Energy Secretary Sees Little Immediate Promise in Hydrogen-Fueled Vehicles

I personally would like to see what could possibly become of hydrogen as many alternatives need to be tested to other than hybrids. I think hydrogen would more than likely have the most potential especially with more research and development.

Yeah, it's so pointless investing time and money in a renewable energy source that can actually power cars as effectively as oxygen...

lenoroc, I agree. My legs are renewable, all I have to do is rest and I can use them again. Why don't we all just walk? Like there's ever a reason to get somewhere quicker than that?

We should also stop cancer research. Don't we put a decent amount of people into remission already? I think that's good enough. A "cure"? Pfffftttt...so over rated!

Actually that's a smart choice. Hydrogen is a CARRIER, not a FUEL SOURCE, of energy. How do you make the hydrogen? With electricity, solar, nuclear, wind, etc. Given that the electric grid is under strain, you need to boost the electrical generating capacity first before you would worry about shifting to hydrogen. And every conversion has losses, so you would have to compare the cost and efficiency of switching to electrically-generated hydrogen vs. other battery technologies which may be more viable.

Heaven forbid the government should spend money to create an infrastructure for a fuel source that consists of the most abundant element on the planet and that would allow for zero emmision vehicles that can refuel in minutes rather than hours and don't require reinforcing the entire electric grid to support a mass roll out.

Definitely we don't want that. A decision like this only fuels the oil cartel conspiracy nuts.

tlong,

Hydrogen does take electricity to distill from water, but at least the plants could be located near major power plants (preferably the nuclear ones) as opposed to the bulking up of the entire nationwide grid to support millions of scattered electric cars that would need to recharge over night or while their drivers were at work.

Lat time I heard it took more energy to produce hydrogen then you get from it. Thus no matter how clean the end user is, it's still dirtier then most other forms of energy.

Despite decades of research and many many billions of dollars, fuel cell are still basically engineering prototypes costing vast amounts of money and needing constant tinkering. They are far from being a production ready solution.

Just burning it as a fuel has it's problems too. For example liquid propane has 2.5 times the energy density of liquid hydrogen by volume (gasoline has 3.5 times) so you would have to carry a very large amount of it to achieve the same results.

Firstwagon, I think that really depends on the source of the electricity used to separate water into hydrogen. If you locate the plants where they can draw on hydroelectric or nuclear then you have a auto fuel source created without producing hydrocarbon emissions.

Biodiesel.
Uses existing infrastructure.
Can be made from waste products, biomass, algae.

bankerdanny, if you locate hydrogen conversion plants near power plants then you have to transport the stuff to where it is used! In case you aren't aware, hydrogen, even liquefied, is very bulky because it is very light, so you'd need four times as many trucks delivering the stuff as you do gasoline (to get the same amount of energy from it).

You also need tanks on vehicles four times the size of gasoline tanks, and refrigerated storage facilties four times the size of the gasoline tanks under your local station!

Just *storing* liquid hydrogen requires energy. The BMW Hydrogen 7 keeps its hydrogen fuel cool by evaporation: in two weeks, a full tank becomes empty (which is also why it can't be parked inside an enclosed garage).

Transporting and storing hydrogen as a gas is even worse. Although it eliminates the need for energy to store it, you'd need a whole Walmart sized lot to replace a gas station (and a lot of heavy weights to stop it floating off into the air ... well, maybe not quite that bad!)

Hydrogen, like corn-based biofuel, is an idea which falls short in practice (so far). In any case, the research spending hasn't been removed, merely cut.

Yes, what the greenie bozo's don't realize too is that water has about 30 times the heat holding capacity of carbon, too. Sometimes, I wonder if BMW and others do these programs more for show or if they are serious.

Hydrogen, like most alternatives does not stack up well against oil.

If CSX can build a train that can move 1 ton of freight over 400 miles on 1 gallon of diesel, then why can't that technology be applied to a passenger vehicle? The average car could go over 200 miles on 1 gallon of diesel. Maybe CSX should start building passenger vehicles! Afterall, a train is basically a form of the Chevy Volt. A diesel engine that powers a generator to run the electric motors that power the drive wheels. The only difference is, I believe the diesel engines area always running, and of course, it's a diesel engine instead of gasoline.