Posted on 09/29/2004 6:43:11 AM PDT by shrinkermd
I like the idea of using Hydrogen. If/when we can produce it efficiently it would be basically unlimited and we'd need no dependence on the Middle East. The if and when are the issue. There would have to be some type of mechanism to efficiently mine hydrogen atoms out of water.
Hydrogen is not a fuel source.
It is a way of storing energy, similar to a battery.
When you burn the hydrogen, you get significantly less energy back than it took to produce it.
Don't hold your breath!
Obligatory political comment: Kyoto treaty or not, American research is looking for ways to produce cheaper, cleaner energy.
vegetable oil is the stuff. completely renewable, and a job creator, from the farmer to the processor to the seller. No sulfur so it does not pollute, and smells like french fries cooking out the tail pipe. Diesel engines were designed to run on it.
vegetable oil is the stuff. completely renewable, and a job creator, from the farmer to the processor to the seller. No sulfur so it does not pollute, and smells like french fries cooking out the tail pipe. Diesel engines were designed to run on it.
"When you burn the hydrogen, you get significantly less energy back than it took to produce it."
Exactly.
This is the point that so many people do not understand.
My god, someone has a brain!!! H2 will work only in very specialized applications and then, only as an energy carrier. Wish more people understood the laws of thermodynamics.
You might want to look into this further, some detractors of the bio-deisel idea have pointed out that you'd have to pretty much cover all the usable soil on the planet in oil-producing crops to fully replace our current petroleum use.
That said, in the meantime it works great for the enterprising individual with a source for used vegetable oil (chinese restaurants are usually happy to have someone haul it away free).
Hydrogen is not a fuel. Fuel provides energy to do work. Energy is required to make hydrogen since elemental hydrogen, H2, does not exist in any significant quantity in nature. It also has much less energy per volume than gasoline or natural gas.
Truer words have not been spoken. Hydrogen isn't ever going to be the new fuel. Hydrogen is not a source of energy, it is a storage mechanism. Where do you get the energy to make the hydrogen? Or are you going to strip it from hydrocarbons? What good is that if you seek to replace oil?
Don't fall for this! Fuel cells may be a neat technology, but they do not represent a SOURCE of energy.
That is five words.
Even ethanol isn't energy efficient, since it takes the equivalent of 1.6 gallons of gasoline to produce 1 gallon of ethanol, which is forcing us to be more dependent on foreign oil.
Yeah, that's why they use it to launch spaceships instead of gasoline. >:)
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