The practical hydrogen car (Honda) has been created but guess who is not ready? Every sorry government on the planet . . .
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No pollution but Who Cares!?
This entry was written by R. Elgin, posted on December 9, 2007 at 12:35 am, filed under Asides. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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22 Comments
I’m probably preaching to he choir, but… It’s a lie to say that hydrogen cars are eco-friendly, or even eco-friendlier. To produce hydrogen, one needs a massive amount of electricity, far more than one would need if the car was simply an electric car, which translates to more pollution. With current technology, electric cars are all that hydrogen fueled cars can be, and more, not that most consumers are aware of that. Ever wonder why car companies sponsor ‘nerdmobile’ races,…errr, solar car races?
I’m looking forward to the day when someone can finally make the fusion reactor from “Back to the Future” come true.
yes, we don’t need either hydrogen fuel cells or electric cars, which I agree are not eco-friendly.
Eco-friendly cars that run on tap water - using super-efficient electrolysis - with water as its only by-product exist - but will the oil-industry ever let them see the light of day?
FOX News: Scientist inventor creates green fuel HHO
http://video.google.ca/videopl.....7278996620
Stan Myer - Water Fuel Cell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIgOn1kRw5s
What a surprise. Apparently, in the 1970s Stan Myer “invented” a clean, limitless method to electrolyze hydrogen from water, patented it in several countries (patents are public, don’t you know) and then was — wait for it — ruthlessly murdered by an oil industry and government conspiracy eager to suppress this knowledge. Somehow I was not surprised to learn this from the comments at YouTube knowing that our credulous friend (he’ll believe any barmy story as long as it involves some form of conspiracy) Mr. Nigel D’Sa was behind the reference.
Riiight. Here’s a question, Nigel: If a device or technology is shown on television, and patented, can it truly be said not to have seen the light of day? And how come this super-efficient electrolysis can’t be duplicated anywhere?
The first guy, Denny Klein, must be next on the list. He’s got a 2006 video with a similar miraculous and mysterious electro-distillation device plugged into the wall — and never showing us the power consumption of the machine making the hydrogen from water. If it works, why hasn’t Denny Klein been murdered yet? Why haven’t you? After all, you’re shining the light of truth on all the dark conspiracies. Why hasn’t The Man™ shown up to exterminate you?
#3,
The Air Car.
http://www.theaircar.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4
Of course, you’ll need electricity to produce the compressed air, but the amount would be apparently less than that needed for an electric car.
@1 There are a couple of things to consider in your argument about H2 cars and battery cars.
“far more than one would need if the car was simply an electric car, which translates to more pollution.”
Not necessarily far more. And, renewable energy generation methods are envisioned as the way to generate the energy anyway, so ultimately H2 fuel cells should be considered only marginally, if at all, worse polluters than batteries.
“With current technology, electric cars are all that hydrogen fueled cars can be, and more, not that most consumers are aware of that.”
Not true, if a comparison is possible. Consumers don’t have a choice between the two anyway.
a) Battery energy storage density is just too low. So, you need more battery volume to get a reasonable range from the vehicle. This results in a very heavy car. There goes your efficiency. Plus, getting the sufficient battery volume is too expensive so you can’t afford the car. Plus, the batteries don’t last long enough. You can’t afford to replace them. The reason the internal combustion engine has survived as the dominant mode of propulsion for over 100 years is the energy density of a liquid fuel. Period. (It doesn’t matter how many of cinemagauche’s heroes Big Oil has whacked… that just silenced some side-shows.) Batteries don’t have this. If you want better, pretty much you have get out your nuclear reactors. post #2 was right… We need Mr. Fusion. Nigel you have an explanation of how Big Oil thwarted the cold fusion “discovery” too? Maybe another website with a cool name like “whatreallyhappened.com?”
b) In some cases, fuel cells might have a comparable energy density of certain liquid fuels, though not necessarily in the case of H2 fuel cells.
c) Some of the environmental effects of pollution that arises from hydrogen production and battery charging is different from that that goes out your tailpipe. It can be controlled/captured better than when it is at your car’s exhaust.
d) Batteries produce more harmful waste than fuel cells.
@3 First video had a combustion process that was “hotter than the surface of the sun?” Right off the bat your sources are just fascinating, like most of your stuff.
@4 Big Oil ruthlessly murdered the guy with an aneurysm. Brendon, I hope you don’t mind if I call CG Nigel too.
Why not? That’s his name. We can only hope the Illuminati hit squads find him sooner because we’re using it here.
I don’t recall much about hydrogen fuel cells, but electric cars, I’m qualified to say that, all it’s doing is, shifting pollution to the electricity power plant, instead of fumes coming off your own car, efficiently burning gasoline.
Vegetable based oil, such as ethanol?
My prof taught me that those fumes cause more damage to the atmosphere than gasoline. He was convinced this was just a way for farmers and farming states for more state funding.
You can’t get energy from nothing.
If you want maximum efficiency, let a nuclear power plant be built in your hometown.
What’s that? Property values will dip?
Then, I guess your money is not where your mouth is.
Oh, and America, living 50 miles away from black people is HURTING the environment. Cars, fuel, etc.
I mean, Tokyo nor Seoul can afford to do that.
How come America is allowed to do it?
Private security?
“I don’t recall much about hydrogen fuel cells, but electric cars, I’m qualified to say that, all it’s doing is, shifting pollution to the electricity power plant, instead of fumes coming off your own car, efficiently burning gasoline.”
Never heard of nuclear power?
Besides, to produce hydrogen they plan to use oil and electricity. Oil must be transported and processed, which uses energy and produces pollution.
Just check how long it takes for them to produce the hydrogen needed to power Arnold’s hydrogen powered Hummer. Takes an awful lot of electricity and time.
“Super efficient hydrolysis” my ass.
You guys should have paid more attention to chemistry and physics in college.
This is pseudoscience and Stan Myer’s death another lame conspiracy theory.
Hydrolysis is electrolysis of water.
You put energy in the form of electricity to break two H2O molecules to two H2 and one O2.
2xH2O -> 2xH2 + O2
Now, combustion is the process of rapidly oxidizing a substance. In the case of H2 it would be the following.
2xH2 + O2 -> 2xH2O
See something similar? These two reactions are each other’s reverse reactions. If it takes a certain amount of energy to do one, then you get the exact amount of energy out of the other, theoretically.
From an engineering perspective it’s a bit of a different story. If you let hydrogen burn with oxygen, you are going to get a short high burst of thermo energy that you aren’t going to be able to utilize at all. This is where the fuel cell comes in. It lets hydrogen slowly react with oxygen and eeks out the energy in form of electricity rather than heat. So little energy goes wasted and most of it is converted to electricity.
But you are NEVER going to get more energy out of it than you originally invested. “Super efficient” would have to mean an efficiency in the excess of 100% to make this feasible. Which is total perpetual machine BS.
fuel cell cars shift the pollution point source away from the tail pipe. this raises a number of new challenges: to generate the hydrogen in a less harmful way at a power station than the energy which would be generated in a internal combustion engine; and the creation of a new distribution network. Not to mention the huge implications for auto manufacturers in terms of R&D, supply chains, marketing (”Intel inside” cars anyone?), servicing, etc. how fast they make it to the market is a question of government support and market incentives for companies to invest and place their bets. high oil prices and emission regulations are slowly driving this shift. but right now fuel cells are too expensive to be anything other than a niche market. what is more, the internal combustion engine is constantly improving its efficiency levels and currently out performs fuel cells and hybrids. it will likely keep its place at the top for another decade unless regulations drive a faster change. nevertheless billions are being spent by auto firms like honda so they clearly beginning to place their bets for the future.
But, but, if it wasn’t for BushCheneyHalliburtonExxon we’d be living in a utopia of abundant, clean energy, with kites flying and butterflies flitting.
Well said, Starcraft gosu.
So, then.
All this is shifting pollution from the road to the power plants.
With no plans for nuclear plants.
The bottom line is drive less, more rails for mass transit, and make it hell of a lot more expensive to drive.
Whoever does it, though, will be voted out of the American political office.
The predominating avg number of passengers in an American car during commuting hours is
da, da, dum,
1 passenger.
1.
I mean, 1 driver. That’s it.
What does Amtrak do when it’s carrying 30% of capacity? Beg Congress for money.
What do airliners do when they’re flying with less than 100% capacity? Chapter 11.
What does Congress do when oil prices go up, and America still drives 1 hour to 2 hours to work, with the driver being the only dude in the car?
They decrease gas prices and blame Dick Cheney.
Design cities that don’t require transport. Enforce the law, get rid of crime. Stop worrying about homos and tax structures, get rid of the drugs and weapons. We don’t need skyscrapers, we don’t need cars, we don’t need fuel… Look at what we’ve been given. It’s a tree, it’s a sky, it’s water, just leave it alone and live with it. There’s no need to invent, the world is perfect.
This is a sobering post for me. It’s one that I know more than quite a bit about, and one where I think wjk is making a lot of sense. I guess we can all get along. …sometimes.
But don’t try to convince Nigel of the validity of the so-called First Law of Thermodynamics. It’s in every chemistry, physics, thermo, etc. textbook and therefore obviously bogus, and the stuff conspiracies are made of. Einstein kinda got around it, so do you doubt that a guy of Nigel’s Level of Enlightenment can’t at least out-wit Einstein?
Walk!
#12,
Yes, that’s what I was hinting at, although I was talking about the plans to use oil as the source of hydrogen and solar energy as the source of electricity needed to extract the hydrogen…electricity that would be more efficiently used to power the car directly. It’s basically PR for car and oil companies a scam to keep us dependent on oil without feeling that we are. It would also allow the government to stay in the loop, to continue collecting energy taxes. I would imagine that most people would get solar panels installed at home if electrical cars became more affordable.
(I’ve spent my fare share of time in a laboratory as a student and an assistant, so spare me the condescending tone).