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Fuel-cell Vehicles for Americans
hey writes "An article titled Fuel-cell vehicles run clean, but is their future clear? in the Japan Times says Honda is leasing fuel-cell cars to individual Americans. The article mentions: 'Honda officials said it is easier for the automaker to start leasing in the U.S. because there are more hydrogen gas installations there than in Japan.'"
Erm... Provided noone has ever used such a car in the US before, how's that that there are fuel stations by now? Or am I missing something?
Maybe they don't like nuclear because of the lethal crap that hangs around for tens of thousands of years... nah, that couldn't be it...
HYDROGEN IS NOT THE SOLUTION.
Hydrogen fuel cells are more like "batteries", and I think calling them FUEL cells is deeply misleading. We need to do the following, ASAP:
1.Reduce our population (without resorting to war and famine and such like)
2. Stop Using Oil
3. develop a lifestyle that is slower, more decentralised, and a few orders of magnitude more efficient.
Otherwise, we're going back to the caves in 1000 years and just hang out waiting for the next asteroid to take us out or the flu to do us in.
Face it folks: THE PARTY'S OVER.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I will keep this simple: how about a gas tax that reflects the risks of over consumption? Let's start with a $1.00 a gallon federal applied to the deficit, not road building (a lesser rate on non-fossil, domestic fuels). There are other steps but even this alone would encourage individuals to curb their consumption significantly.
>>oil (and coal) is still the cheapest and easiest form of energy to extract
Tell that to those passing through Iraq in the armed services. Also tax and energy policy is skewed to make it so.
Hydrogen fuel: a pipe dream is a copout, too long term and unpredictable. We needed steps years ago, yet most seem to live in a dream world where it will only become bigger and better. A bit of investment advice: "don't bet the family farm on it!"
The question ought to be, what are we going to power stuff with?
For cars, we're going to power them with whatever has the highest power density. At the moment, that's gasoline. When gasoline becomes a non-option, it will be hydrogen.
if you used them to charge batteries more or less directly, you'd be able to supply the energy for your typical personal vehicle with a relatively small investment.
Have you ever actually seen a fully electric car? The Simpsons joke isn't far off. Affordable batteries are like hauling around a ton of rocks for every tank of gas. Advanced ones are little more than reversible fuel cells.
But if you insist on going through hydrogen, with 70% efficiency in electrolysis, 60% in the fuel cell and losses in compression, you're down to 40% overall efficiency
Electrolysis is more like 90%, and usually even higher. I didn't think fuel cells were up to 60% efficiency yet, but the important thing is that there's nothing stopping them from also being 90% efficient. Either way, though, if hydrogen is at 40% efficiency for the entire process, then it's already on par with internal combustion engines. That's impressive considering the technology is just beginning commercial use.
it becomes much easier to produce it from coal, oil and gas than from most kinds of renewable energy
Easier for whom? Easier for the people whose homes are demolished to make way for the coal strip mines? Easier for the people dying in oil wars? Or easier for the criminal industrialists who profit from said ventures?
What if the global warming nuts turn out to be right? Do you still think that burning hydrocarbons and trying to capture the CO2 will be the most efficient path? Besides, what will we use in 100 years? Surely even the most wide-eyed optimistic American oil-man doesn't think fossil fuels will last that long? Do you want to be the one to tell future generations that we used up all the fossil fuels and didn't even attempt to find a replacement?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"