Success_machine's numbers are bogus. Doing the math:

>I estimate that the United States will have to construct an additional
>120 commercial nuclear reactors dedicated to electrolyzing water into
>hydrogen. This will cost ~ $1.68 trillion for construction, and the public
>will continue to pay for them long after decommissioning...

$1.68 trillion = $1.68e12 / 120 = $14e9 = $14 billion

According to an environmentalist anti-nuclear power website (grossly
inflated numbers) the construction and decomissioning costs for a nuclear
reactor are about

$9.1 billion

The actual full costs using a modern graphite ball gas cooled reactor are
a fraction of the above number and better still if we get
the anti-nuclear litigation under control.

One can assume the average power produced by a nuclear reactor to be about
500 megawatts (one reactor at the Diablo Canyon facility currently produces
1.073 gigawatts). Therefore we can assume 120 reactors would produce a total
power of:

60 gigawatts

Success_machine said the following:

>Cost to erect 10,000 acres of solar modules $97 billion + cost of
>inverters, batteries, transmission lines, etc.

10,000 acres equals 4.047e7 meters^2. The raw solar power on a clear
day is 1 kilowatt/meter. Assuming optimisticly a conversion efficiency of
20%, the power produced is

8 gigawatts

Solar voltaic energy power ratings almost never include the energy cost
of manufacture. Until recently it cost more energy to make the solar voltaic
panel than the panel produced over its lifetime. Now thanks to modern
technology, a solar voltaic panel can make slightly more power than is required
to manufacture it. Also solar voltaic panels produce significant amounts
of toxic chemical waste as a by product of manufacture.

>Biomass rules. It is the simplest, most inexpensive, most cohesive plan for
>energy independence in existence.

Yeah right. How do you fertilize your biomass? Answer: urea or ammonium
nitrate. Where does urea or ammonium nitrate come from? Answer: through
some energy intensive nitrogen fixation process. How do you keep your
biomass hydrated? Answer: You water it! What are we running out of
in North America? Fresh water! What happens to the fresh water when you
irrigate large fields of biomass? It dissolves minerals and fertilizer
and then transports it to rivers or the water table where it becomes a
source of pollutions and further reduces the amount of available fresh water.

*** A hydrogen economy based upon nuclear energy is the right answer. ***

Gary