We have a perfectly good, mature, geographically dispersed, highly optimized system to get oil out of the ground, refine it, make gasoline (and many other byproducts), deliver it to countless “gasoline stations” all over the country where you can safely put incredible amounts of potential chemical energy in your tank in a few minutes. Then you burn it in highly optimized, very clean, and very efficient internal combustion engines to power your car.
There is NO REASON on God’s Green Earth to throw all that away. All of that was created by millions of brilliant minds operating independently driven by the free market and the profit motive.
There is NO WAY “industrial policy” by pointy-headed liberals will ever come up with anything better. Just look at the Soviet “Five Year Plans” for an example of how well central planning works.
This is a no-brainer for Wash DC.
Subsidize electric vehicles.
Penalize petroleum vehicles.
At some point most folks will be forced by the economics.
I don’t drive that much, but I am worried when they start forcing us to give up nat gas for home heating, cooking, and hot water.
When I took Thermodynamics from an actual ex-NASA scientist in college, hydrogen cars was one of the crackpot examples we explored. He loved working us through every possible idiot idea, wherein we not only looked at the science (windmills, for example) but calculated all the costs. (Did you know windmills kill amazing amounts of birds?) Nothing, and I mean nothing, came close to the efficiencies and low costs of what we already have. As I recall, one of the drawbacks of hydrogen was that a huge, heavy tank was required to get the same amount of energy you would get from 20 gallons of regular gas. There were other issues as well. As someone pointed out, hydrogen can leak past almost everything you would use to seal it. Also, imagine a wreck where there’s a significant leak and you’d have one heck of a blowtorch. High pressure hydrogen would be more dangerous than gasoline.
The central planning committee of the politburo put forth this idea?
Hear, hear.
“All of that was created by millions of brilliant minds.”
Excellent post. Thank you.
Mr. E. Doheny was the wealthiest man in America in 1915, easily, and discovered oil in many places. He said it is easy to strike a fountain of oil but difficult to catch it. The first thing he did was pave streets.
Good news. Oil is a natural renewable substance. New oil fields are discovered every year. Why? Because God provides, big time.
Hydrogen cars : silly
Boron cars : safe and inexpensive.