GM Continues the Journey to Hydrogen

[maluckey]

Where's the savings? How do you generatee electricity? Nuclear, Hydro, Coal and Oil. Until someone makes a Solar powered plant to extract Hydrogen from fresh water, this is nothing more than a diversion at best.

Flooding our land for a dam, or burning oil to make electricity is not the answer any more than pure electric vehicles are a true answer. So long as oil fired generators aer the main power source in the U.S., there is no real gain. Put a shiny coat of paint on a problem, and it looks better, but doesn't change a thing...

 

[digitalsm]

Damn them for not showing off their fuel-cell car at the Houston Auto Show.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: maluckey
Where's the savings? How do you generatee electricity? Nuclear, Hydro, Coal and Oil. Until someone makes a Solar powered plant to extract Hydrogen from fresh water, this is nothing more than a diversion at best.

Flooding our land for a dam, or burning oil to make electricity is not the answer any more than pure electric vehicles are a true answer. So long as oil fired generators aer the main power source in the U.S., there is no real gain. Put a shiny coat of paint on a problem, and it looks better, but doesn't change a thing...

Damn it, todays nuclear tech could do wonders for the US. If its good enough for socialists in France its good enough for the US right?

 

[0marTheZealot]

Originally posted by: maluckey
Where's the savings? How do you generatee electricity? Nuclear, Hydro, Coal and Oil. Until someone makes a Solar powered plant to extract Hydrogen from fresh water, this is nothing more than a diversion at best.

Flooding our land for a dam, or burning oil to make electricity is not the answer any more than pure electric vehicles are a true answer. So long as oil fired generators aer the main power source in the U.S., there is no real gain. Put a shiny coat of paint on a problem, and it looks better, but doesn't change a thing...

Oil accounts for something like 2% of electricity generation now. We mainly use coal and natural gas.

 

[0marTheZealot]

Originally posted by: MajorCaliber
America's economy runs on oil, I hope we never run out of it!

oh oil will never run out. The real problem is that there won't be enough supply to fuel our society.

 

[Rhin0]

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot

Originally posted by: maluckey
Where's the savings? How do you generatee electricity? Nuclear, Hydro, Coal and Oil. Until someone makes a Solar powered plant to extract Hydrogen from fresh water, this is nothing more than a diversion at best.

Flooding our land for a dam, or burning oil to make electricity is not the answer any more than pure electric vehicles are a true answer. So long as oil fired generators aer the main power source in the U.S., there is no real gain. Put a shiny coat of paint on a problem, and it looks better, but doesn't change a thing...

Oil accounts for something like 2% of electricity generation now. We mainly use coal and natural gas.

Coal is the only fossil fuel we have that can even begin to supply the projected demand past somewhere around 2020-2030. We have sooooo much coal! It is good stuff... Too bad all the coal plants don't have the most modern pollution control technology.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: jlmadyson

Originally posted by: conjur
Wonder how Honda's doing with their FCX? Haven't seen any updates on that in some time.

Honda Readies New Civic, Fuel Cell

Thanks. Hydrogen from natural gas? With home heating bills going through the roof, is this going to be affordable to people?

 

[0marTheZealot]

Hydrogen was never intended to be affordable. There is almost no cheap way to mass produce hydrogen. It is simply a red herring to the science illiterate public.

These are pretty much the only ways to get hydrogen:

1. Electrolysis of FRESH water (can't use salt unless you desalinate due to noxious gases released). H2O --> H2 + O2.
Requires a lot of electricity and fresh water, both of which are in short supply. Electricity is derived from primarily coal and natural gas (about 90%). Nuclear energy comes with about 7%. The rest is an amalagation of hydroelectric, wind, and solar.
2. Oxidation of methane into carbon monoxide and H2 gas. CH4 + H2O (steam) --> CO + 2H2
Requires high heat, pressure, natural gas. High heat and pressure will ultimately be derived from some sort of electric device, meaning more coal or gas consumed. Also requires CH4.
3. Oxidation of crude oil and derivates CxHx + H2O --> CO + CO2 + H2
Everything from #2 plus oil.

Outside of nuclear fusion of deutritum and tritium, Hydrogen can not be an energy source.

 

[Stunt]

Hydrogen is an excellent technology after we get renewable, not polluting energy sources.
But the technology itself will need to comw down in price, the cells are quite expensive.

On a side note my heat transfer prof who used to work for Ballard (leaders in hydrogen technology) said that the fuel cell uses similar technology as desalination of water. So if we can get a grip on hydrogen fuel cells, we can start making distilled water out of ocean water ...again...energy factor comes into play. But these are all things we are going to need down the road: transportable energy (id rather have nuke plants make hydrongen than a nuke plant in my car) and fresh water.

Also, the companies developing the hydrogen and fuel cells are not interested in the consumer market at the moment. Dr. Ballard graduated from my university and has flown out to give keynotes. They are aiming to make sales in the near future to transport trucks where the initial cost is already high and their pollution accounts for most of the emissions in areas like california. 2 percent of california vehicles account for 79% of emissions

Ballard <-- These are the guys that are alligned with daimler chysler and ford