Posted on 06/20/2008 7:04:57 AM PDT by Red Badger
Cost of gasoline bleeding you dry? Air pollution taking your breath away? Worried to death about auto-induced climate change and the future of your planet? You should be. Our oil addiction is a drain on our wallets, a threat to our health and national security, and a major contributor to the global warming that threatens our planet. And with world-wide demand for oil increasing and supplies dwindling, it's a problem we can't drill or dig our way out of. But there's a solution somewhere over the horizon. Hang on, folks. Hydrogen, the most abundant element on Earth, is on the way. Honda's new hydrogen fuel cell car rolled off the assembly line in Japan this week, en route to Southern California. It runs on H2 and, instead of spewing CO2, CO, NOx, Pm2 and other pollutants, it will emit good old H2O - water vapor - out its exhaust pipe. It's a limited production model; only 200 will be leased in the next three years. It's expensive to build; Honda won't say how much. And fuel will be hard to find; there are only three hydrogen fueling stations in California. But it's another step in the right direction, with a potential equal to that of electric cars. While Honda built a better mousetrap, hydrogen-powered automobiles are nothing new. Many manufacturers have prototypes, and General Motors built its first working model in 1968. But gas was cheap, oil was plentiful, the air was tolerable, demand was non-existent, climate change wasn't part of the vernacular. And the incentives - economic, governmental, environmental, ethical - were somewhere far into the future. Now the future has arrived. Auto manufacturers are working feverishly to produce affordable, efficient fuel cells. Energy companies are working on ways to economically compress or liquefy hydrogen without using fossil fuels, and laying plans to put infrastructure - production plants, pipelines, fueling stations - in place. And research and development facilities, many utilizing government grants, are ramping up and achieving results. We're not telling you to sell your electric-gasoline hybrid, surrender your bus pass or park your bicycle. A hydrogen-powered car won't appear in your driveway overnight. The technology is still primitive; the costs are still prohibitive. But the incentives, the demand, and the desire on the part of consumers, manufacturers, energy companies and government entities are in place.
So the commercial application of this process has the side effect of putting oxygen into the atmosphere, where it is available to be converted back into water vapor in the fuel cell.
In fact, if the water is a little contaminated, or has a modest saline content, it goes through the process of electrolysis even more quickly than pure water. Sewage water, anybody?
The abiding need here is for cheap electricity - like from nuclear power generation plants, that can pump out the electricity for maybe half or less what it would cost from other sources.
I understand all that.
I’m questioning why they don’t see the basic flaws of their argument.
The Wikipedia article on the Earth claims:
It is composed mostly of iron (32.1%), oxygen (30.1%), silicon (15.1%), magnesium (13.9%), sulfur (2.9%), nickel (1.8%), calcium (1.5%), and aluminium (1.4%); with the remaining 1.2% consisting of trace amounts of other elements.
Hydrogen is not even in the top eight.
Hydrogen is the most common element in the Universe (after stupidity, of course), but that’s not the case on Earth.
The problem is it takes more energy to break the molecular bond than the resulting hydrogen atom will yield.
Can someone look into their crystal ball to see what the affect will be on LA with every vehicle on their grid blocked freeway system spewing out water vapor?
IF energy cannot be created or destroyed then all we can ever hope to do is transfer it.
Id rather we use non M.E. sources to begin the transfer.
It's not about "greenhouse gases".
It's about control of energy and driving civilization back to the Stone Age.
Similar to the way "gun control" is more about "control" than about "guns".
Yes. the earth is self regulating for the most part.
Excellent observation! No doubt, given time H2O will be classified as a pollutant just as they have done to CO2.
Its all “crazy talk”
What a crock, the world has a couple of hundred years of oil, oil shale, and coal. We have that long to develop alternatives. Taping the known oil fields and building a few refineries will go a long way to keeping the price under control (wait a minute, it is under control of a hateful government trying to eliminate the middle class) until a viable alternate arrives.
And where to fill up?
What happens when there are 1,000,000 H2 cars on LA freeways, spewing water vapor. Will it start to rain once the air is saturated?
Yeah.
One hot steamy, seamy city!
Hydrogen is the most abundant, but its always bound to something.
Iron is the most stable.
What happens when 500K spewing water vapor are driving around Boston in January? You might as well buy a Zamboni now because the place will be a skating rink!
No more California wildfires...............
Because they don't want to. Ignorance is curable unless it is deliberate.
BUT... WATER VAPOR is a GREENHOUSE GAS (most people don’t seem to know this).
and CARBON.......
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.