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The title up there is taken from a quote by Craig Grimes , a professor of electrical engineering at Penn State University. According to Grimes, his group is “only a couple of problems away” from developing an inexpensive and easily scalable technique for water photoelectrolysis (the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen using light energy) that could help power the proposed hydrogen economy. As you probably know, methods of hydrogen production currently employed split hydrogen from natural gas in a process that produces CO2, which is a climate changing greenhouse gas. Since hydrogen is abundently available in water (H2O) it would be much better--and cheaper--if we could extract it from water at a reasonable cost. You can do it now by running electrical current through water but it's not very efficient. The Penn State scientists speculated that by doping a TiO2 (titanium oxide, a common ingredient in white paint) film with a form of iron called hematite, a low band gap semico...

I've read 3 items in the media in the past day regarding automobiles that piqued my interest. The first was in Newsweek and was a short interview with Chris Balish, author of "How to Live Well Without Owning a Car". The other two items were science articles regarding the feasibility of using corn stalks as fuel (as opposed to the ethanol processed from the corn kernals), and a new way to store hydrogen in a fuel tank to make it easier to use. First of all, I've never liked cars. I was reluctant to learn to drive when a teen and I've never really become interested in them. To me they're just a tool that I need. According to Balish, almost anyone can use mass transit and end their dependance on cars and gasoline. He thinks that the money savings would allow for the purchase of a residence close-in to town where prices are higher. Well, I agree that cars are expensive. I live 12 miles from town mostly due to the houses being less than half the price where I live ...