schu

The independent methane supply company would haul a 40,000 pound container right to your place for a shipping charge or you could go to a distribution center and pick up a container sized to fit your needs.

Don't worry, it will not happen. The government will convince enough people that they need big brother to oversee the supply and instead of a thoroughbred we will get a camel.

AtomSmasher

A camel can travel much farther for cheaper than a horse.

You still haven't answered my question: What company provides this service? How much methane will that container hold? You present this as if it is immediately available and I've just spent some time searching for it but cannot find anything except speculation.

Nickle

OK, trying out the new code here.

Is there a way to harness the energy of the spreading sea floor? Maybe have giant hooks on each side and to seperate them just a millimeter requires a complex process which turns a generator.

Alright, I'll lay off the beer now.

sourdough

ok,here's my idea how to create cheap energy,run electric curent in water,thus releasing hydrogen gas to heat your house/run the cars engine.
water is free,electricity can be created by solar panels/hydro/fuel cells/you pedaling your exercise bycicle.

also since there is bit of a drought problem lately on the prairies,
my idea for creating rain goes like this;
have big huge mirrors (located on the west coast )concentrate Sun's heat onto the oceans surface evaporating lots of water,into the air creating clouds.
since the wind blows in easterly direction,it would send the clouds right where you need it.

Seeker196

The first one overlooks a really big problem: electrolysis is inefficient.

How is this a power generation scheme if you're putting in more than you're getting out?

Do you know how much pedaling you'd need to do in order to have enough hydrogen to do anything?

and how would you keep it from evapourating? Are you storing it in its bulky gas form? You'd need the equivalent of the Graf Zeppelin to run your car for a few weeks. Compress it to a liquid? Liquid hydrogen is a cyro fuel, you'd need even more juice to keep it cold.

Hypernovean

How about the Solar Tower? A kilometre-high reinforced concrete chimney with giant wind turbines inside. A 7-odd kilometre diameter greenhouse at its base produces hot air when the sun beats down on it all day; the hot air then travels up the chimney, turning the turbines, and producing electricity. No pollution whatsoever, and a massive area for greenhouse agriculture as a bonus.
The best thing of all? It's starting construction next year in Australia, and will be the first of 10 there over the next decade. A kilometre high! Really being built!
More details here: Enviromission

AtomSmasher

Nice find. I was immediately skeptical but it seems that the prototype in Spain produced a steady 50kW for 7 years, which is insubstantial but encouraging for a prototype. The Australian design is supposed to produce 200MW, quite an increase. I sincerely hope it is successfull.

Nickle

Good idea. Maybe they can put a tower on top of the local baptist church here. All that hot air should be able to power the city.

Jayjay

Any power generation scheme that has "GIANT" (all uppercase, of course) in its name gets my vote. We need more power! Arf arf arf... uh... or whatever that guy in "home improvement" used to say.

Arc

Here's an interesting alternative energy idea I read about a while ago, though it would be pretty expensive to put into action:

Why not build an array of solar satellites and send them into space? They would collect light and relay the enrgy in the form of microwaves back to earth.

Of course, when I first heard of this, I thought that giant beams of microwaves bombarding the earth probably would be a very good idea. However, apparently an array of towers designed to absorb the beams would do so safely, and you could even grow crops underneath the collection towers. Heh. I think I'd make sure it was verified to be safe before I ate any of those crops, though.