So, it looks like some intrepid engineers and investors got together way back in 1978 and figured out a great way to solve the energy crisis.
Powering cars with hydrogen, the hydrogen being produced, from water, with solar power.
Jack Nicholson had one of these cars, and was a spokesperson for it, demonstrating it in this video clip (over the fold).
This has to be one of the most ironic, and depressing pieces of video I've ever seen. You have to see it to believe it.
And now, today, 30 years later (!!!) we're as screwed as ever -- as a people, as a civilization, even as a species. But the key fact to keep in mind is that during this 30 years, the Big Oil companies have become the most massively profitable companies in the history of mankind.
Coincidence?
And one of the countless ironies of this is that the United States auto companies are just about to go under. Even though this clip makes it abundantly clear that the auto companies would have been just fine making hydrogen-powered cars. I mean, the car Jack's driving in the clip is your basic, average American car of its time. It just happens to run on a fuel that is derived from water, using solar power, and produces water as a byproduct.
Too good to be true? Apparently so. It was "too good" for the Oil Companies, who would have been completely cut out of the market, as the commentator in this Canadian Broadcast Company makes abundantly clear.
My suggestion to the auto companies -- have Big Oil bail them out. What's a couple dozen billion dollars to Big Oil? It's nothing, peanuts, pennies, and there's plenty more where that came from, right? Their money literally squirts up out of the ground. And by god, they owe it.
What's funny to me, is that I thought of this a few years ago -- why not use solar power to remove the hydrogen from the water and use this for auto fuel? Turns out there were people way, way ahead of me. And I didn't even know it. And I'll bet very few people know about it either.