It’s A Gray Area:

Recently while I was flying home from Houston, where I had been invited to speak about our nation’s failed drug policy, I had the good fortune to sit next to a Continental Airlines pilot who was going home to Ventura. And this interesting fellow had an idea that I want to pass along to you.

He suggested that our government offer a prize, or a “bounty,” for anyone who would develop a process or method that would be commercially viable to separate the hydrogen and oxygen elements from water. Then the pure hydrogen could be used as a fuel. Our government would pay anyone who would develop such a process $1 billion, or even $5 billion, and then we would donate the process to the public domain.

Imagine what would happen if something like this could be developed. I believe the more you think about it, the more you will agree that this would be one of the most profound and positive revolutions in the world since the invention of the printing press.

Of course, the separation of hydrogen and oxygen from water can be achieved now, but the cost prohibits it from being commercially viable at this point. Furthermore, it now takes more energy to separate the hydrogen and oxygen molecules than is gained by eventually burning the hydrogen.

But the implications from this discovery would be far-reaching and even earthshaking. It could furnish cheap and viable energy that would come from an inexhaustible source. It would burn cleanly, with the only waste product being water vapor. Hydrogen-burning automobiles and other vehicles would soon be commonplace, with inestimable benefits to the environment. Electricity could be generated from this source of power, which would greatly reduce, or over time even eliminate, our reliance upon the burning of coal, with all of the pollutants that come with that process. And the list would go on and on.