Hydrogen Cars: A Steep But Surmountable Climb

Plenty of info and pics on the Hydrogen car test drive event yesterday.

Comments

[Fred Beloit]

Let's do hydrogen cars. Meanwhile, trools, meet the riehl ANWAR:

http://reasonbellpundit.blogspot.com/2008/06/pictures-of-anwr-to-make-case-for.html

Now tell us why we can't drill there.

[seekeronos]

Hydrogen certainly seems like it may gain some traction.

One of the things that may give it a considerable heads-up over the other potential competing drive systems out there is the likelihood that the government could tax it.

Or rather, more easily tax it.

If there is one thing that Uncle Sam is exceptionally efficient at, it is finding ways to separate citizens from their hard-earned wages.

I'm more for seeing energy solutions that could be produced semi-locally, or even within one's own household, that can reduce the exposure to unreasonable taxation, and possibly be more locally distributable.

Such as a home PV-Hydrolysis station that could generate storable electricity from lysing water via PV cells during the day, along with PV surfaces on the car itself which could help recharge the car battery during the long day where the commuter is up in his office.

The utility companies need not be put out of business either, as the transition period for home hydrogen or home PV-hydrolysis systems would take several years to several decades to be widely implemented, along with the possibility of electric utilities scaling some of their infrastructure to localized substations with localized wind and solar concentrator farms.

[Mark]

Fred, thanks for the interesting link. Will this area be able to connect to the pipeline? By the way, could anybody explain if the ten year figure is mostly overlawyering, and why have the Gang of Ten done an endrun to try to sabatoge the work the House folks are doing to get relief on drilling?

[bud]

One thing I have to keep telling people that get all rhapsodic over H2:

It is not a fuel, it is a transportable storage technology, like batteries.

The energy to obtain H2 has to come from somewhere else; we are not going to find huge H2 deposits that we can drill/mine. Energy from some other source - hydroelectric, solar, wind, nukes - will be required, and until those sources are large and ubiquitous, H2 is a non-starter, since all of the losses in the various processes to make it add up to make it significantly more expensive (compared to its advantages - mainly in pollution from mobile sources) than just using the fossil fuel required directly.

A real energy breakthrough would be the success of the Bussard Fusion Process.