Happy

Petroleum Story

Alumifuel

FROM: Science et Vie, December, 2007
author: Eric Hamonou

HYDROGEN

A new miracle alloy

Producing hydrogen at will, through a simple process of oxidation: at long last this is possible due to a new unheard-of alloy of aluminium. Of note: the first uses of this clean form of energy are expected as soon as 2008.

Take a piece of metal, put it in a recipient, add a bit of water... and hydrogen appears! As simple as that. Better yet, this hydrogen is ready for immediate use: to power electrical appliances, a desalination system, even an automobile! A miracle? No, but a recipe for a new alloy, called Alumifuel, being developed by Global Hydrofuel, a Canadian enterprise from Vancouver. An alloy that might well transform hydrogen the mythological energy vector into an everyday reality, this starting next year. Keeping in mind that the Canadians are not the only ones following this promising lead: last September, Jerry Woodall and his team from Purdue University in Indiana, the United States, also published a version of the recipe, based on the same ingredients. What makes these new alloys interesting is that they resolve two difficulties at once: first of all they eliminate the need to store hydrogen, a perilous task for this highly inflammable and not very dense gas; secondly, they present an economical and rational solution to the question of how to produce this gas.

Finding this miracle alloy...

While hydrogen represents a formidable energy vector for the future, because it is little or not polluting (its use produces no CO2) and one finds it in abundance in nature, it presents the formidable difficulty of always being associated with other atoms, as in the case of water ( H20) or methane (CH4). To use it, then, one first has to break up these molecules, which man is actually incapable of doing without recourse to hydrocarbons (see "the Stakes are High")... Nonetheless, nature has its own ways of breaking up water. The nec plus ultra approach? Doing exactly what plants do, which use sunlight and an ad hoc catalyst, veritable magician's powder, to accomplish this operation.

Yet research in this domain is still far from the goal (see insert). Global Hydrofuel and Jerry Goodall's team have, each on their own, chosen a simpler alternative method and in fine, very efficient: using the mechanism which makes a metal rust in the presence of humidity to produce hydrogen from water. The idea is not new and the chemical principles which underlie it have been known since the discovery of oxygen in the XVIII th century: oxidation. In theory, one merely needs to plunge a bloc of metal in a glass of water so that oxygen separates from hydrogen and links up with metallic atoms to from oxides.

Problem: this reaction is either too slow for us to hope gathering appreciable quantities of hydrogen, or it is too violent. Hydrogen immediately catches fire because of the heat generated, so that one captures little, if any at all. At this oxidation game there is one exception metal, aluminium. It does oxidize rather quickly yet not much heat is generated. But there is a drawback, as Jerry Woodall explains. 'With this material, the oxidation reaction doesn't last long. The surface quickly becomes coated with a layer of alumina, the oxidized version of aluminium, which protects it against corrosion, and thus stops oxidation'. Insurmountable? Not necessarily. 'If the alumina layer forms a particularly efficient shield, it is because aluminium and its oxidized form have pretty much the same density' adds Jerry Woodall. 'In a flash, the surface coat that forms has no faults, it is perfectly non-porous. If these two species had different densities, like iron and its oxidized form, the surface would be full of small cracks through which water could infiltrate and continue the oxidation process, until all the aluminium had been used up'.

Thus, the idea among researchers to use not pure aluminium, but an alloy that contains a small percentage of a catalyst which does not react with water, but which changes the density of aluminium with respect to its oxidized form. Which catalyst? In what quantity in the alloy? Here, solutions differ...so many industrial secrets. Only Jerry Woodall agreed to confide his miracle recipe: 80% aluminium, and 20% gallium, (by percentage weight). The result? 'With 27 grams of aluminium, we have managed to produce 3 grams of hydrogen in a few minutes' time' proudly reports the researcher. Admittedly, this solution is less productive than the "reforming" of methane, the classical method of producing hydrogen. But it is still adequate to look forward to feeding electrical appliances and even a car: 'To feed a sedan equipped with a fuel cell traveling at 100 kilometers per hour for a distance of 560 kilometers, one would need to bring aboard some 80 kilograms of alloy and water, which is roughly the same weight as that of the necessary gasoline', argues Jerry Woodall. ' But the trip's cost would be reduced to a third'.

An abundant metal on earth

This technique thus has the immense merit of solving the principles obstacles to using hydrogen in automobiles. First advantage: no need to store the gas in cumbersome reservoirs under high pressure, veritable ambulatory bombs. The other asset is abundance: aluminium is one of the most widely found metals in the earth's crust. Finally, the residual products are totally recyclable. Gallium is intact at the end of the reaction and ready to serve again. Alumina can be recycled in the traditional operations producing aluminium.

One last problem: these processes are very expensive in electricity (1 kilogram of aluminium requires between 13 and 17 kWh of electricity...) But Jerry Woodall remains optimistic. In his estimation, recycling alumina in the United States would cost 30 Euro centimes per kilogram: still competitive with gas at 50 Euro centimes per liter. Jerry Woodall is looking, for the moment,to restrained applications, such as security systems for dependent people. Global Hydrofuel has just signed on, in France, for a partnership for the production of safety vests equipped with geolocation functioning with Alumifuel, this in 2008. Thus giving reality to Jules Verne's dream of water being "the coal of the future". Clean coal, this time.
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The Stakes are high!

More abundant, more energy-packed, less polluting: hydrogen could be a "clean" alternative to petrol-fuels and gasoline. Unless one is forced extract it from water or methane before using it! A true Herculean feat: one must go beyond 2 000 C to start breaking up water molecules in good quantities...Electrolysis or the "cracking" of methane (thermochemical dissociation of the CH4 molecule) take up too much energy. Anew alloy which would produce ready-to-use hydrogen would thus change the playing field...
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What if we imitated plants?

Rarely a month passes without someone publishing a new method for obtaining hydrogen. From every part of the globe, researchers are struggling to define the miracle solution which will allow us to produce hydrogen in an ecological and economical manner. From this perspective, it is surely the photolysis of water which appears to be the most promising approach, since it proposes the use of the sun to break down the water molecule and produce hydrogen. This is what plants and bacteria which perform photosynthesis accomplish every day. Yet for this reaction to be efficient, one must choose the right catalyst, the substance which allows the reaction to begin. Here is the nub of the problem. Researchers are advancing in a trial and error fashion but to date, no candidate for the perfect catalyst is really appropriate. The most efficient only use UV rays, which is a mere 5% of incident solar energy. As a consequence the production of hydrogen is too little to permit concrete applications. An alternative solution would be to copy what plants themselves already do,using a molecule consisting of four atoms of manganese and one calcium, whose structure we have just found. Which permits us the hope of being able to synthesize it. We still don't know when...
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Merry Moment!

X-mas

Sphere

Young/Old

There is a tragic aspect to communication between the old and the young.
Recent research (reported in the New York Times) has brought out an interesting thing about the behavior of adolescents: the latter actually have a higher appreciation of risk than 'necessary',they will overestimate the changes of getting pregnant having unprotected sex or the risks of occasional drinking. They will then transgress anyway because, being young, the potential rewards of engaging in the behavior seems all the more glamorous and appealing, a more realistic assessment of risk will set in and voilà, one has someone with a bad habit. Because what the old know is that things will invariably catch up with one, one way or another. "Stay in school, you dumb ass". "That girl's not for you". And so forth. So we have that other pillar of misunderstanding, the nagging adult.

The researchers on teen behavior conclude that, under the circumstances, one would do best with behavior modification: one simply does not leave teen-agers alone, with each other or with dangerous substances. I would add a dose of humour to the situation, because absolute interdiction always looks stupid and will either create a desire to cheat, or a 'closed' individual. The parent in turn, having been young, isn't sure abstinence will turn out all that better. Let the kids make their own mistakes.

This whole little play between inexperience and hard-earned wisdom takes on interesting hues when one applies it to societal decision-making. Ours is becoming a young planet, with immense numbers of younger people, particularly in the non-industrialized world, - let's call it the warm world, for fun, because they are developing very quickly - while the OECD world club is amassing large numbers of older people. What are the two haggling about? in part, risk-taking behavior. The developing world takes it excessively seriously, one might say, that we are in the grips of a planet-warming cycle and they want to continue developing on the model that served us in the past: in a fossil energy-intensive manner. Try working your way through that one. The developed world is looking for an other model-, not necessarily because we feel guilty,- but because we are ready to move on: computers everywhere, the hydrogen economy, going to the moon and Mars. Progress looks lean and mean coming from us, but remember our decision-makers and electorate are older, the whole language-space of our politics is near-retirement age.

The mutation we are going through on the ecological front is major: we are looking for ways to colonize other worlds, but the knowledge explosion guiding us means we are starting to look a living on earth as a form of colonizing it. I happen to live on that part of earth which needs mittens in winter because the environment is actually mortally dangerous for me as a biological creature. More so than other places, which is one of the deep reasons why going south in winter feels sooo good. Where I can sleep outside, if need be.

This is how we are becoming dangerous: we are old and don't need much anymore.
The great surprise in the beginnings of ecological research was the outstanding numbers and varieties of life-forms in even the humblest patch of land. We are about to survive on the Moon: who needs all that. Years ago, advanced thinkers used to wonder if mankind was not going to eventually disappear from the planet to be replaced by some other dominant life-form. That notion looks quaint these days.

Fashion Design

Candle

Snow

Philosophy of the Internet

Philosophy and Information and Communication Technologies
Is the Internet a proper philosophical Object?
Paul Mathias
Professor of Philosophy
Henry-IV Senior Secondary School, Paris

Is it proper, in the context of studies centered on the Internet, to examine and interpret the very being of the Web?

There are many ways to study the Internet. With the use of mathematical sciences, first of all, in particular those parts having to do with algorithms, the very basis of programming; from the point of view of the physical sciences as well, interest in communication flows and their measure, in an effort to anticipate needs for communications hardware. From the human sciences, sociology looks at usage and contributes to the optimization of services; psychology examines how the experience of various networks influences us, and helps in the assimilation of computer tools in our lives; anthropology, more generally, can find interest in groups, in micro-societies that form around networks, and thus uncover new configurations of sociability and culture.

What about philosophy? Without instruments for measure, incompetent at calculation, superficial or general in its anthropological pronouncements, it hardly seems useful for those who, from near or far, work in the fields of Internet development, for whom ontology, principles, being, metaphysics, even semantics, are obscure imaginings from a past we have outgrown. Is there room, in studies centered on the Internet, for a "diktyology", an examination and interpretation of the very being of the Web? Is is truly "appropriate" to consider the Internet to be a "philosophical Object"?

What is the meaning of the Internet?

But, as well, what is a "philosophical object" We could answer: It is a "philosophical perspective" on random objects, morals or nature, the living or man, but also the smug (le visqueux), for example, echoing an analysis first found in Sartre's Being and Nothingness. So naturally, the question arises: what then is a "philosophical perspective" on a random object? To which one could answer that it is a perspective which does not satisfy itself with explaining the manner in which an object is linked to others, as one would say of rain that it follows the formation of clouds; but which is concerned with the association itself and the possibilities there offered, as when one finds in a reading of Hume that causality covers over being and the meaning of things. In such an ordering of ideas, an exemplary philosophical question would resemble: "Why is there something rather than nothing?", which implies that one is not merely concerned with the current reality of things and their inter-connections, but also with the very reasons underlying their being and starting from the meaning of their existence.

Thus, and redundantly, the "philosophical" question with respect to the Internet, if such is possible, would be one mixing the current reality of the Internet with its "ontological meaning", and could be summarized as: "What is the meaning of the Internet?"

We all know what Internet is: a network of networks, an industrial and programming infrastructure, interconnected computers, then the Web,archives, electronic mail recipients etc. But do we know really what inversions it is capable of? Is it at all pertinent to describe and define the Internet as an indefinite multiplicity of interconnected machines? Is it useful to describe it physically and geographically? Thinking things over, it is perhaps not outrageous to consider that all said and done, cables and machines make up little more than cables and machines and not the Internet. For in truth, the Internet is what we make of it, not an infrastructure, not an incidental project, but that which we put together concurrently and we should add recurrently: the existence of Internet, its being properly so called, is nothing less than our achieved communications, recurrent and concurrent - information flows, the written human in transit.

In quest of a philosophy of the Internet, a diktyology is an ontology of the Internet, and the latter is a reflexion on whether it is reducible to pure human writing transfers. In other words, the Internet is meaning, its reality is that of limitless communication and scriptological transfers. Which is not saying precisely that we only write, but also quite certainly, whatever we do on those networks, we are doing as a form of writing, in "packages" travelling from one point to another of our communication universe at a speed close to that of light.

Meanings subject to Translation

Now, if it is granted that the Internet is meaning, what does the proposition "The Internet is meaning" itself mean? This is not a redundant question. It is obvious, in effect, that the Internet consists of a system of "meanings subject to translation". But also, what is the meaning of "meanings subject to translation", and what does it imply?

Assuredly there are socio-psychological implications: the feeling it allows of our own liberty, of speech or even of action, the assurance of being able to give to our thoughts the texture of the written word; or in another mental ordering the unhappy effects of being exposed to pornography or violence, to hate or disrespectful pronouncements, etc. But it is also clear that socio-psychological implications are not philosophy.

"Meanings subject to translation" is of interest to philosophy on at least three principle fronts.

Undecidability
First of all, with respect to the undecidability surrounding the significant or non-significant nature of such webbing (réticulaire) practices of writing and meaning production. When we speak it is by and large for determinate ends, either we want to communicate a thought, to ourselves or others, or we may merely wish to create or sustain links with certain companions. It can be as well to convert thought to action, as when we give orders. Yet if these usual ends are at play in this will to communicate inherent to Web practices, at play as well is a non-negotiable something else, an absence of ends, atelia. Why in effect take part in a communication system where voice has no effect, in the midst of which the written remains unreadable, in which the partner in conversation is at best a fictional projection, a "pseudo", indeed of a radical absence signified by the evanescent presence of an electronic address? The only readers of which one can really be sure in effect are robots, not men, by Internet archiving services such as Google or Yahoo, in pursuit of perfectly apparent commercial ends. We imagine then that we are publishing information or culture on the Internet while in fact the data we are pouring out gets lost in a veritable communications limbo. Which does not mean for all that that they have disappeared; rather, they are at rest in the abyss of the network - thus one speaks of a "Deep Web". What then is the meaning of "wanting to say" when essentially we are dealing with connection without communication, with meaning production without reproduction or assimilation of the meaning, with practices without a recognizable memory? In philosophical terms, assuredly one must admit that the Internet forces us to reconsider our ideas about "saying", "communicating" and ultimately "thinking".

The Unfinished, Transgression
On another level, secondly, philosophy takes an interest in the Internet as "meaning subject to translation", in the sense that the rules with which we are accustomed, the processes of regulation and policing, are not operative on these networks as in the world which for convenience we call "real", for the reason that these rules and processes are themselves in translation. Normally, a regulatory system entails two things:
a) It is clear what is forbidden - although who decides may be variable.
b) That there be a prescriptive and/or co-ercive enforcement.

Yet such a framework of practical rationality is not at work on the Internet.
a) The regulatory aspects of the Internet are still being developed and are thus incomplete.
b) The emerging regulatory systems on the Internet are in structural and not merely circumstantial conflict with the over-riding systems in the real world.

For example, let us consider the exchange of files on P2P, whose rules are as varied as the sites concerned, and are in open and manifest conflict with the "real" world and "rights". Further, in a similar vein, the interest of networks, speaking figuratively, is that all machines and software be "inter-operable", that is capable of "communicating" one with the other; the economic and hence legal interests of a number of software enterprises lies on the contrary in "proprietary" software and their heteronomous character. As a consequence, beyond the technical difficulties encountered by jurists in their accommodation efforts on the rights of networks and those of territories and enterprises, philosophy encounters the renewed question of what is a rule and what should be the procedures destined to give birth to these. Traditionally, one relied on argumentation protocols and an examination of their rationality; henceforth one should assume a plurality of rationalities and their competition, thus giving up on achieving norm governance on networks from a unique scheme of practical universality. Thus, given networks, and their specific process of development, it becomes the work of a philosophy of networks, a diktyology, to re-think the concept of rule as no longer a "norm of constraint"; but as a "transgression", the transgression of a rule no longer seen as a more or less accidental consequence of its existence, but rather as constituting the very matrix from which it is built-up.

Construction, De-construction
Finally, thirdly, "meaning subject to translation" touches on the "de-construction" and "re-construction" of the subject. Again, this is not the business of a psycho-sociological approach to the question, which is already in place in any event. The diktyological question of the Subject concerns the cognitive and practical framework determining its "presence" on networks - in consequence our subjectivity, to the extent that we are in effect operators of webbing communications. Let it be understood that our cognitive and /or socio-ethical practices tend to exist increasingly in terms of webbing communications. Which does not mean that we participate in knowledge(s) and morality in a de-materialized mode. Rather what is problematic is the ever-so-gradual dissipation of the frontier between material and immaterial, between "connection" and "de-connection". And it is not sufficient to overcome the difficulty to pretend to be able to "cut the contact", that is turn off a or many machines. For even there, the question remains: "Who cuts the contact?" The autonomous Subject? But what is this "subject"? The answer comes not from from a reference to Leibnitz-defined "conscious-ity" neither does it reside in Montaigne or Nietzche-evolved critiques of "self". The answer, which precisely isn't one, but becomes a question, is in a certain"that", not unconscious, but thing-like: the "Subject" - in truth the question of the Subject - is its webbing identification, still limited to a or some machines, soon extending to things which belong to it, to electronic archiving of its existence, to its infinite webbing (see RFID chips). Defining the "Subject in connection", is thus trying to think not of a substantial subjectivity or even a uniform logic, but a "pervasive" and transitional subjectivity, a subjectivity littered with meaning and non-meaning.

A professional approach to the Internet requires of its users that they apprehend the network in a utilitarian fashion and as a simple means of communication, whose usefulness resides essentially in maximizing transactions, making them more fluid, more secure. But considering the field of action of Internet, is at the same time an affirmation that there is a such and such determinate use for networks: commercial, pedagogical, recreational, etc. Here, we are postulating that the tool adapts to its uses, and reciprocally that the usages are formed by the possibilities of the tools. Yet this conceptual structure defining usage in no way applies to the Internet, because there is simply no way of knowing what one should adapt and towards what end.

In effect, if the hypothesis of Internet-defined as "meaning subject to translation" is pertinent, then it is not a question of knowing how to use it in an optimal fashion, but understanding how we determine ourselves as "beings in translation". And that, evidently, with respect to self-knowledge and a crystal-clear sense of our spiritual loneliness: an unmistakable presence for and in expression, but for whom "beginning, middle, and end, are but dreams and mists".

Moonshine

Tree

Hydrogen Car

Birthday!

So I looked up celebrity birthdays for December 8 and wasn't listed. What a joke! Still the company is good: Among the dead, Jim Morrison and Mary Queen of Scots, Eli Whitney. For the living , Kim Basinger and one of the Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher (I am too sophisticated to actually watch television, a known fact about this celebrity, except for occasional bouts of television bulimia, which being a form of self-abuse, is presently socially acceptable ).

I wanted to translate a wonderful piece from the French on the Web about Trash Culture but I neglected to download it and can't find it. Grrr. I remember being impressed by the notion that Trash currently dominates the Teen Web, the celebrities teens are attracted to being often over the edge, flunking out of rehab, living in hotels, doing time. Britney Spears is not loosing her career, she is the Queen of the genre. There is a French sociologist on such matters, Pascal Lagardière (teaches in Lyon).

My view: Teen culture is always a form of rebellion because, in their darn innocence, the young see the absurdities the old have cornered themselves up with. They want our approval but don't want to be like us, well not exactly, but are willing to try, but only with and for other teens etc...The judgement on the present status quo is clear: incapable of self control, irresponsible, and forget tasteful clothes, the hair is everywhere, does anybody ever co-ordinate anything?

What do I want to do with my special Day? There is a blueberry cake in the fridge, which makes a fine breakfast. If I lived in Paris, I might try for that exhibition on the forbidden where one can see works that were banned in the XVIIIth and XIXth century including such 'touching' things as a Marquis the Sade original manuscript: one can see his handwriting and gauge the man, wimp or artist. I'll have to settle for a trip to Sears for new underwear.

On the up side, Trash is dead as a live artistic impulse, because it has a name. The current in thing is media and communication related but has yet to gel. Fine by me, a part of my day is going to Prism, a new Web game, with many levels. I am also quite happy with parts of the Natural Resources Canada Web site and Natural Resource Council tie-in. Here is the night sky for December 8, 07 from the NRC.

Nightsky

Mirage

Net Day

There are days when the Net news is just a charmer and today is one of them.

Flash: a lot of Hollywood films aren't being made because there is no one around to change scripts as shooting proceeds. Sad, really. Tom Cruise is the current head of United Artists and having a time of it, dealing with actors, writers, unions et al.

Holiday Food: Sympatico gives yummy recipes to get through the holidays and not gain weight. Le Figaro gives fattening recipes the way mama used to make them. They are, a few spices apart, the same recipes. There is only one possible conclusion. Drink!

Andrée Sarkosy, mother to the President of France, gave an interview in which she hopes "nobody gets married again". This contradicts current research in the U.S. that divorce is bad for the environment because seperate households use more hot water.

Experts on the Aging of the Population, meeting in Paris, think one might raise retirement age to 70. People live longer, and also stay healthy longer. The current age at which 'old age' sets in is approximately 75.

The medical net reports that maggots on a wound will help heal it because these creatures devour bacteria and toxins. Researchers studying addiction are learning to recognize genetic variability - differences between individuals in the strength of response - and claim this may be the clue future identification of individuals likely to get cancer and so on. Alcoholism researchers say the problem with advanced alcoholism is that the part of the brain capable of deciding to stop comes to be affected, which explains why AA works.

Great day, I say.

Oh, and someone quoted rocker Tommy Lee to the affect the purpose of life is to have a good time. The man has an eye for it!

Scalar pi

Light

HYDROGEN

One will recall from high school science, hydrogen is the lightest element and, at ambient temperatures at the earth's surface, always found as a compound such as H2O ( water) or as methane (CH4) or longer chains of carbon and hydrogen i.e. the fossil fuels. This is because hydrogen is very reactive. But it is also very light and in the years since the first gas price shock in the 1970's it has been touted as an aid in solving the petroleum dependence of modernized societies.

The U.S. government's Web site on Hydrogen is very clear on this: hydrogen is not, in itself, an energy source : that is because it takes more energy to access it in a free form than it contains. But it provides a way of storing energy produced centrally - for example in a nuclear power plant - and using it in individual transport mechanisms such as cars or buses. The U.S. site compares it to electricity in this respect, which will take the energy found in a flowing river and bring it to the home.

There are inconveniences to hydrogen with respect to conventional gasoline. For a given energy output, hydrogen is lighter than gasoline but, because it is a gas, it is also bulkier by a factor of four. The following is an interview which gives an interesting insight as to a possible application of hydrogen technology to solve current energy problems in transport.
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Appeared in Le Monde, November 24, 2007.

Is the Automobile Revolution coming in 2015?

Michel Alberganti interviews Pierre Beuzit, who was director of research for Renault Automobiles between 1998 and 2005.

In your book, 'Hydrogen: the future of the automobile?', published last October, you cite the year 2015 for the beginnings of mass production of hydrogen-powered automobiles. Will we be be able to, at that time, fill'er up at the local station?

No, clearly not. The first cars will work with conventional fuels such as gas, diesel or biofuels. But on board, a new apparatus called a reformer, would transform these fuels into hydrogen, which would feed into a fuel cell. Propulsion would thus become entirely electrical, and the consumption of fuel would go from the 6 liters for 100 kilometers, of current cars, to 3 liters. This would herald the true beginnings of the electrical car, which for the moment has a battery which gives only limited autonomy.

Is this the future as seen by all car producers?

Gasoline as a fuel being, in a forseeable future, headed for exhaustion, every major car-maker has developed a program around hydrogen. BMW and Ford are looking to burn it in a combustion engine. Mercedes, General Motors, Volkswagen, Nissan and PSA are looking to store pure hydrogen, and thus feed a fuel cell. Renault and Toyota, for their part, are betting on a reformer.

If this procedure comes to be, each car will then 'produce' its own hydrogen?

In a manner of speaking, yes. Of course, this is only a short-term solution since it does not eradicate dependence on petrol or biofuels. Nor does it get rid of pollution
because the car continues - albeit to a lesser extent - to produce carbon dioxide during the transformation of fuel to hydrogen. But using the reformer will, initially, present certain advantages.

With this device, one first of all sidesteps the question of how to store hydrogen in the car. With 1 kilogram of hydrogen, one can go some 100 kilometers, but this kilo, at atmospheric pressure, occupies a volume of...11 meters3. So it becomes necessary to compress the gas or refrigerate it, which consumes energy. The reformer makes it possible to put off creating a new distribution system for oxygen at what are now gas pumps. A development which, given the inherent difficulties, should not be expected until 2020 or 2025.

Will the very idea of the automobile be transformed by this innovation?

Cars haven't changed much in the last 100 years. Mostly because of the presence of the internal combustion (thermal explosion) engine, a heavy, cumbersome, noisy and dirty component. With the hydrogen cell, we are rid of this constraint. The reformer, no larger than a suitcase, fits into the emergency wheel slot and electrical motors can be integrated to each wheel. Which would leave a great deal of liberty to planners.

With hydrogen thus offering ample provision of electrical power, it will feed a large number of conveniences. Tomorrow's car can be designed as a small living-room, with integrated communication, audio and video, but also refrigeration and a micro-wave oven. There would thus be continuity between life in the home and in the car, all the more tempting as the car becomes silent. The electrification of the automobile will also transform functions such as acceleration, breaking and assisted direction. The pedals will no longer serve any purpose and will disappear. As well the steering wheel will be replaced by the joystick, (like the one used in video games), which can be placed anywhere in the cabin.

Will we be able to escape traffic jams?

The car, also thanks to electricity, will make better use of its guidance system which will ameliorate both mobility in the city and highway security. Thanks to mobile telephones, it will be possible to signal where one is and where one is going. The coming together of all this information will make it possible to make better use of the roads network. Today at peak rush hours in Paris, only 15% of roads are congested; better guidance will introduce greater fluidity. Further, this information can be used to avoid accidents; one will know the projected path of each car and accident configurations will be anticipated. Traffic signalization might eventually form part of the virtual environment of the automobile...

Driving will no longer much resemble what it is today. Will drivers adapt?

In 2015, the young drivers will be joystick adepts... This will not be a problem for them. Control over the car's various functions will no longer be concentrated around the driver. Driving will done through remote control. The behavior of the driver will change correspondingly. because he will be capable of predicting, thanks to technology, be it the risks of traffic jams or accidents, he will be more at ease.

That seems a lot like automated driving...

We will have to wait to 2030 or 2040 for a mastery of the security features of automated driving. But until that time, certain elements will start to appear. For example, by 202, GPS Galileo will give a precise position for cars to within 1 meter. Thanks to hydrogen, the electrical car promises to be a true departure from anything we have known so far.

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE REFORMER

In the case of hydrogen, reforming means extracting. The apparatus on which Renault is betting was developed by the Italo-American firm Novera. It allows a chemical reaction called "cracking" of the fuel molecule, which breaks down into hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon monoxide(CO). The latter is then transformed into carbon dioxide(CO2). The reformer, whose efficiency rating reaches 80%,is well adapted to biofuels, which should be more readily available between now and 2015.

THE BOOK

Pierre Beuzit, "Hydrogène, l'avenir de la voiture?", L'Archipel, Paris, 2007.