jhc@hou5g.UUCP (Jonathan Clark) (03/27/85)
<> The Hindenberg was full of hydrogen, as were all airships of the period. Hydrogen does burn, but has the major advantage that it is so light that the flames go straight up, rather than running around all over the place like gasoline, propane and so on. That's how come so many people survived the Hindenberg. Hydrogen production would not be quite as expensive as a previous contributor would have us believe, as it is the major constituent of natural gas, and is quite easily cracked out of crude oil. I sincerely hope someone is working on this hard because we are going to need something to power our cars, given that quite soon the oil is going to start running low and we are going to need every drop of crude for petro-chemicals. Of course this is only until until fusion power comes of age or heavy industry can be moved into orbit. Tailored bacteria anyone (for petro-chemical manufacture)? -- Jonathan Clark [NAC]!hou5g!jhc