Originally posted by sonhouse
Sure, that's great for Zambia and other hydro powered countries but we (US and China mainly) more or less depend on oil or coal fired plants, only some 12% coming from nuclear for instance and maybe 4% from renewables like solar. Hydrogen has a bad rap only because of the conversion efficiency problem, and I am not a great hydrogen fan, just pointing out th ...[text shortened]... one but can't afford one right now. Did you read that article or just dismiss it out of hand?
I do not see any chance in the near future for hydrogen coming from anywhere else except electricity or fossil fuels. Even if we do find another way it would make far more sense to me to use that hydrogen in a central place to produce electricity. The whole concept of building a national liquid hydrogen network just seems ludicrous to me and smells of political BS.
I am not aware of any process that converts fossil fuels to hydrogen without not only loosing some of the energy available but also producing just as much CO2 as cars do now.
Yes, all-electric cars mostly have a fairly short range, but many people would be willing to live with that. I would live with a 60km range if it reduced my fuel costs. My sister worked out that it would cut her fuel costs by 90% and for that she would be willing to have a 40km range and a top speed of 40km/h.
I think that if electric cars were reasonably priced and readily available that many people would have an electric car for shorter trips and a hybrid or internal combustion car for longer trips.
The other solution is to have battery swapping available at filling stations. This is not something I just dreamed up, it is something that is already being put into practice in some places.
A large part of the worlds problem regarding fossil fuel use is the fact that people choose to live too far away from work. I mean, what on earth are you doing living nearly 30km away from your place of work?
Yes I read the article and it is interesting science, but as I said it is science that is being over sponsored because the US government has been in the hands of big business and big business does not want electric cars for a number of reasons.
I am not sure if you know this but electric cars require far less spare parts than internal combustion engine cars. The result is that many parts dealers would go out of business - this includes the car companies that make a large amount of money selling parts.