>thanks for breaking it down for us non-physics minded people

Sure thing. It's rare that my particular kind of education is relevant to anything in the real world. I gotta jump up on those occasions.

>(but if you ever want the geographical features of a glacier
>described, i'm your man...)

I'll keep that in mind. We don't have many glaciers to deal with in LA, though.

>it's a shame, because i really wanted it to be possible.. but
>yeah, i remember seeing electrolysis at high school, those
>bubbles ain't gonna get you far

Yeah, I mean safe, renewable energy is going to be a huge problem in the coming decades. And people just don't see the impending trouble. There was a joint US, EU proposal a few years ago to study controlled thermonuclear fusion. With that technology, one could indeed use ordinary water as fuel, and the only waste would be pure helium (very small amounts of it, even).

Nevertheless, the US government killed it when they saw the $10 billion price tag. Meanwhile, we've spent $90 billion and counting on a missile defense system that will never work, and wouldn't be useful even if it did!


And on top of that, people just won't calm down about fuel cells. They don't ask where the hydrogen would come from. Again, it has to be electrolyzed from water. So again, the energy doesn't "come from" the hydrogen, it comes from electrolysis plants, burning fossil fuels!