posted
It's awesome technology that has two major hurdles, and I think only two.
1. Still way too expensive, the entire process.
2a. How are you going to make that much hydrogen? 2b. Where are you going to store it? 2c. How will they make the entire process efficient enough to be cost effective?
I like that it totally ignores the current problem of battery capacity, but those two problems are sufficiently large enough to make this a great idea that is still a couple decades away from actually happening.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
It definitely sounds cool, but like Lyrhawn said, it's just way too expensive. I think we're more likely to see some major advances in battery technology that make electric cars more feasible.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
It was more than a couple of decades before handguns turned into a musket really worthy of replacing the crossbow. Even into the 1870's, an Apache horsearcher could reload and fire a bow and arrow seven times to a Union soldier's one reloading of his rifle, and often the Apache had better aim too.
I'm not saying that hywire/hydrogen fuel cell technology ISN'T the wave of the future, I'm just saying don't pin all your hopes and dreams on it happening anytime soon. It has a few generational leaps to go before it's consumer ready.
As far as batteries go, the DOE is starting to pump some big dollars into battery research. Memory storage on computer, processor speed, and what not have all made fantastic, astronomical leaps from their original specs decades ago, but battery life has lagged far, far behind. It's impressive that batteries are smaller and with more room now, for personal electronics, but that doesn't help much with car batteries.
I think progress will finally be made on them soon, and I think what is really more likely, is a generation or two of Plug-In Hybrids or Electric Cars being the bridge between gasoline and hydrogen cars.
I've seen some interesting studies and ideas on ways to transfer energy more efficiently over the power grid, and to transform hydrogen into a consumable form, into a transportable form and back again with less power loss. If all that pans out, the Hydrogen infrastructure will look NOTHING like today's massive gasoline infrastructure. Say goodbye to two gas stations on every corner, to local depots, to gasoline carrying trucks, all of it.
The whole thing really looks like a lot of amazing changes to the way we live our lives. Not the least of which is an immense drop off in pollution. One of the benefits of mass produced hydrogen at a plant or Generation IV nuclear reactor is that instead of a couple million cars running around polluting, you confine it to a couple thousand plants, and it is much easier and more cost effective to filter out pollutants from the air that way.
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