Hydrogen car in 2010! And its a rotary!

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Sava
Hydrogen cars

I don't like the idea of being surrounded by hundreds of little Hindenburgs when I pull into a parking garage. All someone has to do is set off a bomb and BLAOUW... a nice new crater.

Yeah, cos petrol isn't explosive in the slightest.

[Ecthy]

Good to know there's always an accountant around hitting the nail on the head without too much bothering

[Provost Harrison]

Accountants are 10 a penny. Same with historians. Historians in employment on the other hand are quite a novelty

[Narz]

Mainstream hydrogen cars will always be 5 years away. Until no one can possible take the idea seriously anymore.

Hydrogen = net energy loser.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Spec

And I'm sure hydrogen will be cheaper than gas someday, as its not a limited resource. And its environmentally friendly.

Spec.

Hydrogen is only as environmentally friendly as the source of energy that's used to produce it, even less so in fact.
In many places, they still use fossil fuels to produce electricity so switching to hydrogen car doesn't help the environment really.

Until we get "clean" electricity, hydrogen isn't "clean".

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Spec
Ok, let me ask you this. What do you use to create Hydrogen?

Electricity is not a limited resource, water makes it. You can make as much as your capacity allows. Just like Hydrogen.

Hence, not limited.

Spec.

That's true in Quebec, but as I said many (most?) places still use fossil fuels to produced electricity.

Pushing hydrogen car in the short and medium term on global environmental concerns is nonsense.

Environmentally, the priority is to get cleaner energy SOURCES (hydrogen is not an energy source for cars in any meaningful quantity).

EDIT:
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy:...nd_consumption
86% of worldwide energy comes from fossil fuels.
and only 7% from "renewable" sources.
In this light, I'm very reserved towards hailing Hydrogen as the holy grail of emission reduction which you seem very quick to do.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18301/:

In the context of the overall energy economy, a car like the BMW Hydrogen 7 would probaÂbly produce far more carbon dioxide emissions than gasoline-powered cars available today. And changing this calculation would take multiple breakthroughs--which study after study has predicted will take decades, if they arrive at all. In fact, the Hydrogen 7 and its hydrogen-fuel-cell cousins are, in many ways, simply flashy distractions produced by automakers who should be taking stronger immediate action to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions of their cars.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Bkeela
So have the solved the problem that it costs more energy to isolate hydrogen than is saved by using it?

You don't "save" energy by using hydrogen, that's not even the point.
It's just a way to get energy into a car, which is harder to get to than a house, say.
Hydrogen is a way to "transport\store" energy not an energy source as such.
Nobody is talking about using hydrogen to power cities, that would make no sense.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Bkeela


What are you talking about? Hydrogen as a fuel to replace petrol will be grossly inefficient. I have no idea what you mean by 'hydrogen economy for energy distribution'.

You're missing the point.
Hydrogen is suppose to make cars cleaner.
The idea is to produce clean electricity (say hydro power or whatever) and use that to produce hydrogen to run a car, hopefully cutting on emissions.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Narz
Mainstream hydrogen cars will always be 5 years away. Until no one can possible take the idea seriously anymore.

Hydrogen = net energy loser.

That's true, hydrogen loses energy!!
Wow, none of the people working on this thought of that.

Way to state the obvious and miss the point at the same time

Nobody is talking of using hydrogen as a power SOURCE.
Battery = net energy loser.
Does that mean we don't use batteries?
Hydrogen would serve a similar purpose to a battery in an hydrogen car.
It allows the energy to be produced somewhere else, stored in a certain form, transported to the car and reused.


You are quite possibly right that hydrogen cars are far away, it's hard to say. If that's true, it will be because of infrastructure problems, not because

Originally posted by Narz
Hydrogen = net energy loser.

I think there are in fact chances that hydrogen cars never reach the mass market because are in competition with hybrids\electric cars.
In terms of energy source, both are competing for the same spot since hydrogen is also produced using electricity. The already existing infrastructure seems to advantage electric cars.

The only questions I guess would be about actual engine efficiencies and things like that.


It's hard to predict the future but I think over the next, say 10 years, hybrids and maybe electric cars will become quite frequent (say over 5% in many markets) while hydrogen will stay in semi-development, because of infrastructure issues.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Accountants are 10 a penny.

Depends on your costing model.

My services are now charged out at over $300/hour.

[Spec]

And you get how much an hour?

Spec.