linx 2 central valley page on sf-imc w/ pix of 4/22 Earth Day protest of GW Bush's visit to the CA Fuel Cell Partnership in West Sacraemnto;
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/04/1817202.php Info on H2 economy, how Bush IPHE plan continues petroleum addiction;
It is ironic that GW Bush visits the CA Fuel Cell Partnership (read auto corporations monopolizing hydrogen) on Earth Day, 4/22. The Bush IPHE (International Partnership for Hydrogen Economy) plan (2003) sounds to many like relief from petroleum addiction when broadcast by corporate media, though the truth about the H2 economy remains hidden behind the scenes..
The symbol H2 describes the element hydrogen after being extracted from water (H2O), an energy consuming process. When H2 elemental compound is restored to H2O, some energy can be harnessed as the H ion travels along a gradient to meet oxygen (O). However, energy input is required to seperate (or extract) H2 from the stronger bond with the H2O molecular compound. The source of energy used to extract and store H2 for fuel cell use is up for debate..
Some info on the H2 (hydrogen) economy can be found by visiting Jeremy Rifkin's "Hydrogen Economy" page @;
http://www.foet.org/hydrogeneconomy.htm from Foundation on Economic Trends (FOET);
"The hydrogen economy makes possible a vast redistribution of power, with far-reaching consequences for society. Today’s centralized, top-down flow of energy, controlled by global oil companies and utilities, becomes obsolete. In the new era, says Rifkin, every human being could become the producer as well as the consumer of his or her own energy – so called “distributed generation.” When millions of end-users connect their fuel-cells into local, regional, and national hydrogen energy webs (HEWs), using the same design principles and smart technologies that made possible the World Wide Web, they can begin to share energy – peer-to-peer – creating a new decentralized form of energy use.
Hydrogen has the potential to end the world’s reliance on imported oil and help diffuse the dangerous geopolitical game being played out between Muslim militants and Western nations. It will dramatically cut down on carbon dioxide emissions and mitigate the effects of global warming. And because hydrogen is so plentiful and exists everywhere on earth, every human being could be “empowered,” making it the first truly democratic energy regime in history."
and also looking at these websites;
http://www.greenhydrogencoalition.org/ Mission Statement of Green Hydrogen Coalition;
"The White House hosted a meeting of energy ministers from around the world on November 19-21, in Washington, D.C., to sign a landmark agreement to share research and development on hydrogen related activity, with a goal of ushering in a hydrogen economy over the course of the next several decades. The United States has proposed that it serve as the secretariat of this first-of-a-kind global research and development effort.
The Green Hydrogen Coalition accuses the White House of using the IPHE initiative as a smokescreen to deflect attention away from its dismal anti-environmental record and a forum to promote the interests of the coal, oil, gas, and nuclear industries. The Green Hydrogen Coalition further charges the Bush administration with using the IPHE as a delaying tactic to avoid introducing already available off-the-shelf technologies and effective policies that can address local and global environmental issues.
The Green Hydrogen Coalition warns that if the United States is successful in steering the IPHE towards a black hydrogen future, it could lock the global economy into the old energy regime for much of the 21st century, with dire environmental consequences."
The adjective "black" to describe the IPHE plan for hydrogen fuel indicates the continuing dependency on below ground fossil fuels like petroleum and coal, both which cause air/water pollution, and involve long term US military occupations of regions where oil is plentiful (Iraq, Saudi Arabia). Nuclear energy dependency for H2 extraction releases cancer causing radiation and NO known safe solution to nuclear waste disposal yet exists. BTW, fragmenting radioactive depleted uranium into weapons and tank armor and exposing US soldiers & Iraqi civilians to this carcinogen doesn't count as safe..
"The misnamed 'Depleted' Uranium is left after enriched uranium is separated from natural uranium in order to produce fuel for nuclear reactors. During this process, the fissionable isotope Uranium 235 is separated from uranium. The remaining uranium, which is 99.8% uranium 238 is misleadingly called 'depleted uranium'. While the term 'depleted' implies it isn't particularly dangerous, in fact, this waste product of the nuclear industry is 'conveniently' disposed of by producing deadly weapons."
http://www.cadu.org.uk/intro.htm Neither does burial of nuclear waste in tunnels (constructed by Bechtel Nevada) in seismically active Yucca Mountain (on Shoshone land) Newe Sogobia..
"President Bush officially approved Yucca Mountain as the nations first permanent high-level nuclear waste dump & committed to the shipment of over 50,000 "Mobile Chernobyl's" This does not mean an end to the fight!"
http://www.shundahai.org/yucca_mt.html What is becoming apparent is the Bush regime intends to continue the public's dependency on petroleum, coal and nuclear energy in the process of generation and storage of H2 for fuel. If people are misled into believing that H2 HUM-VEES are sustainable, then the "addiction" energy corporations will continue the unsustainable and unethical process of extracting petroleum, coal and nuclear energy sources from around the world. Many people will agree that in addition to promoting a western Christocratic capitalist value system overseas (ie; Manifest Destiny cont'd), petroleum dependency is the main reason that US soldiers continue to occupy oil rich Iraq. So if H2 production continues to rely on fossil fuels, than the US global policy will continue to be militarism, censorship and fascism..
Nothing shouts "greenwashing" louder than GW Bush visiting one of the H2 fuel cell IPHE headquarters controlled by the auto corporations on Earth Day. The corporate media described the crowd of protesters as "a handful" and misquoted enough people to make us sound uneducated and ignorant. Nothing news here from the corporate media. That is where imc sites come in, a chance to balance the distortions of corporate media..
The Bush IPHE (International Partnership for Hydrogen Economy) plan is heavily supported by petroleum corporations like British Petroleum/Shell/Amaco (now "Beyond Petroleum", isn't that cute?), Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, all the old monopolies from the pre-WW2 era come back together again..
"Although the Microsoft and Intel cases have been getting most of the headlines lately, there's another antitrust matter now before the government that is of potentially greater relevance to consumers: the proposed merger between Exxon and Mobil. Eighty-eight years after the government broke up the Standard Oil monopoly, in one of the first great trust-busting crusades of early twentieth century, these two behemoths are planning the largest marriage in corporate history -- a deal worth $80billion. It will go through unless the Federal Trade Commission objects, and there's good reason to believe it won't.
Last year, the FTC approved another large oil industry merger -- British Petroleum's $53 billion acquisition of Amoco. It was merely the latest in a flurry of other petroleum combinations that have gone unchallenged in the past several years."
article continues @;
http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/recent/28.cfm GW Bush telling US people that they are "addicted to oil" and later promoting hydrogen fuel is like an abusive alcoholic stepfather randomly beating his children then later telling them to "Eat your spinach, cause it's good for you." Of course it is true that spinach is healthy for children to eat, yet how would they feel about eating spinach after enduring repeated beatings for no reason? Instead of enjoying eating the spinach if well prepared, the spinach is slammed down on the plate by the angry alcoholic stepfather while the tears of the abuse are still drying in the children's eyes. For a creative solution to abusive stepfathers, recommend watching the movie "Sling Blade"..
The abusive stepfather example above is similar to the situation the US public finds themselves in with regards to petroleum dependency. People were made dependent on petroleum after other transport energy options (public transit trolleys, H2, biodiesel, bike/ped friendly communities, etc..) were removed and/or suppressed, and now US people are being blamed by GW Bush for being addicts? As if the fourth generation of the Bush family to play their hand in the global oil power games had nothing to to with this addiction..
"The Bushes and the military-industrial complex: George H. Walker and Samuel Prescott Bush were the dynasty's founding fathers during the years of and after World War I. Walker, a St. Louis financier, made his mark in corporate reorganizations and war contracts. By 1919, he was enlisted by railroad heir W. Averell Harriman to be president of Wall Street-based WA Harriman, which invested in oil, shipping, aviation and manganese, partly in Russia and Germany, during the 1920s. Sam Bush, the current president's other great-grandfather, ran an Ohio company, Buckeye Steel Castings, that produced armaments. In 1917, he went to Washington to head the small arms, ammunition and ordnance section of the federal War Industries Board. Both men were present at the emergence of what became the U.S. military-industrial complex."
"Oil: The Bushes' ties to John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil go back 100 years, when Rockefeller made Buckeye Steel Castings wildly successful by convincing railroads that carried their oil to buy heavy equipment from Buckeye. George H. Walker helped refurbish the Soviet oil industry in the 1920s, and Prescott Bush acquired experience in the international oil business as a 22-year director of Dresser Industries. George H.W. Bush, in turn, worked for Dresser and ran his own offshore oil-drilling business, Zapata Offshore. George W. Bush mostly raised money from investors for oil businesses that failed. Currently, the family's oil focus is principally in the Middle East."
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0208-05.htm Well, if we the people of the USA (& China, India, Europe, etc..) are the petroleum addicts, GW Bush is without a doubt the oil cartel kingpin druglord who keeps US mainlining petroleum. Now our drug dealer in chief tells us that he'll solve our problems of petroleum addiction by providing us with hydrogen fuel, courtesy of the IPHE plan. Sort of like giving an alcoholic a mirror with a few lines of fresh cut cocaine to cure their alcohol addiction. When will we learn that depending on corporations will always keep US people hooked, regardless of what the drug we're offered is?
What Rifkin and the Green Hydrogen Coalition offer people is an alternative to corporate centralization, and refocus on community sources of energy, biomass, solar, wind and other renewable and sustainable forms of energy. Most important is that these energy forms are decentralized and cannot be capitalized upon by profit hungry corporations. When combining these options for H2 fuel with improved mass transit, ped/bike friendly communites, biodiesel, maybe then people everywhere will become free of fuel addiction of anysort..
Some positive ideas @;
Run your appliances with a backyard or rooftop vertical windmill;
http://www.greenwindmill.com/ other permaculture ideas;
http://rhizomecollective.org/virtualTour.html decomposition of organic matter --> methane --> biogas energy;
http://www.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/methane.htm