Hydrogen fuel cells are supposed to be a clean, green, renewable alternative to combustion engines, but-H20 is a greenhouse gas, so the globe will still warm.-H2 production requires either electrolysis or natural gas. Electrolysis is inefficient and requires lots of electrical energy which requires natural gas, nuclear facilities, etc. Even with the use of natural gas, H2 production will still be quite messy and nonrenewable.-The logistics of H2 distribution will introduce tremendous costs to the federal government and provide a new petri dish for monopoly.I know that the experts recognize these obstacles and see ways around them, but I'd just like an explanation better than that on Discovery Channel.
It depends on what you're going to use it for. If it's for a car, then hydrogen on demand is better. Hydrogen in concentrated quanties are like driving with a bomb. One bad accident and you are gone.
I agree with Yendis once the recession is over people are going back to their old ways - so much for frugality.
the hope is that the required electricity would come from renewable sources like solar power, wind power, hydroelectricity etc. but since those sources make up a tiny fraction of where our power comes from, at least for now, it's pretty pointless and doesn't really conserve anything
H2O is a greenhouse gas, but the atmosphere can only hold so much. There's no limit to how much CO2 or CH4 the atmosphere can hold. Well obviously the fuel cell needs fuel. But the with fuel cell it's theoretically more efficient because electricity is being generated directly, instead of making heat and being converted to electricity. Who says H2 production for natural gas is messy? Just run the natural gas through really hot water and it's pretty much automatic. Who says the H2 distribution has to have tremendous costs? Why not just use natural gas, like you already said? Who says these costs have to be paid for by the federal government? It should be up to the utility companies to run their businesses. Actually, the coolest proposal I ever saw was to generate the hydrogen at powerplants at night (when electricity demand is lower) and send it through vacuum insulated pipes as a cryogenic liquid. Inside this liquid our power grid could be superconducting cables. So we'd move to a hydrogen economy and we'd greatly improve the efficiency of the power grid. I'd love for a power utility to try that somewhere and see if it really is worth the trouble or not.
