Question about hydrogen cars

I have just seen this great link that does an excellent job of beautifully concisely explaining how science works:

http://phys.org/news/2014-01-einstein-wrong.html

It also, completely inadvertently, implicitly explains one of the many things that is wrong with creationist reasoning for creationists generally choose to be confused about what this link so beautifully concisely explains!

Anyway, back to the point of the thread... 😉

I certainly understand that excess water comes back to Earth in the form of rain. But if you increase the total amount of water on Earth, wouldn't some of that have to be in the form of vapor? It stands to reason that if there is water in liquid, solid and vapor form, if you increase the amount of H2O on Earth, some of it will proportionately be in the form of vapor.

Normally, water is conserved and the amount of H2O remains constant. When we drink it, we release it in sweat or urine. When it evaporates, it rains down, etc. But the reaction of a hydrogen car would seemingly use a chemical reaction to create new H2O and thus increase its presence in the atmosphere. The atmosphere is obviously not saturated with water vapor or the relative humidity would always be 100%. It can get more humid without it simply raining out of the atmosphere.

As for whether water vapor is a significant greenhouse gas, NASA seems to think so.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html

Water vapor is known to be Earth’s most abundant greenhouse gas, but the extent of its contribution to global warming has been debated. Using recent NASA satellite data, researchers have estimated more precisely than ever the heat-trapping effect of water in the air, validating the role of the gas as a critical component of climate change.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Considering the oceans cover 70% of the Earth, I don't think the extra moisture coming from even a billion H2 cars will amount to a hill of beans.

I don't know for certain, but I'd bet that the percentage of Earth's carbon that appears in atmospheric CO2 isn't much higher than the percentage of Earth's water that appears in atmospheric water vapor.

Originally posted by sh76
I don't know for certain, but I'd bet that the percentage of Earth's carbon that appears in atmospheric CO2 isn't much higher than the percentage of Earth's water that appears in atmospheric water vapor.

actually, there is typically many times the volume of water vapor in the atmosphere than there is CO2 although water vapor concentrations varies massively with temperature and relative humidity. Water vapor, in vapor form is a greenhouse gas, but, this is complicated by the fact that, generally, the more water vapor there is, the more cloud there is (caused by the water vapor ) and many but not all types of cloud generally generally reduce temperatures depending on the weather situation.

Originally posted by sh76
Anyway, back to the point of the thread... 😉

I certainly understand that excess water comes back to Earth in the form of rain. But if you increase the total amount of water on Earth, wouldn't some of that have to be in the form of vapor? It stands to reason that if there is water in liquid, solid and vapor form, if you increase the amount of H2O on Earth, s ...[text shortened]... er in the air, validating the role of the gas as a critical component of climate change.[/quote]

But the reaction of a hydrogen car would seemingly use a chemical reaction to create new H2O and thus increase its presence in the atmosphere.

correct. But there are three points you will need to note here:

1, that water vapour from hydrogen cars would have come from hydrogen that was probably extracted via electrolysis from liquid water that would have eventually evaporated as water vapour in the atmosphere if it had not been used for making hydrogen gas.

2, if all the cars in the world run on hydrogen, the amount of water vapour coming from all the car exhaust in the world would still be dwarfed by the amount coming from evaporation off the oceans.

3, if all the cars in the world run on hydrogen, the amount of water vapour coming from all the car exhaust in the world would not be much more than what it is now because normally when fossil fuels are burned in the car engines, the hydrogen atoms in the hydrocarbons would be oxidised to form water vapour thus a great deal of water vapour already comes from the exhausts from cars!

So, if you are worried that the water vapour coming from hydrogen cars would cause a greenhouse effect, you needn't worry because its greenhouse effect would be negligible 🙂

HOWEVER, haven said that, and this is one of the reasons why I am not personally a great fan of hydrogen fuel, annual accidental leeks of even relatively small amounts of unburned hydrogen gas would massively increase the greenhouse effect for hydrogen gas, molecule for molecule, has MANY times the greenhouse effect of CO2 gas!
There would have to be extremely strictly enforced international laws to keep such hydrogen gas leaks to within extremely small acceptable limits if we are to have a hydrogen economy without doing more harm than good and what I fear is that politicians well simply ignore this fact thus allow disaster through political ignorance and stupidity.

Only partly because of this, I think biodiesel (from sources that do NOT compete significantly with food production ) would be a much better than hydrogen gas for most applications excluding aircraft because, for aircraft, hydrogen would obviously be better due to its much higher specific energy while, for all other applications, you certainly don't need such high specific energy.

Originally posted by humy

First you say that within 10 years renewables will probably be cheaper than fossil fuels. Now you are saying that doesn't mean we will. Apparently you are not very confident they will be cheaper as you expressed earlier.

How do you equate renewables being cheaper than fossil fuels hypothetically, say, 10 years from now, with renewables ha ...[text shortened]... ote]
You are being contradictory [/quote]
See above response to see my self-consistency.

You are being stupid. Now you are saying a few more years. 10 + 3 = 13. That is very little time difference between 10 and 13 years.

My point is very simple and solid. Cheaper = dominant. You cannot argue with this economic fact. Some day renewables will become cheaper than fossil fuels and may become dominant. That does not mean that nuclear fusion will not become dominant first. Nobody knows. You think you know but you don't.

I don't think renewables will become cheaper than fossil fuels in my lifetime. Fossil fuels are much more abundant than people like you believe. Oil and gas that was unrecoverable before is recoverable now because of new fracking technologies. That will continue.

What you fail to see is that all technologies advance, not just renewable energy technologies. Technology will help recover oil and gas reserves too. We have just dented fossil fuels. Much more will be recovered.

Originally posted by Metal Brain
You are being stupid. Now you are saying a few more years. 10 + 3 = 13. That is very little time difference between 10 and 13 years.

My point is very simple and solid. Cheaper = dominant. You cannot argue with this economic fact. Some day renewables will become cheaper than fossil fuels and may become dominant. That does not mean that nuclear fusion w ...[text shortened]... recover oil and gas reserves too. We have just dented fossil fuels. Much more will be recovered.

Now you are saying a few more years. 10 + 3 = 13.

where did you get the 3 from? I would say that, with the ignorant and moronic opposition against renewables, it could be as long as 30 years so that's 10 + 30 = 40 years. But, without that idiotic opposition, it could be more like 10 years so that is 10 + 10 = 20. It is our choice.

that does not mean that nuclear fusion will not become dominant first.

Did I say this? I was talking about renewables and fossil fuels, NOT nuclear fusion which I have nothing against!

I don't think renewables will become cheaper than fossil fuels in my lifetime

Yet again, I ask you HOW would you know this? What makes you think you know better than me when I have studied renewables and you haven't? I am a semi-expert on the subject and keep myself fully up to date on the latest research -do you? -if not, then I am better informed than you on the rate of progress than you and so in a much better position to judge and I am telling you that, unless your life is going to be cut short, solar power almost certainly will became cheaper than fossil fuels in your lifetime and maybe ~10 years time but, as I already explained, that doesn't equate with when renewables will dominate.

Oil and gas that was unrecoverable before is recoverable now because of new fracking technologies.

-which is more expensive way of getting oil and gas out of the ground than by getting it out of the ground where no fracking is needed to get it out of the ground.
It is also important to note that here in the UK fracking is predicted to be unlikely to reduce the price of our oil and gas.

Technology will help recover oil and gas reserves too.

Which is unsustainable partly because of CO2 induced global warming.
On the other hand, solar energy doesn't have this problem and is set to relatively soon become cheaper than fossil fuels REGARDLESS of how much more oil and gas we can squeeze out of the reserves!

Just to interject, you might like to read this new article which looks at the
comparative costs of going green vs burning more fossil fuels.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jan/16/high-stakes-climate-poker

.... Why are fossil fuels a bad bet? (1) Continued use threatens our basic societal foundations through pollution, environmental disruption and growing health costs and infrastructure losses (fires, floods, droughts, heat waves, sea level rise, more violent weather, urban pollution and health); (2) the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says current fossil fuel subsidies are $1.9 trillion per year – these must be eliminated – that will make fossil fuels more expensive; (3) greater external costs of carbon taxes and emissions trading will be assigned to fossil fuels, make them more expensive; (4) renewable energy sources are competitive now and will be more so given fewer external costs than fossil fuels; and, (5) there is a growing fossil fuel divestment movement that major financial managers fear. ....

links in the original.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Just to interject, you might like to read this new article which looks at the
comparative costs of going green vs burning more fossil fuels.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jan/16/high-stakes-climate-poker

.... Why are fossil fuels a bad bet? (1) Continued use threatens our basic societal foundatio ...[text shortened]... l divestment movement that major financial managers fear. ....

links in the original.

current fossil fuel subsidies are $1.9 trillion per year

Arr didn't know that! Well, that would make the cost of fossil fuels seem lower to the consumer than what it actually is giving a false impression of fossil fuels being more economical than they actually are -and the anti-renewable people keep complaining about subsidies on renewables!

Originally posted by humy

current fossil fuel subsidies are $1.9 trillion per year

Arr didn't know that! Well, that would make the cost of fossil fuels seem lower to the consumer than what it actually is giving a false impression of fossil fuels being more economical than they actually are -and the anti-renewable people keep complaining about subsidies on renewables!

Exactly. We massively subsidise fossil fuels, and that doesn't take into account
all the extra costs from climate change and health effects from other pollution.
Which also total trillions world wide [with millions of deaths].

If you factor all that in renewables [and nuclear] come in as cheaper than fossil
fuels even without subsidies, and do so by a huge margin.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Exactly. We massively subsidise fossil fuels, and that doesn't take into account
all the extra costs from climate change and health effects from other pollution.
Which also total trillions world wide [with millions of deaths].

If you factor all that in renewables [and nuclear] come in as cheaper than fossil
fuels even without subsidies, and do so by a huge margin.

That 1.9 tril is for the world, not just the USA I would assume. That is about the size of the entire yearly budget in the US.

Originally posted by sonhouse
That 1.9 tril is for the world, not just the USA I would assume. That is about the size of the entire yearly budget in the US.

Oh yeah. I would read the article, but it works out as a few percent of GDP in the USA.
Which is still way more than it would cost to go green.
Which is estimated at around 1% gdp for the USA.

Numbers in the article linked.

http://phys.org/news/2014-01-renewable-chemical-ready-biofuels-scale-up.html

Originally posted by humy

Now you are saying a few more years. 10 + 3 = 13.

where did you get the 3 from? I would say that, with the ignorant and moronic opposition against renewables, it could be as long as 30 years so that's 10 + 30 = 40 years. But, without that idiotic opposition, it could be more like 10 years so that is 10 + 10 = 20. It is our choice. ...[text shortened]... er than fossil fuels REGARDLESS of how much more oil and gas we can squeeze out of the reserves!

You wrote this:

"Even when renewables become cheaper than fossil fuels, we may have continual resistance against renewables by some people (mainly ignorant or delusional ) that could slow things down a lot and, in addition, it would take at least a few more years to switch over completely to renewables because it would take TIME to manufacture and install all those solar panels, wind turbines etc even when those renewables become cheaper."

A few more years is about 3. Your idiotic stance about opposition (from people like me) is completely meaningless. That means nothing when something becomes cheaper. Do you really think that something cheaper will lose out to some sort of opposition?? Opposition from who, people that like to lose money?

You are being so incredibly ignorant it is laughable! The very assertion that cheaper energy will lose out is so ridiculous it deserves no intellectual consideration at all.

I challenge you to prove your assertion that cheaper energy is at any sort of at disadvantage. Everybody likes a good price. Very few people choose a higher price because of other reasons. Take Chinese imports for example, some people avoid buying them but very few. Economics ruins your whole argument and you can't avoid it. So sorry to burst your bubble.

Originally posted by Metal Brain
You wrote this:

"Even when renewables become cheaper than fossil fuels, we may have continual resistance against renewables by some people (mainly ignorant or delusional ) that could slow things down a lot and, in addition, it would take at least a few more years to switch over completely to renewables because it would take TIME to manufacture and ins ...[text shortened]... few. Economics ruins your whole argument and you can't avoid it. So sorry to burst your bubble.

A few more years is about 3.

LOL. You don't seem to understand the fuzzy logic of natural language. I could have meant ANY number by “few”. What is “few” is relative and highly subjective and, amongst other things, dependent on context. A locust swarm consisting of no more than 100 individuals may be considered as being “few”; 100 is somewhat more than 3.

Do you really think that something cheaper will lose out to some sort of opposition?? Opposition from who, people that like to lose money?

-No, ignorant irrational politicians (there is no shortage of them! They are a major obstacle ) and often some of the voters for voting them in (I am all too familiar with their typical attitude )

The very assertion that cheaper energy will lose out is

No, I am not asserting that at all -at least not in the long run. I am asserting that the irrational can delay progress (by a 'few' years ) there but cannot stop it.

I challenge you to prove your assertion that cheaper energy is at any sort of at disadvantage.

Why? I never claimed/asserted this.