminded of was that a common practice when making movies is to use storyboards. The question then arose, could Xtranormal be used to storyboard a scene before shooting it? Just a thought.

Field of Dreams

What if you had a moment like in that movie, where you don't know if you've completely lost your mind and you don't why you are doing something, but you feel that you must do it anyway?  That pattern occurred again and again in the movie, so it must have been a theme.  And what was that?  Should you follow your dreams no matter how crazy they may seem?  Was that the message?

Well, here I am, after nearly six months of writing in this blog, and it doesn't make sense from a financial standpoint.  To keep going on is crazy, yet I don't want to stop.  It is my Field of Dreams moment.  This may be the last chance for me, at age 55, to do anything crazy like this.  Because if I do continue this long enough, it may well be the end of me.  That is no exaggeration.

I've tried making the blog better and better so that people "will come", but they aren't.  So, it's just time to decide how will it be.  People aren't going to come here because the blog is well written, or that I'm an expert, or maybe anything practical or useful at all.  If anyone comes at all, it may be for a feeling similar to what the movie was talking about, with respect to coming to watch the ballplayers no one else could even see.

Tomorrow was kind of a drop dead day as far as blog goes.  If I continue from now on, I may just go bankrupt.  Not tomorrow, but the trends are in that direction.  This is no longer a practical enterprise.  From here on out, if I continue on a full time basis, it will be on a Field of Dreams basis.  I don't know if I can do it, to be frank.  What I can do for sure is to make it a hobby.  But if I do that, can I devote the time to it in order to see it through?  This requires a decision.  It is not enough to just write something once a week or every few days.  This needs full attention for at least a while longer.  That's what I have to decide and decide it soon.

Obama's Friends and Enemies

This is a Bill Whittle video. He says that Obama's decisions can no longer be attributed to lack of experience nor accidents. It's by design, and the implications are not good.

About "how to" do what have you

This is a subject that has always been interesting to me.  Over the years, I must have read dozens of these kinds of books.  It is a popular subject.  When I look over what has come of all this, I am let down a bit.  With all the effort I have put in, why not better results?  What am I doing wrong?

Rather than wring my hands again, which I have done a little too much of, I will focus in on what I am doing now, or trying to do.  With that in mind, I'll mention that I've been reading up a bit on some of the Tweets I'm following to look for clues on how to improve this blog and whatever else I'm doing.

Ronald Yau has a tweet up on how to improve Facebook engagement.  He has a lot of links like this which may be helpful. I haven't implemented this particular idea, but I'll be sure to keep it in mind.  I should also point out that my left sidebar has a bunch of links of interesting reading like this one here.  This is something I thought of myself.  For now on, I will write something before I add to that list, so that anyone can tell how the list got to be like it is.  The story behind the story, as it were.  I will add a new label called "Sidebar entry" to distinguish this post and to aid in easier reference.

There are a lot of entries without a sidebar label story attached to it.  At the moment, this situation can't be resolved very easily without go through each and every entry and writing something about it.  Or going back through my blog posts in order to do some link hunting.  There's a lot of stuff there in case your interested.

Update:

Here's another "how to" from Paul Sloane, which I also follow on Twitter.  It is actually a warning about the Law of Attraction, aka The Secret.  I have it up in my Profile, which may be somewhat misleading about myself.  I am not necessarily that big of a fan of the Secret, but I'm not as big a critic of it as Mr.Sloane.  I think that our thoughts are very significant, but he is also right when he says that thoughts alone are not enough.  Thoughts must be backed by action.  On that point, he is exactly right.  But all things start with a thought.  On that point, The Secret is right.  Anybody who follows this blog should know better than to judge me too quickly.  I don't swallow the Kool Aid that easily.

Phoenix Motors, Part 2

This is an update on that post, as a reminder that I haven't forgotten about it.  I have not heard back as of yet, and I am wondering if I am going to hear from them at all.

I have given this some thought.  As I am not an engineer nor a mechanic, I am not going to start at this late date in my life to try.  What I need is to find people who know how to do this stuff and put these people together and to try this idea out.  The idea is to make a car powered by hydrogen fuel cell that is supplied with hydrogen from on board methanol hydrolysis unit.

The item on the agenda is to see if these methanol hydrolysis units actually exist.  The intellectual property which demonstrates the concept does exist and has been covered in this blog, should be classified as Energy in the labels section.

PILLOWS ARE AMAZING!?!?!?!?!?!

This author is the winner of the latest TBonepearson contest. TBone was featured here earlier.  I saw his latest video which doesn't seem very interesting frankly, but this one is the most popular and appears to have some good qualities.  What the heck?  I'll put it up here.





Update: I've added a new label called "Road Trip". If I do something crazy, like driving to Florida again, this will go into the Road Trip Label so as to be easily referenced at a later date. The reason I'm putting this update here is that it is the most recent post and it involves the use of videos. Now that I have more bandwidth to play with, videos will be featured much more than in the past. Get used to it!!!!!