Samwik, Thanks, it is good to write and talk about ideas...the more viewpoints the better! Lots of interesting stuff is going on with nano catalysts. It's bound to be important in improving efficiency in fuel cells. I know of some research that uses a nano catalyst to split water with focused sunlight, and a special membrane to isolate the hydrogen. Cool stuff....but as always, the energy must come from somewhere...i.e. the sun.
The promising part of this method is that it goes straight from sunlight to hydrogen. No photovoltaic cells needed.
Paul, This seems to have political overtones to you. If we were having a beer together we would probably be on the same political wavelength.
But it just won't work to make thermodynamics into some sort of political conspiracy.
Thermodynamics is confirmed over at least 400 years of work by
un-counted engineers and scientists in every nation and under every political system. It is certainly "old school". But it is old school just like the laws of gravity are old school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_thermodynamicsThese things represent some of humanity's greatest accomplishments and go back in time to pre-history. The earliest cave-people quickly learned you could not take a bunch of ashes from the fire-pit and trade it to the neighboring tribe for fresh firewood!
If we are going to work out the coming problems of climate change and energy supply, we need a poplulation that at least understands the basics. People need to know what a BTU is, and what a Kilowatt Hour is. They need to have some idea of what is valuable and what is snake-oil.
