Snooze you lose

I have suspected that there are plenty of ways that already exist which could bring the hydrogen economy into being.  But none of them have been implemented.

Fact 1:  The molten-salt reactor.  This is technology proven in the lab by a Manhattan Project scientist.  It was never commercialized.  This has been a long term gripe by yours truly.

Fact 2:  Clean coal technology.  Not that the clean coal tech is new, either.  Actually, the processes that clean coal tech uses have been around for a very long time.  What that tech is is simple pyrolysis.  Pyrolysis removes the hydrogen from the coal instead of burning it.  The energy needed for the pyrolysis is but a small portion of the total amount of coal.  The rest of the coal is heated in the absence of oxygen, and that heat drives out the hydrogen in the unburnt coal.  The resultant gas can be burned cleanly without carbon dioxide.  Pyrolysis was known even by the Pharoahs.

Fact 3:  Just came across a pdf file that describes a catalyst that removes hydrogen from methane.  Once again, this yields clean hydrogen.  Perhaps it is being used in modern pyrolysis processes in order to make them more efficient.  But this pdf file is fifteen years old.  Why hasn't it been implemented in a commercial process in order to make hydrogen from natural gas?

It looks like a pattern.  Somebody invents a new process, but it doesn't get commercialized.  One may ask, why not?  Or conclude that there must have been something wrong with it.  But what if the only thing wrong with it is that it works?  It's like the Tiberius Syndrome that I've discussed before.

I write this because Instapundit says there's a new way to make hydrogen from water.  Oh?  Maybe fifteen years from now, nobody will know about it because it never got to market.  Somebody in a high place will stop it.  That what I meant by Tiberius Syndrome.  The Roman Emperor Tiberius had a man beheaded for discovering how to mine a new metal that we now know as aluminum.

In case you think I am being too negative, consider this:  The Romans also knew how to make a steam engine, but they never commercialized it.  They had slaves.

We have a dysfunction in our society.  We need to focus on fixing that even more than finding these new discoveries that may get forgotten about because nobody upstairs cares about them very much.  Nero fiddled while Rome burnt.  These days, they hold candlelight vigils for the victims of terrorist attacks.  Our "leaders" want to look good while the society burns down around them.

The people can change the leadership if they wake up in time.  We need the kind of leaders that won't fiddle around.  Just thought I'd let you know, you little snowflakes.