Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Dear Paul and Kate, Melanie and Jared, Bridget and Justin, Sara, Ben and Sarah, Heather, Audrey, Rachel, and Matt via hardcopy,
cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny,
Pauline Nelson via mail, & Maxine Shirts
Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea,
belief, thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit
to you, my children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended
family members. Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail
box at any time.
"Sometimes the smallest things, the most offhand comments, and
the totally unexpected coincidences make all the difference.
Often it takes years or even decades to recognize that `out
of small things proceedeth that which is great.' (D&C 64:33)
Of course, I don't sweat the small stuff, and so I miss a lot
of these significant course changes.
However, I did pick up on one of them when we were in China.
During one of my one-on-one conversations with Yan Dun-Shi,
he mentioned Curium. How there are three significant locations
to find the raw material in the world, and they are each in
China. How this man-made element can be packaged in something
the size of a pack of cigarettes and provide hydrogen to power
an automobile for 18 months. How England, the U.S., and China
each have new porcelain based engines driving prototype cars
today. And I mentioned this in my Thoughtlet reporting on our
January 2003 trip to China (0303.html).
What I haven't written about is the number of times I have read
and heard about hydrogen fuel cells since returning home from
China. There was a significant statement about this technology
in President Bush's state-of-the-union speech. On the front
page of the Houston Chronicle business section two Sundays ago
there was an article titled `Fuel cells have clean but costly
reputation.' I was catching up reading old Oil & Gas Journals
and in July of 2002 one of the editorial articles was titled
`Hydrogen fuel gets a push.' On January 6th I was watching
CNN while I ate lunch and listened to a talk George W. Bush
gave at the National Building Museum on hydrogen fuel cells.
My notes on the back of my swallows sheet are cryptic. They
say `11 billion barrels per day by 2040.' They say it will
cost `$1.2 billion to go from the lab to the showroom.' My
notes point out `powered by hydrogen is pollution free.'
Then they list obstacles. `There are currently 4 hydrogen
service stations in the Unites States. It costs 4x as much
as gasoline to run a car on hydrogen than it costs to run
it on gasoline.' With regular gasoline over $1.60 per gallon
at the Shell station by I-10, which is about 1/3rd of what
I feel we should be charging for gasoline, this last
statement implies a hydrogen fuel cell will cost the
equivalent of $6.40 per gallon of gasoline. The Chronicle
article points out it costs 8 cents per kilowatt hour for
electricity on the grid, and United Technologies
Corporation's 250 operating fuel cells ends up costing
about 16 cents per kilowatt hour. Maybe it is still a jump
of faith to say Mr. Yan's comments about hydrogen fuel cells
were one of those smallest of comments that will end up
having the biggest of differences. It will be interesting
to watch this over the next few decades.
Maybe the best solution to energy problems is related to my
theory as to why the dinosaurs became extinct. I'm sure
most of you have heard this, and according to my quick
search of past Thoughtlets, it has not been documented yet.
Ray Gardner taught me the basics behind this theory when
when I told him how Chuck Edwards and I started China Cattle
Corporation on November 29th of 1989. He said, `Roice, how
can you be involved in raising cattle. They are one of the
biggest issues relative to global warming. Collectively
cattle are one of the biggest sources of methane entering
the atmosphere there is.' I had never realized the amount
of methane that comes out of the back end of a cow before,
and it made perfect sense. In those days there were a lot
of articles about an asteroid hitting Cancun and creating
a climate change which ended up killing off the dinosaurs.
I got thinking about the relative amount of grass needed
to feed a cow and needed to feed a dinosaur, and jumped to
the conclusion it is just as likely the dinosaurs put so
much methane gas in the atmosphere they changed the climate
and in effect farted themselves to death. So if we build
a device to capture the methane gas cattle let off, then
modify it to fit humans, and then feed everyone a lot of
beans, maybe we can solve our energy problems. It could
be called `the new hydrogen fuel cell.'
Now that I have set the stage, I have two long promised
reports from Benjamin Bengt Nelson and Brian Penny about
their trip to China with me in January of 2003. First Ben:
<![CDATA[ `Here is my response to my trip to China. I'm not going
to give a day by day account, but just my general
impressions.
First of all, get yourself ready for the travel time.
This turned out to be the only negative part of the
whole trip. From the time I left my house in Dallas
to arriving at the hotel in Beijing, it took about 24
hours. In order to make the long flight as painless as
possible, I stay up all night on Thursday and slept
pretty much the whole flight from LA to Tokyo.
Overall, I was very impressed with the city. It was
clean (apart from the air) and everyone was extremely
nice. It was very easy to get around town, but the
cab drivers were a little crazy. You can tell the
city is growing extremely fast due to the Olympics
coming in 2008 and China's recent entry into the WTO.
Also, I would recommend trying to get around to the
places that are not typically touristy. Brian and I
met a couple of students (who were the only "students"
who didn't try to sell us something) who took us around
to non-tourist shopping sites, and even took us to a
disco one night.
Speaking of shopping, everything is so cheap, especially
if you look in the right places. I was able to find a
pair of black pearl earrings for Sarah that cost $20, but
would likely be about $200 in the US. You can also get
clothes, antiques, collectibles, etc. for very cheap.
There is also more than enough to keep you busy for an
entire week. We didn't come close to seeing everything
we wanted to and we stayed busy the whole time. The
architecture is amazing. It is also a fantastic
experience to see how another society interacts and
their viewpoints on things. Also, if you are worried
about the food, don't. Everything we ate was delicious
and even if you don't think the food is good, there are
plenty of western food establishments to eat from.
Well, I guess that's about all. It was a wonderful trip
and I highly recommend that anyone who has the opportunity,
takes it.']]>
Brian's comments were more extensive:
<![CDATA[ `It all started with the planes. The planes never ended.
I mean, 1 hour from Vegas to L.A., 3 hour wait in L.A.,
10 hours from L.A. to Japan, 2 hour layover in Japan, 3
hours from Japan to Beijing. (Needless to say I feel
sorry for anyone who has to take a little kid on this
trip).
Ben was really smart about the whole thing and stayed up
all night the night before so he was able to sleep on
the planes really easily. Well, Roice and I sat there
watching movies that were o.k.
In Japan they made us go through security again because
I guess they just don't trust American airport security
techniques. Roice said that they had just built the
airport we were at but they had built it on sacred ground
so the local farmers kept attacking the place. There
were guards everywhere and a big fence up around the
whole thing. It would be kind of funny to be one of
those farmers. Your schedule would be kinda like this -
Wake up, Breakfast, feed the animals, attack airport,
plow field, dinner, and bed.
Once we finally got to Beijing Roice went to an ATM to
exchange U.S. dollars for yuan. (The currency over there.
The exchange rate is 1 dollar for 8.25 yuan). Anyway
right after that this guy came up to us to try and get
us a Taxi into the city but he wanted to charge 400
for it and of course Roice said that was too high and
we kept walking but this guy just kept following us and
offered us the ride for 300. Roice said we would see
what the other drivers were charging first. This guy
kept following us until we went up to another cab driver
who had the same little price card as the first guy that
said 400. So we went with the first. (We later found out
that we were scammed out of 200 yuan. The real taxis
over there do what Americans do and have a little deal
that just counts how much you owe.)
Once we got to the hotel we got in our room and had them
put in another bed. (Originally I was going to get the
"bad bed" that they where bringing in but Ben found out
that the normal beds where harder then the new bed so he
instantly took control of the situation and confiscated
the new bed. Ben's very good at getting what he wants.)
Roice then took us out on a little walk before we went to
bed and we talked about the pollution, the government,
etc. But the thing that got me was how safe this place
was. You would see girls walking by themselves off into
dark side streets etc. so I asked Roice and he said that
he could remember when the government was doing public
executions for stealing a TV. He said that everyone over
there still remembers that kind of stuff (like Tieneman
Square), because that was only ten years ago. (Funny
thing-When we were walking these teenage boys saw that
we were American and so they started saying the only
English they knew like F!&K you and you B&^tch etc. Me
and Ben found this rather funny because of the
pronunciation but Roice wasn't amused in the slightest.)
The next day we woke up and Roice went off to do his
business and left Ben and me to start wandering around.
So we ate breakfast, exchanged some money, and started
walking. (Thankfully Ben had bought a guidebook about
Beijing so we could kind of find our way around town.)
We started walking to Tieneman Square and on our way we
saw this park so we went in and it was just the neatest
thing. It had all of these frozen ponds everywhere and
people were on these chair things that had skis on the
bottom so they could glide around on the ice. It was
a really neat idea. There were also people doing Tai-chi
and people playing instruments, kids playing games etc.
It was a neat park.
Anyway, once we got out of the park we where turned
around and we couldn't figure out which way was north
so I said we should just find a store that has compasses
and find out where we were. So we found one and went in,
walked over to the display case and found out were north
was then walked right back out. (That owner must have
thought we were pretty weird.)
So now that we finally got our bearings we started
walking towards Tieneman. On the way there people kept
coming up to us to try and sell us dvds. Of course
they didn't understand English so we couldn't say no
thanks and they would just keep following us. (After
a while you get pretty good with body language.)
Some people that came up to us though were 3 art
students who could speak English. They where
originally trying to sell us paintings. They said, "You
want to just come look at our art?" So being an art
person myself I took them up on their offer. When we
got into their studio they had paintings everywhere,
all over the walls and on the tables, some were on the
floor, etc. They started showing us some of their
stuff, but they where still just trying to sell us
pictures. So being an artist I know how artists think
so I opened up my backpack and pulled out one of my
sketchbooks, and let them start looking at it. This
of course changed everything and they stopped trying
to sell us art and we just started talking about
drawing, painting etc. After a while poor Ben was
getting really bored so we said our good-byes and
left. (Out of all the art I saw over there those
three girls had the best stuff on average.)
So after that we continued walking down to Tieneman,
amazed with how many people there were. You could
look down any street and see at least 50 bikes, 100
pedestrians and a couple of hundred cars.
Once we
got to Tieneman there were people everywhere on the
huge square in the middle of the city with cement
blocks for the ground and a huge monument in the
center. What was really cool was that everything
was perfectly symmetrical with the monument. It
was a giant tower with four sides each of which were
perfectly parallel with the front door of an important
building, like the Forbidden City or the college or
the museum or the building where the emperor was.
Anyway, some more art students came up to us to try
and sell us art, but we just kept telling them no
thanks. After a while two students came up to us who
turned out to be English majors. At first we thought
they were art students, but after a while we could
tell that they were just trying to get better at
speaking English. They wanted to show us around the
tourist sites, but we had to go meet Roice for a
dinner so we asked if they wanted to meet us tomorrow
so we could go around together. They said they
would be delighted so we told them we would meet
Monday morning at 10 a.m.
When we got to the dinner with Roice we met two of
his business associates which were both quite fun
to talk to. And we got our first taste of a high
class Chinese restaurant. Since we were with Roice
they gave us a private room. And the way serving
would go is you would order your food and then they
would put it on this giant turntable in the middle
of the table and everyone would just share each
other's food.
The next day we woke up and went to meet Fish and
Elien (Those where the two English students we
meet on Sunday.) Anyway, we got to talking and
they showed us the area around Tieneman and told
us about it, then they took us on a bus to go see
the Temple of Heaven. (There were at least forty
people jammed on that small bus. It was insane.)
Once we got there they started showing us around.
You would walk in and see trees everywhere (you
probably could fit a grocery store in just one
little part of this place) after you would walk
a while through the trees you would get to
various buildings where the emperor would pray
and do rituals. This place just kept on going
and you start to figure out why the emperors
court used to be so healthy; they had to walk
a mile just to get to the next building over.
After going around this place we were all quite
hungry so we asked Fish and Elien if they had
any good ideas for food. So they took us to this
little restaurant in a shopping district and they
said we had to try this thing called a hotplate.
After a while the restaurant started to bring out
all this uncooked food and just set it on plates
all around the table (Ben and I started really
wondering about what was happening really quick).
Some of the plates had vegetables some had little
rolls of beef or lamb etc. Then the restaurant
brought out this cylinder thing with a ring around
it filled with water and it was steaming like no
other. When they set it down on our table Fish
and Elien started putting all the food into the
ring of water. What happened was that the
cylinder in the center had burning wood inside
of it and this heated the ring of water around
it and this cooked the food. Ben and I both
thought this was the coolest idea ever and we all
started to eat.
We hung out at the restaurant for about two hours
with Fish and Elein eating and chatting. It was
really fun. Then they showed us around some more
and about 4 o clock we were all really tired and
we parted paths after exchanging e-mails numbers
etc. so we could meet up later in the week.
The next day we spent mostly just wandering around
having fun getting gifts for people etc. What
was funny is that when we tried to grab a taxi Ben
showed him the place we wanted to get to on his
map but the guy didn't get it and just kicked us
out of the cab. (That happened twice for us.) I
was starting to wonder if they couldn't read maps
or something.
Anyway that night we called up Elien to see if
they wanted to do something with us. She said
sure, but Fish couldn't come that night. But
anyway we met up with her and one of her other
friends and they wanted to take us to a Disco.
It sounded like fun so we said sure. (But we had
to kill some time before we went so we went to
this dress shop because I had to get a wedding
present for one of my friends. Anyway they were
asking too much for the thing I wanted of course
I bartered them down but they still wanted 260
and I didn't have that much so I showed them
that I only had 210 yuan with me and she wanted
the sale so bad said that they said 210 was O.K.)
Once we got to the Disco we staked out a little
booth and sat and talked for a while. (It was
really interesting there because girls and boys
really didn't dance with each other. They just
kind of did their own thing on the dance floor.
It was kind of like a jr. high dance.) The beats
to the music were really fast for dancing anyway
so no one really could dance. They just kind of
jumped around and had fun. Elein finely talked Ben
and I to go out and "dance" (Both of us go in the
white man can't dance category) Anyway it was fun
and we laughed a lot.
The next day we took a tour that our hotel offered
to the Ming burial grounds and the Great Wall.
The Ming tombs were huge buildings with walls
everywhere, statues etc.. And then the Great Wall
was just incredible. What a climb! The vertical
in some places was at least 75 degrees and the
steps were really worn down and extremely uneven,
but what a view. We went as far on it as they had
open to the public in that area and boy were we
tired after that climb.
That night we went with Roice and met some of his
Chinese business partners and boy do they worship
him. After an incredible meal they pulled out a
guitar and had me play for them. After a while
Roice pulled out the sheet music for "Country
Roads" by John Denver and had me play it while
everyone sang along. (There were three generations
in this family that all knew the words to the song
just because the grampa likes John Denver) That
was probably the most interesting sing-a-long I've
ever heard.
The next day Ben and I went to the Forbidden City
and walked around that for a couple of hours.
(This place was huge. In one of the courtyards
you could fit a Target Store and still have room
to spare.) This place was really cool and had
lots of neat stuff to look at. We just kept
wandering around and joked that it would be the
ultimate Lazer tag area.
On Friday we met up with Elien to say good-by and
hang around for a while. We went to this little
store and tasted tea with her for an hour or so.
After that we said good-by and went to the hotel
to meet up with Roice and his friends to go see
the most incredible underground cave. (What was
really funny was that when we got there the cave
was closed for the day but Mr. Yan said that he
wanted to see it that day so they just opened it
right up for him just because he is that
important.) This cave was just incredible. I
wish I could grab a paint set and a couple of
canvases and spend a week in there painting.
After that we went to dinner again with Mr. Yan
and family. There they told me that they want
to bring me over for the summer to teach guitar.
Of course I said that I would love to and as of
now it looks like it will happen.
All in all it
was a really fun experience and I'm really
excited to go and teach there for the summer.
Cheers,
Brian Penny']]>
These two reports might be the basis of an interesting
study in left-brain and right-brain thinking. The
left-brain is used for verbal, analytic, sequential,
reductive-into-parts, rational, time-oriented, and
discontinuous thinking. The right-brain is used for
non-verbal, holistic, visio-spatial, synthetic,
intuitive, timeless, and diffuse thinking. In other
words left brain brain dominance is the accountant,
concise and to the point. While right brain dominance
is the artist, global and busy comparing the Forbidden
City to the size of the Walmart back home. I am very
pleased with both reports. The only disappointment
was the words Mr. Yan said at dinner about my
contributions did not come across, and this is simply
my ego raising it's head. Brian, I do not think the
word is worship, rather I think it is appreciate.
I would like to think there is value in all of the
effort and personal sacrifice I have made over the
years. I did my best to provide service to the
worldwide oil industry, and Mr. Yan's comments at
the first dinner were one of the nicest rewards of
my life. However, this does not change the fact
that `if we fail in our homes, we fail in our lives'
and `no man is truly successful who has failed in
his home.' I have recently found myself consoling
my fears these words from President Hinkley's last
talk at the October 2002 General Conference are only
too true in my life with the fact Joseph Smith's
family did not follow his teachings, Brigham Young
had at least one very nasty public divorce, Spencer
W. Kimball's oldest son has nothing to do with his
wonderful family heritage as a lawyer in Chicago, etc.
Anyway, here I go, slipping into my personal fears of
failure again, when I should be celebrating the
opportunity Brian and Ben reported so eloquently on,
and how this China trip experience has the potential
to become their personal hydrogen fuel cell.
My week was more of the same. IBM-China hasn't paid
yet, which puts us in a bit of a financial crimp.
Dick Coons is still paying us 10% of the money he
is making from work that came from the Dynamic
NetWork, and this provided us with $2,000. cash flow
this week. Yan Jiafeng did some checking with the
IBM-China folks, and gave me a report the payments
should be here by the middle of March. It is really
interesting to me I can afford to provide IBM a
three month float of money they owe me, including
the plane tickets they agreed to pay me back for.
I sent an extensive letter to Jim Gray, distinguished
engineer and researcher at MicroSoft, concerning
extending his talk at Rice to seismic data. He wrote
back: `YES!!! I am very interested. I am copying some
of my pals who are likely also quite interested. I
think step 1 is to come up with a data description
that we can work from and using that then start
knocking off the questions you have posed.' I sent
back a reply on Saturday saying: `Good! Glad you
are interested! Step 1 is to define a business
relationship.' He responded this morning with:
`Woops!! I guess we should stop here then. I am a
researcher.' Who knows maybe something will come of
the conversation some day. It resulted in me taking
time to write down some ideas which could change the
way seismic data is stored and retrieved and which
could make a big difference on both seismic processing
and interpretation. It does take both funding and a
business relationship to turn an idea into a real
business. Just like making hydrogen fuel cells.
Last Sunday we had a most interesting Activities
Committee Meeting. We swapped the International Dinner
scheduled for March 1st with the Chile Cookoff planned
for October. I got roped into wearing a red apron and
chile pepper bandanna and going to Primary, Young
Womens, Relief Society, Elder's Quorum, and High Priest
meeting to advertise the meeting today. I told them
I was trying to increase the number of beans folks eat
and it was for the purpose of creating an alternative
fuel supply. Not! If any of you want to come to a
fun Chile Cookoff (with Louisiana Chile [gumbo]) and
Pie Baking Contest, meet at the Katy Stake Center at
6:00 Saturday evening on March 1st. In the meantime,
maybe one of you budding entrepreneurs out there wants
to put together a business plan based around the idea
of hydrogen fuel cells."
I'm interested in sharing weekly a "thoughtlet" (little statements
of big thoughts which mean a lot to me) with you because I know how
important the written word can be. I am concerned about how easy
it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of
distractions of daily life. To download any of these thoughtlets
go to http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets or e-mail me at
rnelson@walden3d.com.
With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)