Slashdot Mirror
MIT study: Diesel Beats Hydrogen For Green Car Power
An anonymous reader writes "Bummer story on Science Blog for people looking to gas up on the H. Even with aggressive research, the hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle will not be better than the diesel hybrid -- a vehicle powered by a conventional engine supplemented by an electric motor -- in terms of total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, says a new MIT study. If we need to curb greenhouse gases within the next 20 years, improving mainstream gasoline and diesel engines and transmissions and expanding the use of hybrids is the way to go."
> (where zero means we moved the emmissions out of our neighborhood and over to the poor area where the power plants are located).
A single point of emission is easier to clean than millions of points of emission, and there are advantages of scale.
There are also higher air quality demands in high population areas that are better addressed by zero emissions vehicles. With millions of cars in a city, it makes sense to move the points of emission such that air quality is safe in all of California, instead of having localized unsafe areas.
While at school at Caltech, I got an up-close and personal view of the problems in LA. The mountains trap the air, leading to a thick haze right over Pasadena. Zero emissions vehicles are a very good technology to address this problem.