Techdiplomacy

This is in response to Patrick Serfass who commented on my piece posted a few days ago. For those who have not guessed, it’s “Hydrogen Economy? Not In The Near Future”. Patrick is employed by the National Hydrogen Association, more about that later. First, I would like to point out, this is a huge organization. That being the case, why would they care enough to attack my humble little blog? I’ll tell you a little story. The National Hydrogen Association or NHA is a group that includes sustaining members and industry members. In his comment on my piece, Patrick states that I should do some research at the NHA website. Well, I was way ahead of him there, I had checked the site before I started the piece. He further states that I had my facts wrong. I would like to say that my information is different from the information on the site for the most part. However, I stand by my data, I listed a reputable source as a reference for a great deal of the information contained in my piece. Patrick listed his employer as his only source of information. Can you say, “conflict of interest”? It would be the same if I used a relative of mine to verify information, they would have to disqualify themselves on ethical grounds. Let’s talk about ethics, you’ll be surprised at the identity of some of the sustaining members of the NHA. Most of the sustaining members are large corporations. Some, are familiar to us all as they have had a lot of news coverage of late.

You could go to the NHA website and see the list of members and you would be at least mildly surprised. For instance, there’s General Motors Corporation, and there’s Chevron Oil. Why are these guys in bed with NHA? In an article from earlier this month, I detailed the funds that big oil and dirty coal were spending to defeat the Waxman-Markey (Energy) bill. I revealed fraudulent behavior on the part of dirty coal. (see “Dirty Coal Industries’ Dirty Tricks”) These guys are not interested in cleaning up our environment, they are interested in raking in big profits.

What exactly does Patrick Serfass do for NHA? He’s listed as the Director of their support staff over technology and communications. Apparently the truth does not enter the discussion when you are communicating with people you don’t agree with. Everything I put forth regarding hydrogen technology is backed up by their website and the business their members happen to practice. Let me illustrate this point.

There are several types of membership with NHA, two of which are industry members and sustaining members. For instance General Motors is a sustaining member, so are Indian Oil, and Chevron. Westinghouse, on the other hand is an industry member. Indian Oil and Chevron are part of the ‘Big Oil’ industry. Last year this industry took Americans to the brink of disaster when they drove gas prices to four dollars a gallon. They are in the process of repeating this again now! They want to go from a fossil fuel infrastructure to a hydrogen infrastructure. Westinghouse, who serves the nuclear power industry, wants to produce this hydrogen from nuclear driven steam methane reforming or from nuclear driven water splitting. You can get this information from the NHA website, if you dig deep enough. Nebraska Public Power District is an industry member of NHA. They currently get 60% of the power that they sell their customers from our old friends the Dirty Coal industry, whose lobbists like to write fraudulent letters to congressmen. NPPD gets 20% of their power from nuclear power. Another of their members is a company known as Entergy. They believe in a partnership between hydrogen and nuclear power. My point is NHA has members who espouse all of the points that I made in the previous article published last week.

Patrick, our NHA friend, stated that there were police groups, cell phone companies and others using hydrogen for backup power, however, he never said when or how. That is because this is something that may happen in the future, but it has not surfaced yet. There is another point that seems to suggest my article rubbed NHA the wrong way for the wrong reasons. NHA has a section on their website for the press. One of their ‘fact’ sheets is called “Hydrogen Economy”, how’s that for irony? (I was not aware of this fact until I looked closer at the site than I had previously) No one need take my word for any of this, everything I said in this and the previous article is based on facts supported by their members, you simply have to look harder than you might normally. Use the links provided by our friend Patrick in his comment on the previous article. Any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to leave them, we will respond. See you around the galaxy…