hydrogen

[low_delta]

Hydrogen fuel cell cars are supposed to be cleaner than fossil fuel powered cars. The only byproduct of burning hydrogen is water [oops, the hydrogen is not burned]. President Bush says that such cars will "make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of oil."

But he's also developed a plan for producing the hydrogen. Using fossil fuels. It's obvious that oil profits come before the environment (and always have), but where is the energy independence?

And whether it makes sense to create the hydrogen using oil or not, Bush is lying to us. Our air will not be cleaner, and this will do nothing to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.

Article at Mother Jones.

Comments

[marswalker.livejournal.com]

Battery storage is not a good solution for energy; especially over long-term. Batteries lose energy over time, the longer the period the more loss there is. For instance, NiMH batteries drop as much as a third of their initial charge over 24 hours (newer ones may work better). Lead-acid batteries also loose charge over time; not too mention most rechargable batteries contain toxins.

I agree that burning or processing oil to make hydrogen is just stupid.

During the rotating blackouts in 2000, I did some spreadsheet work, and figgured it would take less than $200,000,000 dollars to re-roof a large number of shcools, and thow in enough solar pannels to generate enough energy at peak time to make up for what they were claiming the grid was short by, plus 50%. The california school system would have benefitted by not needing to pay for power, the state would have benefitted in several aspects (less polution, re-roofed schools, power on the grid when it's needed most, no new power plants or infrustructure required, construction jobs created, etc). But it aparently made more sense to throw money into enron, santa fe, pg&e, etc, than do something good for the general public.

It's not that we don't have the technology, the know-how, the raw materials, etc. The system is controlled by people who would rather "take their cut" than do the right thing. (this is a pet peave. when i get my desert house, one of the things will be a "lifetime" roof and solar pannels.)

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

People only look at the cost to themselves. Solar power is still more expensive to the average consumer than simply buying your electricity off the grid, and that cost is all at installation time, but people don't factor in the cost to the environment or the fact that the more people get into it, the cheaper it becomes.

[dwivian]

There is current research to use high-capacity capacitors to hold the energy -- they have very little decay over time, and can be designed for slow release, once tapped. I have no idea how far this has gone, but it was being analyzed to help replace batteries in hybrid vehicles of large size (like busses) that over-stress batteries.

I'd love to see that spreadsheet -- having done similar calculations, I've found it to be incredibly cost-prohibitive, from ongoing maintenance and operations (not to mention structural stability engineering and earthquake tolerances) to establish large-scale energy creation systems on government buildings in Orange County (can you guess that this was an engineering paper for college? ::grin::).

The technology, so far, is not cost-effective. Were it so, the electric companies would have massive solar farms (they don't want to pay out for coal and oil any more than we want to pay them for their power). It's not about taking a cut -- it's about generating profit, and so far the cost of using oil and coal is much cheaper. That's changing, and as soon as we crest the technology curve that makes it possible you'll see ConEd, Southern Company, etc convert fast. They're already making changes to use natural gas in small generation plants, which is cheaper and less polluting.