Fuel Cell says what?

http://businessweek.com/magazine/con...7097_mz018.htm

All that and I get to keep my rumbly V8 sound? Sign me up.

Give us the ability to phase in Hydrogen fueling infrastructure, which is the biggest hurdle for fuel cell technology right now, even if the price of the cells came down tommorrow you can't find anywhere to gas it up.

That eliminates everything but the congestion problem, aka Sprawl, which is already a buzz word with environmentalists and "new urbanists"

 

This is what I've been supporting for months now, yet many here have been flaming the idea of hydrogen burning vehicles. :frustrated:

 

I have yet to read any post from you advocating a dual fuel IC engine.

Find where I flamed you for it and I'll apologize.

This solution fixes everything very economically without demanding billions and billions of R&D from industry or exhorbitant fuel or vehicle prices from consumers, and simultaneously weens us off foreign oil and reduces environmental concern. And best of all is we don't have to have all the chicken little alarmism to get it done. I think that's what I object to the most out of some folks.

The anti-capitalists will use Sprawl as a way to still poo-poo all over the automobile as they love to do, but the rest of us will be able to all get along.

 

Err, I'm sorry, I was getting the hybrid/hydrogen arguments mixed up I edited it.

I hate doing searches....but I have been supporting the idea of hydrogen burning cars for a long time now and have caught a lot of flames for it. Most people don't know that their ICE engines can be switched over to hydrogen compliant almost over night.

 

Well, there's a big diff between a hydrogen burning IC engine and a hydrogen powered fuel cell. Both are great ideas, but the fuel cell tech is still absurdly expensive right now. When and if FC cars hit the market I'd expect then to get their hydrogen from gasoline, which doesn't do much for weening ourselves off foreign oil. It would be decades before a phased in FC fleet would realistically bring down total consumption...or it might not ever bring consumption down due to continued economic growth here and globally.

And BTW, I'm not anti-hybrid, but I definitely do not think they are the silver bullet some seem to think they are. I don't see any benefits to a hybrid that a good compact deisel car can't beat, except for particulate emissions, which EPA catalyst standards for deisels are supposed to remedy.

As long as the "solution" involves pumping gasoline into the tank, as hybrids require, it is only a half-assed fix. The dual fuel IC is probably the fastest and cheapest way to get alt-fuel technology diffused into the marketplace.

 

One thing nice about hydorgen is you can make it at home.

 

Deisel cars can't beat the emissions of a similar car that is gas+electric powered. Deisels can't beat the milage of a similar car that is hybrid powered. The only thing that deisels can beat the gas+electric hybrids at is price, and it does a very nice job of that But with Nimh batteries coming out for hybrids very soon, the emissions and gas milage will even be further seperated from diesels. The only form of deisel that I can concieve ever making hybrids a moot point would be B100.

 

how much hydrogen/mile does the car use?

 

Good question. And at what measurement? Since H occurs as a gas natually, you have to pressurize it, so a gallon of H would vary depending on the pressure its stored at. I guess you could go by weight though.

I remember experimentation 5-10 years ago with propane powered trucks and cars. Basically a stock IC engine with a few fuel system modifications.

There's already dual fuel ethanol/gasoline trucks out there too.

 

I read somewhere that it would take like 24 new nuclear powerplants to produce enough hydrogen to supply cars today in the US if they all switched over

Does it realy take that much power to make hydrogen in quantities like that??

 

you'd measure in moles. basically how many atoms of h2

 

I've heard that electric/hydrogen power isn't as environmentally friendly as everyone thinks..

To put it the easiest way possible.. you're not cleaning the air or anything. Your CAR isn't polluting anymore... but the areas where hyrogen production is, and the nuclear power plants that produce the ELECTRICITY to recharge your cars, now have a higher demand on them. Thus, they pollute more.

The technology doesn't pollute less. It just moves the pollution to a more centralized area.

 

I believe I read that 1 Kg of H has the same energy as 1 gallon of gas.

 

Why are we using electricity to recharge hydrogen powered cars? Isn't hydrogen the 2nd most abundant element in our atmosphere? Why not harvest it from the air? What about separating it from water like they do on Nuclear Submarines for oxygen (actually they just discard the Hydrogen as a waste gas)? Granted it takes a lot of electricity but surely not 24 nuke powerplants worth.

 

Here's a great thread about hydrogen... There are many quality posts explaining why hydrogen WON'T work. I disagree, but then again I don't know as much about the subject as some of these guys...
http://forums.gminsidenews.com/showt...5&page=1&pp=40

For the same reason most people hate hybrids. Expense.