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I can actually say that I live near one of the companies that headed this project. Amazing what our little rural Pa. town can do from time to time (too bad about Agere Systems, though.)

Just hope they build one here eventually! :)

Hi!

While there is tremendous potential for hydrogen-based fuel cells, there's a little detail that seems to be overlooked. The vast majority of the world's production of liquid or gaseous hydrogen is produced from off-gases that are byproducts of oil refining.

The world's leading producer of liquid hydrogen is Air Products and Chemicals of Trexlertown, Pa. I've done a lot of work for them over the years--and their hydrogen business is based on "HYCO" plants that take refinery gases, extract the hydrogen and return carbon dioxide (and sometimes hydrogen) back "over the fence" to the refinery. Key point: no refinery, no hydrogen. There are other means of producing hydrogen--but HYCO plants are by far the cheapest.

A point of philosophy:
Immanual Kant's Categorical Imperative can be expressed like this: if your philosophy requires having sinners to do the sinning for you, your philosophy is bankrupt. Getting hydrogen as a byproduct of petroleum production--and then expecting hydrogen to free us from dependency on petroleum--won't work. If everybody stops using petroleum and switches to hydrogen, there won't be any petroleum refined--and thus there won't be any hydrogen. In order to have volume production of hydrogen, you need gas-guzzling petrol users to do the sinning for you.

As I wrote above, there are other sources of hydrogen. As the use of hydrogen increases (and let's not forget--liquid hydrogen is significantly more explosive than gasoline, and touching it will cause body parts to freeze and shatter) new sources of hydrogen will have to be developed, and new processes developed to extract the hydrogen cheaply. That will take time, ingenuity, and money. There's a lot of push behind the idea (if you're in high school, pursuing a college degree in chemical engineering with a focus on cryogenics and hydrogen in particular would be a VERY smart idea) but it will take time to appear. This will not be an overnight sensation.

And don't forget the Saudis
The Saudis are sitting on 2/3 of the world's oil. As they see their dominance dwindling, they will respond. The biggest challenge to the development of a replacement technology like LH will be economic: the Saudis and the rest of OPEC will simply slash prices. When gas costs $.30 per gallon (which still makes them billions) it will be difficult to justify the price per "gallon" of LH.

That is a statistic that sites yearly pollution. Since there are much more cars on the road used then buses, of course the majority of pollution every year comes from cars.

If you were to convert all transit into using buses instead of cars, you would see an increase of pollution multitudes over cars. Especially compared against modern low emissions and zero emissions vehicals.

Not that I disagree with a rollout of clean public transportation. It would probably much easier to get our transportation needs in the future clean by going that route instead of replacing 200 million cars.

If you're wondering what kind of technical issues there are when considering the H2 supply, visit www.airproducts.com for more information on various delivery methods and specifications for different uses. The site is most informative. Especially about information regarding highly reactive and flamable gases.

The world leader in the production of liquid hydrogen is Air Products & Chemicals. Their website includes information on how they produce liquid hydrogen, and current research they are doing on powering automobiles with hydrogen.

First, hydrogen is rarely produced by electrolysis--it's cheaper to use a reformer to extract it from waste gas at a petroleum refinery.

Second, there are two proposed methods of powering fuel cells in cars with hydrogen. One way is to separate the hydrogen from gasoline (or propane) in the vehicle. This is less efficient, but is simpler: you don't have to replace the gas station infrastructure. The other route is to ship and store liquid hydrogen, and go through the hassle of replacing the gas station infrastructure.

There are a lot of benefits of liquid hydrogen. There's lots of power there--but nobody should forget that liquid hydrogen is what sends the space shuttle blasting into space. While the explosion risk is real, the more likely risk is the extreme temperatures: liquid hydrogen boils at more than 400 degrees (F) below zero. If a little bit of liquid splashes on you, you can lose a limb.