cdelena

I noticed that GM is showing some new fuel cell Saturns, and that Honda and BMW have hydrogen test programs. I have done a fair amount of research and cannot figure out where economical and ecologically sound hydrogen is going to come from. Worse it seems that there does not seem to be a good technology to store or transport it.

As near as I can tell Wikipedia sums it up pretty well:

AlX Boi

Yuuuuup. Many magazines have said tis again and again. It's supposed to take x(7?) amount of hydrogen tankers to bring the same amount of gasoline 1 tanker can bring. Are these tankers going to run on hydrogen as well? If so, where's the hydrogen coming from? Hydrogen plants! That's correct. These plants are powered by...hydrogen? nooooo, they're powered by our coal or petroleum. Not everything can be solved by hydrogen right away. Otherwise hydrogen cars could have been commercially available long ago. Not the technology, it's the government and big companies in the way!

Elistan

It's an energy distribution method, not an energy source.

What's the polution produced per kilowatt from a car? From a coal burning power plant? If the coal plat is ultimately cleaner, then going hydrogen is great. If not, it's actually worse than what we're doing now.

Spec_Ops2087

These are all the reasons why hydrogen is not in the main stream yet. Until they get a lot of the inherent problems solved, we're not going to see these kinds of cars on the streets for a good amount of time.

cdelena

I understand that we won't see them any time in the foreseeable future. But why all the hype? It is clear to me that this is an automotive technology that has no future in sight, so why are we producing cars? Why not put those resources into infrastructure, more efficient batteries, hydrocarbon powered fuel cells, or something else.

I gotta guess that hydrogen powered cars is just an easy thing to do giving the appearance of progress, when in fact there is little gain towards something that will be available to the public in our lifetime.

Penforhire

I suspect we need the hype to get legislators to put any infrastructure in place. It could be done in our lifetime but it would require massive investment. I suppose another reason for the hype is to draw legislative heat away from manufacturers ("hey, don't pay attention to our gas guzzlers, check out our hydrogen cars!").

As far as energy sources I have always figured we'd have to go nuclear. We just have to either overcome NIMBY syndrome or else put in better power grids to place reactors only in the boonies. We need those updated distribution grids anyway.

Lice Locket

Yup, hydrogen cars are just public stunts. Many top enviromentalists agree that H-cars will actually cause more pollution since making hydrogen gas requires TONS of energy.

xviper

Hydrogen cars is merely highlighting a "technology". It doesn't concentrate on the infrastructure around which hydrogen must be dependent. In its own little world, it's a clean burning, zero emissions kind of power generation. What they don't highlight, is what it takes to get all that hydrogen. You can't just suck it out of the air or out of the ground. As already stated, it takes enormous amounts of energy to separate hydrogen out of water. And at what cost (both economically and environmentally) is the production of that primary energy to split water.

AlX Boi

That's right. So invest in Toyota to make money for the forseeable future! As one Top Gear episode stated in their news, Ford was hassled by the British government about creating more environmentally friendly cars, so they got a picture of a Ford SUV and slapped a bunch of "Hydrogen Powered" stickers on it, and everything was A okay.

The hype about H cars is from the media and government's concern about environmental friendliness. Toyota has gained a lot of PR from celebrities driving around in ther Prius'. Imagine the type of PR a celebrity and the manufacturer would get if he/she drove a zero emissions car! "WOOW, Cameron Diaz is so cool and environmentally conscious. I hate James Woods for driving around in a big bad Mercedes SL V8 gas gussler!" I even thought about buying a Priuz, but with all the options, it costed $32 out the door. I soon then departed for the Honda dealership. H cars makes the companies look good to the less informed people, who only hear about the big news i.e. global warming, Clinton got a BJ in his office.

Oh yeah, scientists also predict that in 20 or so years, we'll hit a big oil slump as most of the world's oil will have been used up. These scientific findings are also a factor that plays into the government's realization of the possible economic reprocusions from having only foreign oil as a source. (Most of the remaining world oil resides in the Middle East).

Tyraid2K

there are drawbacks, but they seem easily overcome hen you consider what it took to make gas viable in its day