We could replace steel and aluminum with lead while we're at it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy#Efficiency_as_an_automotive_fuel
Depending on who's figures you like. Hydrogen power is 3 to 4 times less efficient than electric power.
Just a scratch.
It's not like people think hydrogen is volatile as a nonfuel.
Comments ... #
posted by jhostetler on Dec 30, 2007 at 01:29:03 pm #
There are 7 theories of Hindy on wikipedo alone. I really just like the picture for anesthetic reasons.
Hydrogen and ethanol are attempts to pacify people for the time being to solidify those greasy oil profits while the going is still good.
We are not straitjacketed by the grid nor what are laughingly referred to as capitalists. The grid was never designed to be the end all, be all. And people were openly planning alternatives at the time it was being implemented. Allegedly politically a centralized energy system served to centralize power. And as far as capitalists went Keynes talked openly about euthanizing the functionless investor while being one himself and participating in some of the more monumental events in human history.
Old money knows what makes old money. Entrepreneurs, researchers, and developers aren't so narrow-minded and defeatist.
Who wouldn't want to tap a potential market of 4.5B peeps and make humanity a little better off in the process?
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
Frederick Douglass, 1857That "Who killed the Electric Car?" is worth watching. Ed Begley has an electric truck which he swears by. Both he and Bill Nye have a keeping up with the Joneses in environmentally friendliness.
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current date: 21-Nov-2008 5:17 P.M.
Char, it's fairly well known by now that the paint used for the Hindenburg was effectively rocket fuel and as such, an electrical charge probably ignited it, leading to the disaster as seen.
I agree that using Hydrogen is probably about as pointless as our current foray into the Ethanol economy. But that's for a very specific and destructive reason: Because the Capitalists no longer do ANYTHING unless they can milk the most profit out of the deal. Hydrogen will probably see greater penetration, primarily through government vehicles, and some corporation will make a mint on it ... since the price will be set out of the public's eye.
Ethanol is currently raping us since we're just diverting foodstocks instead of using expanded production of non-foodstocks (like switchgrass!). The diversion of foodstocks is only happening since we left our Catastrophic Capitalists in charge of the entire matter. Now, a significant portion of the food supply is repurposed as a fuel additive, and has driven UP the price of both fuel and food. If it didn't result in big price increases, the Catastrophic Capitalists wouldn't have done anything at all in that area. And that's NOT how investment works!
Direct electrification of automobiles is also a loser, since our current grid system is so LOSSY to begin with! The grid losses are large and -- I note -- not accounted for in your diagrams. If we're going to rely on electricity for such things, we need to greatly decentralize distribution ... which can't happen, again, when Catastrophic Capitalists are in charge.
posted by GuestZero on Dec 29, 2007 at 03:57:31 am #