[shadowbot]

Nine myths and misconceptions, and the truth about why hydrogen-powered cars aren’t just around the corner.


This is disconcerting news.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/technol...cbccdrcrd.html

[Raptor235]

I think it's going to be a combination of the alternative energies that will fuel our future... I think coastal cities will be able to use hydrogen power more then inner states that require water for other purposes...

[shadowbot]

It just goes to show that even with new technologies and ideas that seem like they are the holy grail, there are downsides to all of them which need to be fully explained to the public. Too many of these new ideas are sold by just telling people the good side and leaving out what goes on behind the scenes.

[Matc]

It seems like the article was being deliberately pessimistic. So I'm going to try and be deliberately optimistic

2) Why doesn't using nuclear power add up? Are we talking about costs here or pollution? Not acting will cost considerably more in the long run.
Transportation - we already have infrastructures for distributing gasses. Here at least natural gas is pumped into most homes. It would need some adapting but the system is already there.


4) Natural gas lights up easily, it's colourless and odourless. We still use it! We deal with this kind of thing with gas an oil anyway. In the UK we recently had a massive oil storage depot blow up in an accident. Hydrogen in the atmosphere? There is very little as it is so light, I would need to check but form what I did at uni I believe most of it would leave the atmosphere before reacting.

7) No one said it would be an easy walk in the park. We aren't looking for an overnight solution.

8) We aren't just scaling economies though, the technology is advancing all the time and becoming cheaper every year - not due to mass production. At one time computers were too expsenvive, using ridiculous components. But now they are all around us.

9) A gallon of hydrogen? You can't really talk about that. He means a gallon at standard room temperature and pressure. We already deal with compressed gasses all the time. And here they are talking about energy, they haven't considered efficiency. Most of the energy released by the cell fuel is used. Wheres a combustion engine is still very wasteful.

In reality the truth is somewhere in between. But I don't think this should be taken as disconcerting news at all. There were always going to be difficulties with it. But similar things would have been said about cars in the first place. How are you going to get petrol/gas (sorry English ) everywhere? All over America? Don't be silly...

We'll find a way

[shadowbot]

I think Raptor made a good point. I think what we may end up seeing, instead of everyone using the same fuel, which right now is mostly true, we will probably end up seeing different trends based on geographical location and there might be certain areas that use hydrogen fuel cells while others still use gasoline in hybrid cars.

Either way, these days people are too much in the habit of making new technology seem like a miracle solution for the problems we have. In my opinion hydrogen fuel cells are somewhere at the bottom of the list. I am much more in favor of wind and solar because you dont need distribution methods for them. Hydrogen would need to be transported and that just adds 1 more complication. I see super efficient solar/hybrid cars as a much better solution.