What's New

Here's the entirety of Bob Park's What's New brief from the American Physical Society. (No permanent links available)

1. SHELL GAME: INDUSTRY PLAYS ITS PART IN THE HYDROGEN CIRCUS.
They installed the nation’s first public hydrogen pump in the Shell station at 525 Benning Road in Washington, DC, just 5.2 miles from the U.S. Capitol Building. We thought you’d like to know just in case you’re in town driving your hydrogen powered car. Oh! I forgot -- you can’t buy one, can you? GM has six hydrogen prototype minivans in Washington, parked by the Capital for what a GM executive calls "educational outreach." Parked, because a round trip to the Shell station will use a third of a tank of hydrogen. No matter, GM isn’t trying to sell hydrogen cars. Here’s a WN (ed. What's New) educational outreach: the Bush administration points to the hydrogen car to show that while other countries sign treaties, we do something about the environment. Here’s more education: even if they solve all the problems with the hydrogen car, it won’t do squat for the environment. Pollution comes from making the hydrogen. GM will turn out a handful of hydrogen concept-cars with government subsidies while selling thousands of profitable SUVs, and Shell’s gasoline sales will climb filling up those SUVs, at the cost of putting up with a few little-used hydrogen pumps, paid for with government subsidies.