Electric Cars Will Kill The Planet

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

As for the dual packs, I think this would fall under the physics of Perpetual motion, which has never been accomplished.

It would take more energy to produce any energy you could get out of it.

Would it extend range? Probably. But slowly it would fall behind and eventually both packs would be depleted.

Yeah, perpetual motion is a class 3 impossibility. Meaning, that there are no known laws of physics will allow for it to exist.

Class 1 impossibilities are things like ray guns, light sabers, etc. Possible to create the mechanisms, but currently impossible to have a huge amount of portable energy to power 'em. An engineering problem really.

Class 2 are things that are possible, but require an extremely advanced civilization (time travel, teleportation, etc.)

 

[LuminaryJanitor]

there is no reason you cannot convert the engine to run off of hydrogen, it's simply using hydrogen as a replacement for gasoline, when you have an oxygen rich environment it will burn.

Except that you're limited by the ~30% maximum thermodynamic efficiency of an internal combustion engine, rather than the 100% (theoretical) efficiency of an electrochemical cell. Compared to burning hydrogen, fossil fuels are the green alternative.

 

[TheRapture]

"On a serious note, is there any reason we couldn’t make an electric car with dual / switching battery packs? You’d have one that operates the car while the other is being charged by the spinning of the wheels. That way, you could charge the car once and forget about it. I’d pay more for a self charging car, wouldn’t you?"

Dear god let that be a joke.

I was thinking the same thing??? Perpetual motion, alas, does not exist, and cannot at this point in our technological state. Zero point energy is where it is at.

 

[deadrody]

there is no reason you cannot convert the engine to run off of hydrogen, it's simply using hydrogen as a replacement for gasoline, when you have an oxygen rich environment it will burn.

That is true, but as pointed out elsewhere, that conversion requires energy - in the case of hydrolosis - a lot of electricity that we currently don't have.

 

[wtiger]

Hydrogen is about the least efficient way to get energy from our power plants to our cars. Even if you do use an extremely costly fuel cell instead of burning it it's efficiency in transferring energy from one place to another is total crap.

 

[chaos68]

That is true, but as pointed out elsewhere, that conversion requires energy - in the case of hydrolosis - a lot of electricity that we currently don't have.

no no, i wrote hydrogen, not water or some other thing. You should take a look at united nuclear, they are working on a system to convert a standard engine to run using hydrogen (read hydrogen, not water). The hydrogen is stored in the form of a metal hydride in a tank. The tanks are refilled by a hydrogen generator that can be powered using solar panels or a wind turbine- so basically a source of renewable energy.

 

[undertheradar]

someone already did along with the negative entropy heatsink.

ROFL... negative entropy HSF... thats funny!

 

[chaos4u]

I would like to see a study that would show the increased demand on the grid if every American were to switch to electric vehicles.

I would bet it would not be a pretty picture as our power bills would probably go up .
offsetting the the money we saved from not purchasing gas.

and then a tough choice would have to be made more dirty power plants or more nuclear power plants .

either way electric vehicles are not the utopia promised.

 

[Logan321]

Actually, Steve is on the right track, just at the wrong tree. There's already vehicles that use hydraulics to drive motors, and use braking energy to recharge the hydraulic cylinders, and gain back a good percentage of the braking energy instead of just wasting it on pads and heat. The cylinders are "charged" via a gasoline or diesel engine. I think one or more of the major shipping companies are using this technology for trials right now.

Yep, here we go... http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpres...e1470abd2835dd10852573b40073a08f!OpenDocument

 

[undertheradar]

Hydrogen is about the least efficient way to get energy from our power plants to our cars. Even if you do use an extremely costly fuel cell instead of burning it it's efficiency in transferring energy from one place to another is total crap.

When you use the hydro cell as a battery, not a combustable liquid fuel like petrol, its actually a very efficient method... same as a battery... in the 90% range.

 

[Logan321]

When you use the hydro cell as a battery, not a combustable liquid fuel like petrol, its actually a very efficient method... same as a battery... in the 90% range.

Are you considering the travel expenses and production costs of the containers and hydrogen processing plants? Electricity already comes to your house, your work, etc.

Hydrogen fuel cells need to be manufactured, transported, recycled... So their 90% initial efficiency becomes drastically reduced by external energy consumption before they even reach their destination.

 

[CharonPDX]

Just to remind people, nearly all current hybrids on the road *DO* charge the battery when coasting or decelerating. It is my understanding that the upcoming crop of all-electrics will, too. It makes sense.

But, it's not perpetual motion by any stretch of the imagination. The conversion is *LOUSY*. Out of curiosity once, I drove a route in my Prius that I can regen a decent amount of power, and stay in electric mode (slow rolling hills, I slow down going up the hill, using just enough power to keep from getting too slow at the top, then coast down, regenerating electricity on the down-side,) for about four miles. I tried it by shifting into neutral when I would otherwise be regenerating power. I made it only about 500 feet short of where I normally do before the battery pack dies and the gas engine kicks in.

Of course, for a proper test, I would have to shift in to neutral every single time I should be regenerating, for an entire tank of gas, to properly compare.

 

[Drakensoul]

Yeah all the people saying "hydrogen, not water!"

.... Where do you think the hydrogen comes from? Magic?
It comes from a massive energy input splitting hydrogen from a lower energy (stable) compound like water.

Hydrogen is an extremely unstable, high-energy element. In order to generate hydrogen from a low energy, stable molecule, you have to inject the massive amount of energy that hydrogen gave off (i.e. heat) in forming the stable molecule to regenerate the high energy element.

For hydrogen to be a feasible 'green' alternative, the massive energy investment required to create it has to come from a renewable source (solar, wind, hydroelectric). If it comes from coal-based power plants, you're still burning shit loads of coal to make the hydrogen. Which is no better than burning the same amount of fossil fuel in a gas-powered automobile. Unfortunately it seems like people 'forget' that energy ALWAYS must come from somewhere as long as the energy-requiring phase is one step removed (i.e. at a hydrolysis plant instead of in the engine of your car).

Reminds me of a friend once who spent like 30 minutes trying to convince me that his design for a car requiring no fuel -- one with 5 alternators and wind turbines all over it -- was a genius that the world's physicists had simply overlooked.

E=MC^2. You can't create or destroy energy, it simply changes form/phase. In order to CONVERT a low-energy compound (water) into a high energy compound (H+), you have to supply that conversion energy. Which means burning a shit load of coal for hydrolysis.

 

[nomu]

Yeah all the people saying "hydrogen, not water!"

.... Where do you think the hydrogen comes from? Magic?
It comes from a massive energy input splitting hydrogen from a lower energy (stable) compound like water.

Hydrogen is an extremely unstable, high-energy element. In order to generate hydrogen from a low energy, stable molecule, you have to inject the massive amount of energy that hydrogen gave off (i.e. heat) in forming the stable molecule to regenerate the high energy element.

For hydrogen to be a feasible 'green' alternative, the massive energy investment required to create it has to come from a renewable source (solar, wind, hydroelectric). If it comes from coal-based power plants, you're still burning shit loads of coal to make the hydrogen. Which is no better than burning the same amount of fossil fuel in a gas-powered automobile. Unfortunately it seems like people 'forget' that energy ALWAYS must come from somewhere as long as the energy-requiring phase is one step removed (i.e. at a hydrolysis plant instead of in the engine of your car).

Reminds me of a friend once who spent like 30 minutes trying to convince me that his design for a car requiring no fuel -- one with 5 alternators and wind turbines all over it -- was a genius that the world's physicists had simply overlooked.

E=MC^2. You can't create or destroy energy, it simply changes form/phase. In order to CONVERT a low-energy compound (water) into a high energy compound (H+), you have to supply that conversion energy. Which means burning a shit load of coal for hydrolysis.

Well it's not like all life forms on God's green earth shit oil and piss gasoline. Getting that stuff takes some dirty energy input as well, and then is dirty itself when it releases its energy. It is at least possible to power a car with hydrogen or batteries without releasing CO2, which may be a worthwhile goal in itself just so we can then focus on converting our primary energy providers to clean sources.

 

[Drakensoul]

Well it's not like all life forms on God's green earth shit oil and piss gasoline. Getting that stuff takes some dirty energy input as well, and then is dirty itself when it releases its energy. It is at least possible to power a car with hydrogen or batteries without releasing CO2, which may be a worthwhile goal in itself just so we can then focus on converting our primary energy providers to clean sources.

No, with the current US infrastructure being fossil-fuel based you are simply shifting the CO2 production from the engine of your car to the hydrolysis plant which is burning an equivalent amount of fossil fuel to supply the energy to convert water to hydrogen.

 

[Tokamak]

One of the most important advantages with electric cars is zero point source pollution. Internal combustion engines generate NO radical as well as volatile organic compounds, which when exposed to sunlight and O2 create ground level ozone, IE smog. That stuff kills thousands, if not tens of thousands every year. Electric cars would not generate NO or VOCs, so there would be no smog. I think all you people in the CA could appreciate that scenario.

 

[kllrnohj]

No, with the current US infrastructure being fossil-fuel based you are simply shifting the CO2 production from the engine of your car to the hydrolysis plant which is burning an equivalent amount of fossil fuel to supply the energy to convert water to hydrogen.

But its *NOT* equivalent. A car's ICE is much less efficient than a power plant. Its not unlike mass production.

 

[Kristofff]

Think switching to electric cars will make you more smug…errr, I mean “environmentally friendly?” You’d better think again. Electric cars will be the death of us all!



On a serious note, is there any reason we couldn’t make an electric car with dual / switching battery packs? You’d have one that operates the car while the other is being charged by the spinning of the wheels. That way, you could charge the car once and forget about it. I’d pay more for a self charging car, wouldn’t you?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahaHAHAHAhaHAhahahaha.....

You propose that one battery pack charge the other batter pack while driving the car? I almost thought that was a joke but there is no hint of your usual smileys or sarcasm.

This, along with your perception of electric cars as tree hugger vehicles is extremely amusing.

In reality, all that needs to change is that battery technology needs to advance for capacity, which it is already in the process of doing. We can already charge them as fast as the outlets can safely and realistically output power. The other change is the proliferation of renewable energy plants, as their excess produced electricity can be stored for later peak usage in stationary capacitors (kinda like batteries, also what they use to fire rail guns) which won't have to be concerned with space like a car battery.

And, just so you can feel more secure in your manhood when referring to electric cars, keep in mind that high performance electric cars can stomp the shit out of fuel powered cars because electric motors have 100% torque from a dead stop.

And, for one final point, the quote you put in the main page post says nothing about the death of the planet, only that it will be a minor reduction at first.

Because it isn't possible.

Sure it is. Do some actual reading on all the technologies involved.

No. The efficiency from power from the battery to actual movement is below 100%. So if you to take one battery and use it to charge another identical battery you'd actually get less power. To actually charge you'd need 100%+ efficiency. Now powering it when going down hill or braking would be different.

It took power to get the car going in the first place so even with regenerative breaking, its still a net loss.

Your talking around $20,000 in solar panels to charge any contemporary electric car over night and have your charge batteries ready again when you get home. That's counting on about 2killowatts of wind power. Which may or may not be sustained. These are conservative estimates.

After all is said and done, between contractors, charge controllers and batteries your looking at $40-45k and you haven't even bought a solar car yet.

Or, you know, electric companies can buy and use the solar panels and you just use the power.

Prius's are so ugly

The Telsa car isn't. What is your point? You can make a car look however you want.

I guess people feel better about themselves if they cant see the polution there creating. If owners of electric vehicles would just follow the wires from there house to the Coal Burning power plant they might reconsider. But as long as there oblivious that there electric car is responsible for the same amount of CO2 as any other car out there they can feel good about themselves.

But wait...look at all those toxic chemicals churning around in those batteries, wheres that nasty mess going to go when its time to replace them.

Because it is impossible to have clean power coming down the lines?

You can go thousands of miles with just gallons of water. This was the inventor that was assassinated for his invention. Watch the video . This is real technology thats here today but is abandoned due to big oil and politics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDHT0hBgVOw&fmt=18

That is just a hydrogen powered car using a fuel cell. You could get the same thing by producing the hydrogen at home with electricity and putting the tank in the car.

Chernobyl ring a bell? I know Chernobyl had many design flaws that were ignored just to get the plant out in time before the deadlines, but damn, that would be scary to have happen in California.

There are hundreds of nuclear power plants around the world.

Nuclear power plants are an important source of electrical energy. At the moment there are more than 400 nuclear power plants (NPP) all over the world, which produce about 17% of the world's electricity. The share can range from just few percent in some countries up and to 75 % as in France. The Krško Nuclear Power Plant produces almost 40% of the electrical energy in Slovenia.

Look at 3 mile island. Some people say it was a disaster. I say it was good engineering. only a minor amount of radiation escaped not even enough to make living near by dangerous.

Fish and frogs with multiple eyes/legs isn't quite what I'd call "not dangerous".

It's BS.

Converting hydrogen to water releases energy.

Converting water to hydrogen requires exactly the same amount of energy as input.

You can't use water as a "fuel" like this without an external energy source. And in that case, the external source is what's really powering the car.

Because of the release of heat during something like electrolysis, it isn't even close to 100% efficient, especially when you factor in the combustion engine.

It Might be possible Steve,and a good idea. You would probably have to make sure the circuit is disconnected when charging one set of batteries while the other set is being used and vise versa. Similiar to running duel gas tanks.

Dual gas tanks don't refill each other forever and neither do dual batteries.

I said it before and I will say it again.

The amount of energy/resources used to develop/create/maintain these systems is equal to the energy potentially saved by them.

The only way to "save" or to possibly reduce any issues is about usage and practice. Failing that, we could just make everyone is cities use bicycles (unless you have special needs).

And what science or numbers, besides pulling things out of your ass, did you use to come up with that assumption

there is no reason you cannot convert the engine to run off of hydrogen, it's simply using hydrogen as a replacement for gasoline, when you have an oxygen rich environment it will burn.

No one said you couldn't. They said hydrogen is stupid and inefficient and doesn't progress us anywhere.

Not buying a car and not driving at all will make a much bigger improvement for everyone and the environment.... you should try it.

We can't all work from home, or are you just being facetious?

The people on the right see the writing on the wall and are saying hey, uncap the current oil field we have now, start building oil/gas rigs and deploy them where we know there are untold billions of cubic yards of oil and gas right off our coasts and make us foreign oil independent, and the lefty greenies will squeal in horror, go screaming into the night and say NO the whole way through. It's lose-lose. You can't win with these people. They have sold their souls to Luddite way of life.

Reality check, drilling for oil right now will not result in oil infusion and oil dependence in any significant way for at least 10 years. But hey, keep spewing your ignorant talking points.

Oh, I'm a huge proponent of hydrogen, but you will get the battery fanatics who will tell you that you it is the end all. Go search around on this forum for these discussions and see for yourself.

I wouldn't call these forums the epicenter of intelligence, as can be seen in this thread.

no no, i wrote hydrogen, not water or some other thing. You should take a look at united nuclear, they are working on a system to convert a standard engine to run using hydrogen (read hydrogen, not water). The hydrogen is stored in the form of a metal hydride in a tank. The tanks are refilled by a hydrogen generator that can be powered using solar panels or a wind turbine- so basically a source of renewable energy.

Dude, you have to create hydrogen in order to store it and burn it. That starts with either splitting water or fossils fuels.

I would like to see a study that would show the increased demand on the grid if every American were to switch to electric vehicles.

I would bet it would not be a pretty picture as our power bills would probably go up .
offsetting the the money we saved from not purchasing gas.

and then a tough choice would have to be made more dirty power plants or more nuclear power plants .

either way electric vehicles are not the utopia promised.

The total cost living would still be lower than refueling your car with gasoline.

When you use the hydro cell as a battery, not a combustable liquid fuel like petrol, its actually a very efficient method... same as a battery... in the 90% range.

Except we don't even have enough platinum on the entire planet earth to replace every single car with a Fuel Cell powered car.

But its *NOT* equivalent. A car's ICE is much less efficient than a power plant. Its not unlike mass production.

And hydrogen is even less efficient than electric powered.

You are saying that we should do:

Electricity -> (splitting water into) Hydrogen -> (using fuel cells and platinum to turn Hydrogen back into (Electricity) -> (in order to drive the) motor, or in short Electricity -> Hydrogen -> Electricity -> Motor

Why would we do that instead of just doing:

Electricity -> Battery -> Motor

 

[kllrnohj]

And hydrogen is even less efficient than electric powered.

You are saying that we should do:

Electricity -> (splitting water into) Hydrogen -> (using fuel cells and platinum to turn Hydrogen back into (Electricity) -> (in order to drive the) motor, or in short Electricity -> Hydrogen -> Electricity -> Motor

Why would we do that instead of just doing:

Electricity -> Battery -> Motor

Er, I never said that? I've always been for Electricity -> Battery -> Motor.

 

[wtiger]

The absolute best a fuel cell is going to do is 50%-70%. That's not taking into account freeing the hydrogen with electrolosis and wasting about 50% of your electricity in the process. Or transporting and storing the hydrogen. No matter how you cut it hydrogen is a very inefficient way to move an automobile.

 

[chaos68]

Kristofff i would disagree, converting an engine to run using hydrogen is quite a bit of progress. Not only does it remove a large foreign oil requirement, but the burning of hydrogen also does not release CO2. Now i know you're going to pull that entire "but the power has to come from somewhere" stuff again, so let me refute that right now by saying that it is quite possible for a person to have solar panels installed on their house or a wind turbine, any other form of renewable energy, at which point it is quite possible to split the hydrogen from the oxygen in some source water to refill the tanks. Furthermore, you're expectation of "energy ->battery ->motor" is not quite feasible or environmentally friendly. Those batteries tend to need replacing every few years, that's quite a cost to both the user and to the environment when you consider just what is inside of those batteries. Also please read my second post, I mentioned a "hydrogen generator" (their words not mine), that is designed to refill the tanks using a water source and renewable energy to extract the hydrogen from the water. The reason i referenced united nuclear was so that people could see what others are trying to do in order to get "green cars", so please do indeed investigate a post before refuting it so quickly.

 

[xX_Jack_Carver_Xx]

You could take a stab at the amount of electricity needed to convert to all electric....

Assuming say 600 mile/wk range on average, that's about 300KWH times 110 million vehicles, per wk.... its alot of generating capacity needed.

Now, if you had 25KW solar capacity on each single family home roof, with say 50 million homes, plus a new generation of clean safe nuclear production (single perfect polished design, repeated x1000) and ACTUALLY IMPLEMENTED clean coal, wind and tide where feasible.... I think we could do it, and the effort would remove about 120 million barrels a day of liguid fossil fuel usage, making us easily 100% independent.... as well as knocking out 90% of our CO2 emissions.

The real key factor that our society needs to come to terms with is, we have spent 150 years in fantasyland, assigning NO VALUE to most of what nature provides us, like the value that Tree's provide by converting CO2 into O2, or the value that wetlands provide by cleaning our drinking water, etc, etc.

Vast wealth has been accrued by a tiny fraction of the population, leveraging this lack of accounting on the real costs of human activity on the ultimately "closed" system of planet earth.

It's like wallstreet not accounting for the real risk of the all the bullshit bundled securities that finally blew up in thier faces. Only nobody died over credit default swaps, but we can all die if we poison our water or knock our ecosystem out of whack worldwide.

Any ONE of us can scew it, and live for today, our lives are short compared to history, but those that come after us may not be able to survive what our selfishness and arrogance leaves them for a world in the not too distant future.

There are alot of elements of responsibility we have shirked, from our consuming way beyond our fair share of resources, to the thrid world producing many times the population that they can ever hope to support. We all have to change our ways.

Earth can support 3 billion humans easily, but 6.5 is proving hard, and 9-12 will be IMPOSSIBLE. No amount of "green" tech is going to alter this. If we want more people, we are going to have to terraform Mars and beyond.

Even with only 3, they still need to be responsible and care for the environment and stop poisoning ourselves and the rest of the ecosystem and food chain.

But electric cars ARE the solution to transportation, for cars and trucks. Until anti-gravity is invented, we are stuck with jet engines for air transport.

 

[Kristofff]

Er, I never said that? I've always been for Electricity -> Battery -> Motor.

Sorry, I meant to reply to the person you were replying to, I think.

Kristofff i would disagree, converting an engine to run using hydrogen is quite a bit of progress. Not only does it remove a large foreign oil requirement, but the burning of hydrogen also does not release CO2. Now i know you're going to pull that entire "but the power has to come from somewhere" stuff again, so let me refute that right now by saying that it is quite possible for a person to have solar panels installed on their house or a wind turbine, any other form of renewable energy, at which point it is quite possible to split the hydrogen from the oxygen in some source water to refill the tanks. Furthermore, you're expectation of "energy ->battery ->motor" is not quite feasible or environmentally friendly. Those batteries tend to need replacing every few years, that's quite a cost to both the user and to the environment when you consider just what is inside of those batteries. Also please read my second post, I mentioned a "hydrogen generator" (their words not mine), that is designed to refill the tanks using a water source and renewable energy to extract the hydrogen from the water. The reason i referenced united nuclear was so that people could see what others are trying to do in order to get "green cars", so please do indeed investigate a post before refuting it so quickly.

Are you referring to hydrogen combustion or hydrogen fuel cells? Because, either way, you are so wrong it isn't funny.

If combustion, HYDROGEN IS NOT EFFICIENT AS COMBUSTION POWER. All that power you wasted creating the hydrogen could have just been put into a battery or ultra-capacitor and used even more efficiently.

If fuel cells, THERE IS NOT ENOUGH PLATINUM TO EVEN REPLACE ALL THE CURRENT CARS ON THE ROAD, LET ALONE MORE IN THE FUTURE. And, it is also an inefficient use power to turn electricity into hydrogen and back into electricity.

As far as nuclear power, there is no point in putting power into electrolysis when you can just put it straight into batteries.

 

[pervert]

I dont want to nit-pick but the idea of 2 batteries, one charging while the other one runs is quite ridiculous. if the laws of energy conservation allowed such a thing, it would be awesome but they do not. entropy increases you need more input, just like johnny five

 

[Kristofff]

I dont want to nit-pick but the idea of 2 batteries, one charging while the other one runs is quite ridiculous. if the laws of energy conservation allowed such a thing, it would be awesome but they do not. entropy increases you need more input, just like johnny five

When I was 9 years old, I had the bright idea that if you connected a electric motor to an alternator and spun the alternator, it would give power which would spin the alternator which would give more and spin the alternator more and VOILA! perpetual motion. Luckily, I learned of the gaps in my education early on!

 

[Slyr7.62]

On a serious note, is there any reason we couldn’t make an electric car with dual / switching battery packs? You’d have one that operates the car while the other is being charged by the spinning of the wheels. That way, you could charge the car once and forget about it. I’d pay more for a self charging car, wouldn’t you?

Good thinking, and that would be all fine and dandy, but I doubt many companies would make a car like that because they wouldn't make as much money when cars have a way to charge a component just by being in motion.

 

[wtiger]

On the "all those batteries being thrown away etc. It's not worth worrying about for three or four reasons. First large format batteries the coming generation of cars will be using are designed to last at least 10 years. Even after the batteries are no longer suitable for car they will still be more than capable as grid backup in large arrays. After this they are still valuable for the materials they're made from and since it's a lot of battery all in one place it's both easy and economical to recycle them. Also the latest generation of lithium based batteries are not all that toxic to begin with. Hydrogen is an energy transport mechanism and not even all that efficient at doing that. At this time there is absolutely no good argument for hydrogen electric cars over battery electric cars. Hydrogen looses in every case, but the quick recharge front which is already changing in batteries favor.

About the only thing you could use a fuel cell on and it almost make sense is bio fuels and CNG. I'm actually kind of surprised natural gas isn't bigger than it is. The US is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas and it's a pretty darn clean fuel when burnt or sent through a fuel cell.

 

[wrxdrunkie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHbaOX2UAs0&feature=related



BMWs hydrogen car + nuclear power = less greenhouse gases

 

[Kristofff]

 

[chaos4u]

i can not let all the negative comments against hydrogen go

without posting about the real innovation that will make hydrogen the key for future energy.

it is bioreactors filled with a specific strain of algae that when starved they produce hydrogen as a by product .

the research in this field is pretty far along and if it goes well could be the key to solving the hydrogen logistic problem.

because look at algae it grows every where. Its hard to kill and is small so mass quantities is easily stored .. its almost to good to be true.

if they can get this strain to mass quantities i do not see why hydrogen would not be the answer.

but im sure the electric car peeps will shout this down as for some reason .

so let em fly

 

[chaos68]

Are you referring to hydrogen combustion or hydrogen fuel cells? Because, either way, you are so wrong it isn't funny.

If combustion, HYDROGEN IS NOT EFFICIENT AS COMBUSTION POWER. All that power you wasted creating the hydrogen could have just been put into a battery or ultra-capacitor and used even more efficiently.

If fuel cells, THERE IS NOT ENOUGH PLATINUM TO EVEN REPLACE ALL THE CURRENT CARS ON THE ROAD, LET ALONE MORE IN THE FUTURE. And, it is also an inefficient use power to turn electricity into hydrogen and back into electricity.

As far as nuclear power, there is no point in putting power into electrolysis when you can just put it straight into batteries.

I dont exactly know why you are the battery fanboi, but i do wish you would actually read some of what's been put up there so far. If you had actually looked into what i was talking about you would see that i am referring to hydrogen combustion in a modified car that can run on both gasoline and hydrogen. Those electric cars you are referring to probably wont have combustion engines in them, so first let's point out that there is no existing infrastructure in place to accommodate either that many electric cars or a method to "refuel" them while in mid travel.

What i am suggesting is a standard car be modified to run on both hydrogen and gasoline, allowing seamless switching between both, coupled with an environmentally friendly way of extracting hydrogen from water in the users home. At this point it is quite simple to use the existing infrastructure already in place (gas stations) while also reducing the CO2 emissions when running on hydrogen. Now i know you think that this great change of yours will happen overnight, but that isnt the case- you have to start somewhere and to be honest this country does not have the infrastructure to support millions of electric cars, nor is energy storage technology advanced enough to provide energy for reliable long range travel.

I know you think that you might as well just take the energy from the hydrogen and put it into "batteries" but that requires new cars for most people, if their existing vehicle can run on hydrogen and gasoline with few modifications then that is a much more feasible solution. Please stop thinking everybody can go buy a new car just because it's the new popular thing.

 

[w1retap]

Fish and frogs with multiple eyes/legs isn't quite what I'd call "not dangerous".

To quote you...

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahaHAHAHAhaHAhahahaha....."

The amount of radiation released within 1000 yards of the plant was under the amount you receive from a medical x-ray.. LOL. Three Mile Island had zero health impact on anyone living around it, including the environment. ...growing multiple eyes and limbs, ahahah. Yeah, that neutron bombardment really went out that offgas stack.. hah.

You better dig yourself underground and shield yourself from the sun, because you'd be scared shitless by the amount of gamma you pick up from that, and other natural sources like radon, background radiation, food you eat, etc. I bet you'd really shit bricks if you saw how much radioactive material leaves the stacks of coal burning power plants. It's thousands times more than left three mile island.

But yeah, you better watch out for my 8 arms. I work INSIDE a nuke plant. I'm keeping my dozen eyes on you.

 

[chaos68]

well there was a 2 headed calf born 2 years later, but that happens in quite a few places regardless of the "radiation". aside from that though i dont think there have been any serious mutations, plus TMI was caused by failures on several sides, both design flaws and human error, and still was not very bad- especially when compared to the materials released by burning coal and Chernobyl.

 

[undertheradar]

I can tell that too many here have half-baked concepts that have more basis in 'buzz' and political spin than actual science. You dont need platinum for a hydrogen based batteries (Ovonics industries is proof of that... there are carbon based cells that render the hydrogen neutral when in storage BTW). Hydrogen is safer than gas because its a 'quick burn' which rarely combusts. Hydrogen can be produced through solar, wind, etc... check out Honda's white papers on their FCX charging stations for more on that. No transportation (you can make it in your house, powered off the grid, solar panels, a wind generator, etc... just like charging a battery), no 'massive efficiency losses', etc (energy losses in a solar/wind situation are not a concern... we have plenty of sun). Also, keep in mind that your automobile's combustion engines are only about 10-15% efficient, so even 50% efficiency is an improvement over that. Those figures are based on the hydrogen 'combustion' engines like the BMW... if used in battery form (like the Honda FCX), the battery itself is 100% efficient, and the conversion to electric power is in the 90% range. The 'grid' for hydro based battery tech is already there... most people would charge at night anyways, when the grid is on low demand and many generators get shut off otherwise. I can split water with some salt and a D-cell battery, so dont go making it sound like mad-science. Splitting water is exactly what all the photosynthetic organisms around you (plants) do. And modern nuclear plants are nearly impossible to have an accident with... look at France for more on that. Most of the 'buzz' about nuclear power is simply fear-mongering. So will all of the armchair engineers just leave it to the real ones please?

 

[w1retap]

mutations, lol. Even the overwhelming majority of animals that live on and eat/drink on Chernobyl radiated land with hot particles that emit hundreds/thousands of millirems embedded in every square inch of the land, they don't even have mutations. You'd be quite surprised at the body's resiliency and ability to repair itself. I've had family members work in the nuclear sector for decades and receiving dozens of rems over their careers, having children, etc, and no adverse affects or problems have risen out of it. Several millirems of exposure is nothing. Throw away your smoke detectors and clay pottery if you want to avoid that.

 

[Kristofff]

To quote you...

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahaHAHAHAhaHAhahahaha....."

The amount of radiation released within 1000 yards of the plant was under the amount you receive from a medical x-ray.. LOL. Three Mile Island had zero health impact on anyone living around it, including the environment. ...growing multiple eyes and limbs, ahahah. Yeah, that neutron bombardment really went out that offgas stack.. hah.

You better dig yourself underground and shield yourself from the sun, because you'd be scared shitless by the amount of gamma you pick up from that, and other natural sources like radon, background radiation, food you eat, etc. I bet you'd really shit bricks if you saw how much radioactive material leaves the stacks of coal burning power plants. It's thousands times more than left three mile island.

But yeah, you better watch out for my 8 arms. I work INSIDE a nuke plant. I'm keeping my dozen eyes on you.

Oh dear I was misinformed about 3mile island, lets make a huge fuss about it.

i can not let all the negative comments against hydrogen go

without posting about the real innovation that will make hydrogen the key for future energy.

it is bioreactors filled with a specific strain of algae that when starved they produce hydrogen as a by product .

the research in this field is pretty far along and if it goes well could be the key to solving the hydrogen logistic problem.

because look at algae it grows every where. Its hard to kill and is small so mass quantities is easily stored .. its almost to good to be true.

if they can get this strain to mass quantities i do not see why hydrogen would not be the answer.

but im sure the electric car peeps will shout this down as for some reason .

so let em fly

I completely forgot about that! However, I don't see why there isn't plenty of room for both electric and algae fueled cars on the roads for them to live in harmony. Gasoline is on its way out and we might as well have the best of both new worlds.

I dont exactly know why you are the battery fanboi, but i do wish you would actually read some of what's been put up there so far. If you had actually looked into what i was talking about you would see that i am referring to hydrogen combustion in a modified car that can run on both gasoline and hydrogen. Those electric cars you are referring to probably wont have combustion engines in them, so first let's point out that there is no existing infrastructure in place to accommodate either that many electric cars or a method to "refuel" them while in mid travel.

What i am suggesting is a standard car be modified to run on both hydrogen and gasoline, allowing seamless switching between both, coupled with an environmentally friendly way of extracting hydrogen from water in the users home. At this point it is quite simple to use the existing infrastructure already in place (gas stations) while also reducing the CO2 emissions when running on hydrogen. Now i know you think that this great change of yours will happen overnight, but that isnt the case- you have to start somewhere and to be honest this country does not have the infrastructure to support millions of electric cars, nor is energy storage technology advanced enough to provide energy for reliable long range travel.

I know you think that you might as well just take the energy from the hydrogen and put it into "batteries" but that requires new cars for most people, if their existing vehicle can run on hydrogen and gasoline with few modifications then that is a much more feasible solution. Please stop thinking everybody can go buy a new car just because it's the new popular thing.

I never said the transition would have to be immediate or mandatory. We're talking about the future, not the interim.

A hydrogen burning car is nothing exciting or new. And, they are merely a stop gap measure to electric cars once the infrastructure (I am completely for peppering the country with nuclear reactors and renewable energy plants) is in place, or the previously mentioned algae produced hydrogen comes to fruition.

Using sunlight or any other energy converted to be carried in hydrogen is a waste of efficiency, however having electric cars with hydrogen powered backup generators, and fully hydrogen cars, powered by algae hydrogen would be awesome if the algae technique actually proves successful and is a net gain in power production.

One problem with compressed hydrogen might be that it will evaporate out after a week or two, if it acts anything like the liquid oxygen used for medical gas. Another thing to keep in mind with the fuel conversion is that it can be relatively expensive to put a dual fuel kit onto an existing vehicle because I believe you have to change things like the intake manifold, or carburetor if its an older one, to accommodate it. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

 

[LuminaryJanitor]

Using sunlight or any other energy converted to be carried in hydrogen is a waste of efficiency

It's unavoidable. The one thing you absolutely cannot do without in a transportation fuel is energy density. We're on our way to exhausting the only suitable naturally occurring instance of such a material; any substitute will have to be synthesised, implying a conversion of energy.

it is bioreactors filled with a specific strain of algae that when starved they produce hydrogen as a by product.

As with any other proposed "source" of energy, you've got to ask "where is the energy actually coming from?". Algae doesn't grow from nothing. It needs sunlight, and potentially other energy-rich materials.

Photosynthesis is incredibly inefficient, and on top of that, only a fraction of this fraction of energy will actually end up in the hydrogen produced. You'd probably need to cover half the surface of the planet with algae vats before you had enough to replace oil.

One problem with compressed hydrogen might be that it will evaporate out after a week or two, if it acts anything like the liquid oxygen used for medical gas.

It's worse. Oxygen molecules are much larger than hydrogen molecules. Hydrogen gas can find its way out of just about anything. We've already got trillions invested in an oil-based storage and distribution infrastructure, and building an analogous hydrogen-based system will likely cost more by an order of magnitude.

 

[Adamseye]

Wow I'm a tad late in here but just wanted to share a few things. Currently Gasoline powered vehicles use batteries too, and recycling them is not green either. But the whole point in these things is a cleaner atmosphere and dwindling fossil fuels. So by removing the gasoline engine, and keeping the batteries, to me that is a step in the right direction.

Everyday the power provided from the sun hitting the earth is astonishing. So we could use some awesome ([H]ard) solar panels with say 60-80% conversion, and be done with powering our lives. But I am sure that even removing the heat energy from the surface of the earth will have bad side effects.

Personally I think even sticking a generator in a electric car to maintain a charge, is a HUGE step in the right direction. The crisis is not wasted energy in conversion, and if it is, petroleum is the weakest link. I think its about 15% of the energy from gasoline actually powers your car, and thats from the tank to the motor not including refining and shipping. Which would put most of the other methods of powering our vehicles above petroleum.

Side note, although not well suited for long term travel, I am a big fan of the compressed air powered vehicles. Not only do you get a highly effective means of energy transfer, compressing air is allot less complicated and safer then most of the other alternatives. This method would also allow for a rather easy conversions from petroleum.

 

[Pepiz]

ill just throw another comment in to see your opinions on it, Fusion Reactors?

If this could be achieved properly it would be a great energy source?

Higher energy output than fission, environmentally friendly, I did some work on it for my last year project in high school, are they any draw backs?

As far as hydrogen vs batteries its a matter of doing the numbers really, efficiency comparisons, sources for the raw materials, cost of implementation.

They are both ways of storing electricity.

 

[CraftyChicken]

Just my 2 cents... The specific energy in Hydrogen trumps all the other alternatives. Were talking 120MJ/kg vs 40MJ/kg for gas and somewhat less for lithium batteries, although they have gotten better. The problem is that at normal pressure, the energy content per volume of gasoline is much much higher than hydrogen.

The way most Americans drive, auto-motive companies have to sell a car that gets no less than 200 miles per tank. Anything less, and the consumer just won't buy the car. Personally, I think that market might be carved out by folks like Tesla who can operate on much smaller volume with higher margins.

Anyway, in order to get 200 mile-per-tank with a H2 vehicle, you've got to either have a very big tank, or a highly-compressed tank. The efficiency of hydrogen isn't the issue, after all it burns fairly low compared to most fuels, it's the transportation. Also, people have vivid memory of the Hindenburg picture from school-texts and what not, there is a huge fear about H2 as their is about nuclear.

The industry has been looking at metal-hydride solutions, but that technology just hasn't materialized yet. It's the same issue with batteries, we're just not 'there' yet to produce every vehicle based on one single future technology, as we are with a fossil fuel engine currently.