Our New Hydrogen Bomb

The New York Times ^ | February 21, 2003 | NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

[Willie Green]

H₂ is not a fuel and will always require more energy from another source to produce than can be obtained by its use.
Windfarm generation of electricity to produce hydrogen would be an even greater folly.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[PokeyJoe]

Hmmmmm....

And men will never walk on the moon.

[E=MC²]

Show me the hydrogen wells, the hydrogen mines, the hydrogen farms. It beats me why so many think hydrogen is a prime mover.

[steveegg]

Don't forget that the current batch of fuel cell cars only get 70-100 miles between fill-ups (where have we heard that range before?) and the refueling process is only slightly less dangerous than using a blowtorch to find your way around a fireworks warehouse. That having been said, it does hold more promise than a battery electric car if only because it won't take 8 hours to recharge.

[Bonaparte]

Now all Kristof and his equally idiotic employer, the NYT, need to do is explain how hydrogen cars will save us from nuclear, chemical and biological attack by Saddam or some other terrorist maniac. Oh, that's right, I forgot -- it's "all about oil." Silly me.

[rellimpank]

--dat ole debbil, the laws of thermodynamics rear their ugly heads again--shucky darn!

[Question_Assumptions]

I know there are some ways around it but I keep picturing the road filled with little Hindenbergs just waiting to happen. "Oh, the humanity!"

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

It all sounded quite interesting until it got to...

Nonetheless, I have to say that waging war seems a reflex, pushing toward a hydrogen economy a vision.

As Mr. Fosgard of G.M. put it only half-jokingly: "I don't want to say that this car will eliminate war, but we might not have wars for energy anymore. We'd have to find different reasons to go to war."

All I can say is about those sentences is, ah geeeez...

[RightWhale]

It beats me why so many think hydrogen is a prime mover.

It isn't and no one is saying so.

[Billthedrill]

Well, technically ALL fuels contain more energy than will ever be extracted - that's the second law of thermodynamics in action. Hydrogen fuel is technically perfectly feasible, it simply isn't economical enough yet to compete. European nations have attempted to tack enough taxes onto petroleum fuels to make alternate sources attractive (and have managed to tax the latter as well, blowing the whole scheme) but the real solution, if there is one, will be to reduce the cost of hydrogen fuel to the point where it is competitive. This will include infrastructure investment as well, in the form of adding hydrogen capacities to filling stations nationwide. All of that together makes the prospect of making hydrogen competitive a daunting economic challenge that must be augmented by technology, not the other way around.

It might work, but there are a lot of ricebowls being threatened (which is, in part the point). Myself, I shall suspend judgment.

[adx]

Our New Hydrogen Bomb

Sounds like a pretty apt description of the market performance of these "alternative fuel" vehicles.

[kaktuskid]

Synthetic oil from coal is more feasible (and already being done)

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

Hmmmmm.... And men will never walk on the moon.

Men never did walk on the moon. I guess you haven't seen the movie, "Capricorn One".

[templar]

... and the refueling process is only slightly less dangerous than using a blowtorch to find your way around a fireworks warehouse

Haven't heard that before, could you expand a bit? It seems to me that it would be less dangerous than propane.

[Britton J Wingfield]

Nukes can power the production of hydrogen, and it can be storred and shipped easily in "powerballs".

http://www.powerball.net

[templar]

Oh, that's right, I forgot -- it's "all about oil."

Of course it's about oil. If there were no oil in the middle east we wouldn't be there and they wouldn't have the resources to threaten us. But that's probably not exactly the way the "all about oil" crowd means it.

[RightWhale]

Synthetic oil from coal is more feasible (and already being done)

That's true. The process was one of Germany's main supplies of fuel for its war machine during WW II.

[rmlew]

Hydrogen fuel is essentially a storage mechanism for electricity.
The power to split water into 2H+O can come from many sources. The most effecient is nuclcear.

[mlo]

It is not necessary to feed a fuel cell pure hydrogen. There are fuel cells that can internally break down natural gas or other fossil fuels and use the hydrogen in them. That way will still produce some CO2, but not as much as an internal combustion engine.