Pulled eFingers:

Stacey —

$2.39???? And here I was complaining about $1.51...

Eric P —

You might be disilllusioned, as I was, to discover that the overwhelming source of hydrogen currently on the market is:

You guessed it, fossil fuels.

The problem is that hydrogen isn't, in and of itself, a *source* of energy. It's just an intermediate stage. You still have to produce the hydrogen. There are a few ways to do this. 1) You can break apart water molecules. Unfortunately, this takes a tremendous amount of energy. Murphy's Law suggests, and it's always right, that this is far more energy that you'll get by oxidizing the hydrogen, even in a perfectly efficient Fuel Cell (which of course doesn't, and can't, exist). 2) A much more efficient solution: We've got all these big long chains of hydrogen in these so-called 'hydrocarbon' molecules. Sure, they come under nasty names like Natural Gas, Butane, Gasoline (all from oil)... But it's *way* cheaper to extract the hydrogen from those than to break apart good ol' H20. So you can guess (and you'd be right) that industry is already building efficient "reformers" to break down the molecules. As you can see, *that* really doesn't solve the problem, because we still need to drill for oil, process it, and, just in a *slightly* more refined state, burn it.

Think of hydrogen, the metal-hydride tanks it's stored in, and fuel cells as a squishy kind of instantly-refillable battery (which it is), and you'll see the problem you're really solving is building a better electric vehicle. One with better range. That's a good problem to solve, but it's barely related to solving our dependence on foreign oil, and even less related to our aparent need to pollute the air we breath. After all, these fuel cells, the tanks, and more importantly, the hydrogen need to be manufactured, which requires exotic chemicals, materials, and you guessed it, lots and *lots* of energy...

If we really want to solve the reliance on foreign oil, and pollution, we need to start getting really serious about producing electricity from cleaner sources, and start using electricity for all our engines. (Yes, even resorting to less efficient option 1 to produce hydrogen) Now for a truly interesting challenge: design a jet airplane that runs on electricity. (Ever look up how much pollution jets cause burning hydrocarbons? Oi!)

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001065.html
http://www.hydrogensource.com/
http://www.howstuffworks.com/hydrogen-economy4.htm
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/20518/story.htm

Wanna see how much C02 you personally produce?
https://www.greentagsusa.org/GreenTags/calculator_intro.cfm

Eric P —

Hey, another response from the same guy - don't I have anything better to do? ;)

I just read this incredibly insightful and very easy to read article about why Fuel Cells are the wrong solution to a problem that is *already solved*. It was presented by a representative from a company that has a working prototype of a *very* unusual car. I'll tease you with the specs of the car, but make sure to read the paper on why batteries are 4x to 10x better than Fuel Cells in every measurable category: price, capacity, availability, longevity, power efficiency, environmental impact, etc...

Fuel Cells wrong solution to problem

t-Zero specs:
Acceleration: 0-60 in 3.6 seconds
Range: 300 miles on a single charge, *unlimited* range with generator trailer.
Efficiency: 153 mpg equivalent
Winner of 2003 Michelin Challenge Bibendum, beating out all entrants from major auto makers, including 2004 prius and insight, and several experimental fuel cell cars, biodesiel cars, cng cars, hybrids, etc... Oh yeah, and they drove it the 500 miles to the competition.

Company main page
Latest t-Zero press release
t-Zero product page

Eric —

Very intersting.

Although I highly doubt consumers will accept the one hour recharge time for crappy lead acid batteries, or the ten (?) hour recharge time for lithium ion.

As for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, I understand the process to create hydrogen fuel is dirty.

However, today we have 100 million or so fossil fuel-to-energy converters in the US (mostly in the form of automobiles). That means if an advancement in cleaner converters comes along it would take forever to roll it out.

We can decrease that time if we can minimize the number of converters. One way to do that is to put the converters at a layer farther away from the end consumers. This is where hydrogen fuel cells are useful. We can drop the converters from 100 million to perhaps thousands.

I realize it would take forever to get everyone on hydrogen fuel cells. But atleast when forever does come, we'll be ready for a cleaner way to convert into energy.

That said, I'll be all for electric vehicles when I can recharge my electric vehicle in 10 minutes or drive continuously for 10 hours without needing a recharge.

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