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Los Angeles City Employees To Drive Hydrogen Power

Posted by Hemos on from the driving-around-in-the-hifi dept.

mace_15 writes "According this CNN article the mayor of Los Angeles has signed a lease with Honda to allow city employees to drive experimental hydrogen powered cars. The cars can reach speeds up to 93mph and Honda claims they have a range of 220 miles before refueling. More information on the car can be found here. Mercedes-Benz has a similar car."

3 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Leverage existing infrastructure by Spamalamadingdong · · Score: 5, Insightful
    In the case of early automobiles, if memory serves they got by using the "existing infrastructure" in the form of shops which sold dry-cleaning fluid (naptha, aka white gasoline) and found the smooth paved pathways made for bicycles to be particularly nice for driving.

    What lessons there are here for alternative energy cars, I don't know. Aside from the folks who burn used french-fry oil in their diesels, opportunities to run alternate-fuel vehicles without special support appear to be few and far between (save for block-heater-friendly Canadian cities being EV-friendly)

    --
    Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
  2. Re:This is *bad* news. by denubis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ::sigh:: This AC is probably a flame, but since I'm putting off studying for a midterm anyways....

    First of... yes, hydrogen is a storage medium... what do you think gasoline is? That lovely little eqn e=mc^2 applies (with varying efficiency) to everything. The trick is the varying efficiency. If I could have a nuke plant churning out H, I'd prefer it to the massive oli infrastructure we have now. It will centralize pollution in one place (so that we can have lovely scrubbers and whatnot to get rid of it) and (as a long time past LA resident) prevent all the smog. Yes, water vapor forms clouds/fog/condensates whatever, but we need the water. What we don't need are stage 2 smog alerts where they recommend not going outside.

    Yes, I admit that H cars are just a technofix, but compared with making society change, they are an amazingly useful one.

    -Brian

  3. Re:A possible downside by rakerman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As opposed to cars filled with harmless, fire-resistant gasoline?

    Hydrogen burns upwards.

    Gasoline pours out on the ground and surrounds you with an incinerating puddle of fire.

    It amazes me that people worry about cars with hydrogen, as if they weren't currently driving cars powered by miniature gasoline explosions.