These guys must have slept through their high school chemistry classes.It probably costs more in energy to make the aluminum than the hydrogen would provide.
Of course. However, there have been proposals to use aluminum as a storage medium for energy. As a fuel, it is light weight and safe to store. It is nearly as good as gasoline. There is an abundant supply of bauxite and all you do is add energy. It is, however, much more expensive.
Creating aluminum requires huge amounts of cheap electricity. That’s why Alcoa and Boeing moved to Washington, to take advantage of the cheap hydro-electric supply there. If this uses up any aluminum, it’s probably not cost efficient.
Much like the "benefits " of ethanol.
No probably about it. It has to.
But that doesn't mean the technology might not be useful as a storage mechanism. Like a pretty high energy density battery.
You still have find some way to provide the energy to "charge" the battery." But that could be a form that would be very difficult and/or inefficient if done on a such a small scale as an individual car. Nuclear, coal, maybe natural gas (although that could be used directly, effeciency might be better with this process as an intermedicate storage technique