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Extracting useful quantities of hydrogen from water requires a massive amount of energy — energy that typically comes from burning oil or coal.

Yes, and you can also use whale blubber to power the generators, you can burn tires, or heck; just nuke a lake. I HATE articles that look 'forward' using backwards technology to accomplish things.

Or, you can use solar cells to generate the weak electrical field to break the H2O bond (a href="http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,64797,00.html"> Link

You mean solar cells that cost several thousand dollars per kilowatt to manufacture and erect and doesn't work very well on cloudy days and deosn't work at all at night?

Or, you can use solar cells to generate the weak electrical field to break the H2O bond (a href="http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,64797,00.html"> Link

LOL

A lot of energy is released when hydrogen and oxygen burn. To generate that potential again by cracking water, you have to put just as much energy in. TANSTAAFL.

And solar cells are hardly "free" energy. The reason why solar cells and windmills haven't caught on is it can cost more to make them than they will ever produce, especially when you factor in maintenance.

The liberal answer is just to subsidize them, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize the energy has to come from somewhere first.

Everyone here has mentioned every form of alternative electricity production except wind power. Small electricity producing windmills placed on floating platforms with hydrogen storage tanks A. uses no natural gas (a finite resource) B. no nuclear power (my choice for major power production) C. Needs no transmission lines or additional infrastructure. True, hydrogen production ALSO has environmental side effects, but can we afford to be choosey when we know oil and gas supply is finite and unstable?
A 30 year debate has gotten us nowhere to this point and frankly, we are pretty much on our own individually as to how we approach energy consumption.
There is no pie in the sky technology that is going to bail us out of crisis at the last moment. But for heavens sake, arguing about apples and oranges being fruit is not going to accomplish anything!! Pick the fruit while it's ripe or the opportunity will pass by when the tree is dead.
Environmentalists are the chain saw.

THis is the stuff you never really hear when the MSM trumpets "green" technologies:

"Currently, the cost of producing hydrogen fuel is greater than the value of the energy it delivers. Production entails either electrolysis in water or extraction of hydrogen from fossil fuels like natural gas."

It don't pay. What old folk have always known, because if it did pay, chance is it would have been around already. Capitalism is the best driver for new tech, not green politics.

8	“Or, you can use solar cells to generate the weak electrical field to break the H2O bond ”

The Inefficiencies of Solar Power
(Based upon a horizontal PV array located at
the average continental U.S. latitude of 38º.)

ref.	source	loss (%)	power (per m²)
1.	Solar flux	-	1,368 W
2.	Atmospheric losses	45	752 W
3.	Night times losses	50	376 W
4.	Solar angle losses	50	188 W
5.	Cell conversion losses	88	22.6 W
6.	DC®AC inverter losses	10	20.3 W
7.	Net efficiency		1.5%
8.	Net energy (per m² per day)		0.5 kWh
9.	Value of energy (per m² per day)		4.3 ¢
10.	Solar panel cost (per m²)		$530
11.	Payback period		33 years

How much energy is that "0.5kWh" daily energy production number in line eight?

It is the amount of energy that will light a single 60 watt light bulb for 8 hours.
It is the energy equivalent of 2 oz of gasoline!
It is the energy released by burning 1/4 pound of firewood.
It is the amount of energy contained in four scoops of vanilla ice cream.
It is 2% of the average daily household consumption of energy.

--Boot Hill