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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.'"
They designed specifically for advancing the future of fuel cell vehicles:
http://www.cafcp.org/aboutus.html
They have 15 installations now, and have 9 more planned.
http://www.cafcp.org/fuel-vehl_map.html
There are 65 fuel cell vehicles in California.
Maybe we could power the fuel cell producing plants by burning soybean oil in modified disel generators?
What you need is a Bio Oil Diesel system. See the below link for all your needs. It's available today! http://www.greasel.com/
Oh my gawd, they killed kenny's mod points!!!!
Good explanation of alternative fuel vehicles here: http://www.midamericanenergy.com/eew/more/alt.html
Here's a good snippet regarding Fuel Cells:
FCVs are twice as efficient as gasoline or diesel engines, and they produce no pollutants or carbon dioxide. The only tailpipe emission is water vapor. The biggest challenge now facing the developers of FCVs is where to get the hydrogen.
Hydrogen is plentiful in fossil fuels such as methane and natural gas. At the present time, fossil fuels are the most convenient source of hydrogen. But using fossil fuels to produce hydrogen creates pollution and adds to the consumption of nonrenewable resources
Here we go again...
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Now, one can certainly debate those points and any priority you would give to each. One can debate the amount of money set aside for each of them (1.2 billion for hydrogen as an example). What is not debatable is the nonsense of "the US government would want you to believe otherwise", that's tinfoil hattery of the first order.
The article cites the current cost to produce this fuel cell car at about 100 million Yen each. Based on current exchange rates that is about:
512,000 UK,
740,000 Euro,
890,000 US,
1,090,000 Canadian,
1,200,000 Australian,
1,300,000,000 Iraqi (yes, that's B as in Billion).
The insane cost is to a large extent due to the use of Palladium in the fuel cells and other exotic metals.
The cars do not appear to be available for actual sale. They are being leased for aroud $500 US per month, at a substantial loss. This is a massively subsidized testing program, not a viable product.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
If you base your nuclear power on burning thorium (3 times more common than uranium), you gain certain advantages such as no plutonium production, less radioactive garbage to contend with, and greater safety.
h tm
http://www.cavendishscience.org/bks/nuc/thrupdat.
The thorium fuel cycle has been known since the 1950s but was discarded due to cold-war politics in favour of uranium burning reactors that bred plutonium. Additionally, thorium reactors can be used to get rid of existing plutonium in a safe manner.
So if the Indian and Russian experiments pan out (and it looks like they will), expect nuclear power to become a more attractive option. Perhaps the Iranians could jump on the thorium bandwagon as well; it would go some way towards keeping that madman in Washingtom at bay.
and you need a LOT of cells for a little power. I assume you'd need a ton of cells to power any signifigant hydrogen production.
Just so you know, most large scale solar energy collection is done through mirrors that direct light to a central point, that in turn heats water to drive a steam turbine. Slightly less efficent on a per area basis than individual cells, but tons cheaper, and generally pretty effective if you have a large enough area.
You're insane.
20000 miles per year is about 600 or 700 gallons of gas. ($1200-$1400)
Insurance is what, maybe $200 a year? (I pay $600 a year for 4 vehicles)
Repairs? WTF are you talking about? I haven't spent more than $500 in the last 5 years on all four of my vehicles. Of course I do my own repairs, but I haven't done any major work.
So my expenses are like $1500 and I can haul tons of stuff around, never worry about getting a car, can drive as far as I like, and go anywhere I like at a moments notice.
It's commonly said that the action of creating hydrogen via a petroleum-fueled process is a net energy LOSS. That is, we'd be better to just burn the oil, than to convert it to hydrogen.
The bulk of experience we have with petroleum is burning it. If we're burning it, and using that energy to crack H2, then yeah, it's a net loss. Converting chemical energy to mechanical motion by combustion is fundamentally limited to a 50% efficiency.
Other methods, however, will be more efficient than burning. The entire process of reforming fossil fuels into hydrogen and using that hydrogen in a fuel cell ends up being about the same efficiency as burning gasoline in an internal combustion engine.
The reason that hydrogen is the way forward, though, besides dwindling fossil fuel supplies, is that electric fuel-cell-powered vehicles can take advantage of improvements such as regenerative braking, and are not, like combustion, inherently hindered by a thermodynamic efficiency barrier of 50%.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"