Rants & Raves
Eyes on the Prize
If the US chooses to take the path recommended by "How Hydrogen Can Save America" (Wired 11.04), we could revolutionize the power industry worldwide and unseat the oil-producing nations. Imagine United States companies owning the patents for the future of energy production. It would assure our place as the world economic leader.
I'm going to urge my representatives to follow the plan laid out by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, and I hope many other Americans will do the same. It's time we got off our asses and did something to change our dependency on fossil fuels.
Evan Sarver
Los Angeles, California
Unlike nonsensical delivery methods such as pipeline piggybacking that would take years and tens of billions of wasted dollars, "H2 reformers" are mentioned only briefly. H2 generators that resemble a large refrigerator can be placed at every filling station in the country in less than a year, for about 9 billion bucks. They produce fuel cell grade hydrogen (99.93 percent pure) at good pressure levels and cost pennies to operate (electricity and water).
Steven Neff
Santa Barbara, California
Listen up, CopperTop: Hydrogen is a battery, a transfer medium, a storage device. It takes energy to get hydrogen, and transmission loss occurs while delivering it. If you like the idea of nuclear plants all over the country, you'll love hydrogen.
If you want to stop burning so much gas, double the price of it and put the money into subways and rail systems.
Lloyd Alter
Toronto, Canada
Schwartz and Randall overlook some low tech but fundamental solutions to America's energy woes. Why not throw a few billion at developing a pervasive mass-transit system? Or let commuters just stay at home? We could spend a few billion on tax incentives for employers and on subsidizing the broadband infrastructure. Tackling the problem of why all of these people are on the roads not only reduces our dependency on foreign oil, it also greatly increases public safety and quality of life.
Adam Rabung
Richmond, Virginia
I was disappointed that your April cover story pointed out a need to promote nuclear energy.
I reside in Westchester County, New York. Over 280 elected officials from the Hudson River Valley are petitioning to close down Indian Point - one of the worst-run power plants in the nation. Nuclear power might be good for the environment during safe times, but a terrorist attack against these plants could be devastating to an entire region, causing economic distress, loss of property values, loss of lives, and many health-related tragedies.
Stick to wind, solar, and hydropower until we're sure that we've won the war against terrorism.
Paul Feiner, town supervisor
Greenburgh, New York
Inside the 10,000-Year Tufway
Regarding "Do-or-Die at Yucca Mountain" (Wired 11.04): In 1976, in my book The Economics of Nuclear and Coal Power, I wrote, "In assessing nuclear power, coal power, or in fact any business enterprise, only an evaluation that examines the activity as a total system is valid. Would someone install plumbing in a house, hook up to a water supply, and proceed to use his toilet if he had no sewer or septic tank in which to dispose of the wastes?" What else is new?
Saunders Miller
New York, New York
I know of a high-level radioactive waste disposal site that will shatter the Environmental Protection Agency's requirements of 10,000 years of people-safe storage. The sun.
"Do-Or-Die at Yucca Mountain" states that more than $4 billion has been spent thus far in seeking out a safe storage location. Brad Edwards claims he needs just over $7 billion to build his space elevator ("Starlight Express," Wired 11.04). It seems like the search for safe disposal of nuclear waste alone could nearly fund the space elevator. When it's done, send up the waste, give it a little shove in the right direction, and voil�!
Greg Hingsbergen
Chicago, Illinois
How Do You Say Red Planet in Mandarin?
Regarding "After Columbia? Go to Mars" (Start, Wired 11.04): I love our space program, but NASA isn't taking us anywhere. We went to the moon 30 years ago. Mars is still over a decade away. The Apollo program was NASA at its best - we need something to look forward to. Perhaps I should start learning Chinese and move to a country that has the right idea.
Mike Shafer
Bethesda, Maryland
Watch Dog
I read "Wrist-Top Revolution" (Wired 11.04) with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. For a company that places such emphasis on design, Fossil seemed to ignore the obvious. A watch-PDA with a "stylus hidden in the watchband"? C'mon - the Palm OS, with its gesture-based input system, is barely practical on a PDA, let alone a watch. Haven't any of them tried to use one of those old calculator watches with a built-in stylus? Even pressing simple numeric buttons is a chore, let alone trying to Graffiti on my wrist.
Calling Dick Tracy - oh, wait how do I make the Graffiti capital T again - and where did I leave that darn stylus?
Gregory Winer
Willoughby, Ohio
That Darn Cat
It's nice to see that animals are benefiting from the advances of science ("Cat on the Cutting Edge," Wired 11.04), but to suggest that data generated from research on animals is going to cure AIDS, cancer, stroke, or other uniquely human diseases is irresponsible.
More often than not, results from animal studies mislead scientists and actually harm humans. Fen-phen, Rezulin, and hormone replacement therapy are some recent examples.
It is 2003, not 1803. We have better research options and we should use them. Animals are not furry humans; to treat humans suffering from life-threatening diseases based on what we learn from rats and mice is, and will continue to be, lethal.
Ray Greek, MD
president, Americans for Medical Advancement, science adviser, National Anti-Vivisection Society
Jean Greek, DVM
Los Angeles, California
UNDO
Cyber Liberties: Columbia University changed its Internet use policy in February to allow students to upload 100 M-bytes of data per hour (Start, Wired 11.06).
Machinimania: The term machinima refers only to digital films created with commercial videogame engines (Play, Wired 10.11).
Braveheart: Dolly the sheep was conceived outside the womb and born outside Edinburgh, Scotland ("New and Improved!" Wired 11.04).
Unwired: The cover photo illustration for May's special issue on Wi-Fi was created by Tronic Studio.
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