Modern Solutions to an Antiqueted Problem

Why do we still use gasoline in our cars? We might as well use a steam engine or our feet. Fred Flinstone never had to worry about how far he could afford to travel. Seriously though, why do we put our lives in the hands of such antiquated machines? Would you trust traffic signals controlled by an IBM 650 or a VIC-20 hidden behind the facade of a modern life support machine? I sure as Hell wouldn't but still, we use a 183 year old device that runs on the remains of 2 million year old animals.

Why can't we use something new and innovative? Nuclear fission is a sort of new technology, although a benign car accident could probably destroy a medium sized city. It would solve not only the fossil fuel crisis, but also overpopulation. It's a two for one! And I'm sure a small amount of radioactive material could power a car for a few hundred thousand miles. But then in roughly 250,000 years we'd be facing a nuclear fuel crisis and I'll have to write an all new article.

Electromagnetic convection between newly placed devices in our roads and our cars may also be a viable solution. The electricity would travel in a wave from the road to our cars and because it doesn't require contact between the devices, it's future car compliant. Very few people would be hurt every year from the energy emanating from the road and refueling stations would be completely eliminated. But unless we keep high capacity batteries in our cars there would be no off-roading and a block in the powergrid could cause unnecessary potentially permanent traffic jams.

Hydrogen cells look pretty good; they make energy from a renewable resource without actually destroying it, have high energy conversion efficiency, and have no moving parts and therefore near 95% reliability. Hydrogen to be used as fuel in these cells can be easily and safely made on-site at a refilling station requiring nothing but water and electricity, cutting out oil fields, pipes, trucks, drivers, and that 500% markup. But I guess it really is unamerican to make electricity from the most common substance on the planet (water) whose only byproduct is harmless steam (also water).

Article by Rich Moore