[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.

[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...

[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.

[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.

[elbucko]

H2 is not a fuel and will always require more energy from another source to produce than can be obtained by its use.

You mean this isn't perpetual motion and were not rally saved after all.....;^)

[Moonman62]

The bottom line is that President Bush was dead right last month to offer $1.7 billion to boost hydrogen technology, although it would help if the White House also promoted high-mileage hybrid cars for the present. The government could also do more, by deregulating commercial power supply by fuel cells and by encouraging fleet purchases of hydrogen vehicles.

Let's see, a spending option and a deregulation option. Which one will the president take?

[MigrantOkie]

"H2 is not a fuel and will always require more energy from another source to produce than can be obtained by its use."

I thought that too until the last month when I discovered that it's also a byproduct of some chemical processes at at least one chemical plant in Deerpark TX and instead of burning it off like most plants do it's captured and used at a cogeneration plant. I wonder how much H2 is already readily available and just wasted.

[TheJollyRoger]

The issue of requiring more energy to produce energy from H2 than is contained IN H2 is moot. Gasoline requires more energy to produce a gallon than is contained in the gallon. This is true of ALL energy sources, otherwise the second law of thermodynamics would be violated.

The issue is financial. The specific energy contained in a pound of gasoline is greater than the specific energy contained in a pound of hydrogen. Therefore, the user must buy more pounds of hydrogen to release (use) the equivalent amount of energy contained in the gasoline.

SO (we finally get to the point), will the user PAY for the additional pounds of hydrogen?

Additionally...producing H2 is MUCH cleaner than producing gasoline, and the potential supply of H2 is essentialy limitless. PLUS, CURRENT TECHNOLOGY can use H2 as a fuel...we do not have to invent a "flux capacitor" or any such thing. Internal combustion engines are converted to methane, or LPG easily and cheaply. The conversion to H2 would be just as easy.

So, H2 in clean, plentiful, requires no new technology. Gasoline is dirty, becoming scarce...but cheap. The key factor becomes whether Joe Sixpack will pay the price.

Freegards. -JR

[bert]

...only water vapor as exhaust....

A Greenhouse gas.

[merak]

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.

Have you factored the cost of rebuilding one of our major cities every two or three years into the cost of continuing to send money to OPEC countries as an alternative?

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

I think hydrogen powered cars are the future. The engines that run on hydrogen I hear will last longer. Hydrogen won't leave carbon deposits inside your engine and best of all there are no toxic emmissions. Just find an efficient way to separate hydrogen from the oxygen molecules in water and you have a very large power supply.

[El Gato]

H2 is not a fuel and will always require more energy from another source to produce than can be obtained by its use.

That's true of everything that isn't used "raw" as it comes from the source. You spend energy to dig out coal. You spend energy converting crude oil into something you can burn in your vehicle. You spend energy growing and harvesting ethanol, and more converting the grain into ethanol.

I tend to agree about the use of wind power, which just isn't that "dense" an energy source, and is available in a usuable form, in only a few places. Nuclear power however would do the trick. Fusion power, if we can ever get it, would be better yet. Crude oil is really too valuable as chemical feedstock, in the long term, to be burning it all up now.

[El Gato]

H2 is not a fuel and will always require more energy from another source to produce than can be obtained by its use.

Think about as an energy storage mechanism then. The "other source" may not be suitable for mobile use for example. (Hard to haul a nuclear reactor or a hydroelectric dam around with you) Gasoline is like this too in a way. Crude oil is not suitable for vehicular use, nor even for heating purposes. It must be refined, which takes energy.