Hydrogen Powered Cars! HA!

1/25/2002 | John Jamieson

[John Jamieson]

Your Comments????

[Restorer]

Present day nuclear fission could also be used to generate the electricity needed to break hydrogen out of water. With administrative and legal roadblocks removed, it would be quite cost-effective. And it's available now.

It may not be possible to generate electricity with fusion power in a cost-effective way. For the last 30 years I've been reading that this goal is 10-20 years away. At least you've moved you projection out to 25 years away!

[jedi150]

Methane.

[Maceman]

I bought Ballard Power Systems stock at 70, and now its only around 32. You can bet I'm rooting for hydrogen powered cars now.

[HEY4QDEMS]

"Methane."

Would eating beans makes us self reliant? ;^D

[John Jamieson]

Trying to be conservative (about the 25 years), but I certainly agree that it could be done now with new generation of stardard fission plants dedicated to hydrogen production. A $100 billion dollar government project to start it would be one of the very few large government projects I could support. Clear goals and a resonable extention of existing technology are key.

[John Jamieson]

Methane CH4 is a hydrocarbon. See above.

[The_Victor]

Did you consider biogenic sources of hydrogen and other volatile compounds? Bacteria might also be an answer.

Good article.

[John Jamieson]

Sell before it Kmarts or Enrons.

[John Jamieson]

Their is not enough of it.

A billion years of such biological activety gave us the windfall of hydrocarbons we now have. I don't think you could eat enough beans to power even your lawn mower.

[Dallas]

It would be a terrorist's dream machine....

[John Jamieson]

How so?

[stboz]

In a word.....infrastructure.....lack of it actually.

Methanol has a better chance whether in the internal combustion engine or in direct methanol fuel cells.

BTW, biodiesel is intriguing....and clean (more so than "normal diesel.)

[EBUCK]

I would just like you to compare the capabilities of the first internal comb. powered autos to the first fuel cell autos we seeing today.
There were also then quite a few critics that voiced similar opinions when the first IC autos were introduced. Just for comparison mind you.

EBUCK

[Technocrat]

There are a lot more alternatives out there now - this goal really is closer than many think. Check the sources on this article I wrote last year: Here

[Dallas]

There was a thread a couple of days ago about hydrogen cars, and I thought it said it would be volatile

[EBUCK]

The only solution!!!!!
Segeway
/sarcasm off

EBUCK

[js1138]

At least there are some cost numbers here that can be argued. I have long argued that the main problem with hydrogen is storage.

If you could make the infrastructure supporting petroleum disappear overnight and then consider the cost of reinventing and rebuilding it -- it would seem imposible. So I'm skeptical of hydrogen, but still interested.

[kezekiel]

I once wrote a (successful) grant proposal to gain money to help commercialize and market a new hydrogen leak-detection technology. NASA and Boeing have also put money into it.

I've long felt that hydrogen will make more and more sense the more expensive fossil fuels are. Eventually, as demand increases for a fixed supply of fossil fuels, reserves will begin to deplete to the point where the low-hanging fruit has all been lopped off, and we have nothing left but the stuff that's more expensive to extract and refine. This will drive the price higher. Drive it up high enough, and expensive alternatives will actually become competitive. By that time, fuel efficiency will be in vogue again. It's all supply and demand, basic Econ 101.

What you didn't talk about, however, is the "hidden" environmental cost of fossil fuels. I'm not an environmentalist wacko, but growing up in So Cal, I appreciate that some real costs were added to driving cars (in the form of smog controls and unleaded fuels). I remember when, in the early 70's, the brown smog was so thick and vile that it made your eyes and lungs burn in the summer. Things are much better now then they were then.

Also, aren't they working on renewable methods of extracting hydrogen (such as biomass)? I know that these have not been fully realized, but then neither has fusion.

Otherwise, thanks for your informative post.