Where are our hydrogen-powered cars?

Where are our hydrogen-powered cars?
http://www.techespot.com/2009/05/hydrogen-powered-cars.html

 

Don't want them. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, after all. And
imagine the local effects of 1 million cars spewing water vapor during
rush hour. Ugh in the summer, wheeeeee! at 30 below zero in winter.
Hydrogen is a non-starter as a fuel- it's expensive to make, dangerous
to transport, difficult to store in a car in adequate quantities. It's
an attempt to keep thinking inside the box (e.g., maintaining some form
of internal combustion engine).

At the risk of perturbing some folks, the simplest future for individual
urban transportation is the bicycle. Infrastructure is already in place
and less expensive to maintain (bicycles causing dramatically little
wear and tear on roads compared to cars).

Locally (Minneapolis) the number of people going to work by bike has
more than doubled in the past two years (from 1.7% to 3.6%, so a little
more than 100,000 people), increasing particularly when gas hit $4 a
gallon but interestingly not dropping much after gas prices receded.
The bike arterials in Minneapolis are seeing traffic counts 25-30%
higher than for the same periods one year ago.


The percentage of daily trips done by bike in various cities:

Copenhagen - 55% [37% in Greater Copenhagen]
Gronningen, Netherlands - 55%
Assen, Netherlands - 40%
Amsterdam, Netherlands - 40%
Münster, Germany - 40%
Utrecht, Netherlands - 33%
Ferrara, Italy - 30%
Malmö, Sweden - 30%
Linköping, Sweden - 30%
Västerås, Sweden - 30%
Odense, Denmark - 25%
Basel, Switzerland - 25%
Osaka, Japan - 25% [est.]
Bologna, Italy - 25%
Parma, Italy - 25%
Oulu, Finland - 20%
Rotterdam, Netherlands - 20-25%
Berne, Switzerland - 20%
Tübingen, Gemany - 20%
Aarhus, Denmark - 20%
Tokyo, Japan - 20% [est.]
York, UK - 18%
Munich, Germany - 15%
Davis, USA - 15%
Cambridge, UK - 15%
Berlin, Germany - 12%
Turku, Finland - 11%
Stockholm, Sweden - 10%

 

The biggest problem with hydrogen is that it isn't a fuel. There is no
significant natural source of it, you have to make it, and to do that
requires more energy than you get by burning it.

Storing it isn't terribly difficult or dangerous. Yeah it's highly
flammable, but so is gasoline, and unlike gasoline, hydrogen is lighter
than air so if it gets out, it rises and dissipates quickly.

 

"Water vapor is a greenhouse gas" .... you are kidding that
water vapor is a problem, right? See this link for
educational materials for pre-schoolers about the cloud
cycle. Bottom line is that life would not exist on earth
without water vapor.

http://www.first-school.ws/activities/science/drippy.htm

 

A bit like saying that because air is involved with greenhouse warming, it's
also part of the problem.

The magnititude of the ignorance is quite astounding!

See this link for

 

Maybe these will help:

http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/gases.html

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/01/29/researchers-study-th
e-other-greenhouse-gas-water-vapor/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

Perhaps you should consider trying to think in a more sophisticated way
than a preschooler.

Life also would not exist without oxygen, but too much of that is bad
for you too. Ditto carbon dioxide, nitrogen, methane, etc.

 

That you seriously believe that the totality of exhausted water vapour might
even approach 0.1% of total atmospheric content, speaks volumes about your
grasp of the scale of the issue.

They say a little knowledge is dangerous.
I think in your case, a great deal of ignorance would be more applicable.

 

Ah, another sock puppet weighs in. Just point out to me where I said
this?

Learn to read, moron, and learn to think while you are at it. I'll wait.

 

Oh, so now you're denying that hydrogen-power water vapour's an issue ?
Bit of a change of tune, isn't it ?

Either it's a climate change issue or it's not.
Please make your mind up whether you're on ours or your own side of the
debate.

 

Once again you demonstrate your reading comprehension deficits. Go back
to the beginning and try again. Maybe you'll actually read what I
specified as my concerns about hydrogen powered cars this time.

 

I recall water vapour being your concern.

But apparently, that's no longer the case - right ?

 

The only "water vapor" that is a global issue is that which
spouts forth from the great teleprompter reader's mouth.
This water vapor believer probably also believes that the
solution to global warming is for everyone to properly
inflate their tires - then "problem solved". Oh to be
gullible AND uninformed ... life must be blissful.

 

You're obviously an intentional idiot. Go back and read. My concerns
were clearly stated. Since then you and the "Retiree" have been trying
to put words in my mouth and then acting like I said them. I have no
further time for trolls.

 

Well, would you say it's better to be an anonymous asshole who lies
about what others say? 'Cuz that's you, dude.

 

LOL

 

I seem to recall someone raising the issue of hyrdogen-powered cars, saying
(and I quote) - "Don't want them. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, after
all."

Case closed.

 

In your case, brain closed.

 

Now now children, nothing perpetuates an argument more than both people
being insulting.

Water vapour is perfectly harmless when in clouds in the atmosphere, in
fact more likely to cause cooling than heating, however we don't want
large amounts of it produced at ground level. I am not aware of any
studies on the potential problem this might incurr, but I can guess that
fog and ice are not good things.

I also dissagree that it is easy to store, you can store small amounts
of it but not useful amounts for any length of time. Due to thermal
expansion it has to be vented off. In all current H2 powered cars the
fuel is depleted after about 5-10 days due to venting.

 

What a twat!


nothing perpetuates an argument more than both

And that would be because ..... ?


I am not aware of

 

Centre Parting wrote:

Because it would change the environment we live in, more quickly and
faster than we can adapt either our bodies or infrastructure (just like
global warming), hence we would not want to jump in without proper study.

The global warming problem has happened because we assumed the
environment was an infinite sink, or at least that we cannot
significantly affect it. Which of course cannot be true in either case,
all it takes is bigger industry and enough consumers. If I was going to
make a replacement suggestion for transporting energy I would think we
should have learnt this lesson to not just look past our own noses for
potential problems.

The problems with an H2 consumption infrastructure are many, and perhaps
the humidity worries could be removed with a simple condensing system,
however greater problems exist in the storage and conversion. For
example power cells require Platinum and if you were to try to replace
all cars with current fuels cells, there would not be enough to go around.

Generally the efficiencies do not look good, with batteries more
efficient and materials in greater supply (but not infinite either).

H2 is not currently viable and most trials seem to be winding down until
there is some breakthrough in storage and conversion technology.