Ford: Hydrogen Cars Nearly Ready

Source: Time Magazine

The relatively quick-and-easy answer to foreign oil dependence and automotive greenhouse gas emissions is circling the grounds every day at Orlando International Airport in Florida, according to a top Ford Motor Co. official. It's a utilitarian 12-passenger parking lot shuttle bus powered by a 6.8-liter internal combustion hydrogen engine, which Ford officials said is their hydrogen technology that's closest to mass production.

"We really believe this technology is ready to be evaluated at the consumer level," John Lapetz, the company's program manager for the buses, told reporters on Tuesday at an event staged to tout Ford's future vehicles.

About 30 E-450 Hydrogen shuttle buses are working across the U.S. and Canada, and Ford engineers are monitoring them electronically in real time, Lapetz said. The vehicles, powered by a modified gasoline engine, have near zero emissions and get up to 13 percent better fuel economy than their gasoline counterparts, he said.

Nearly every automaker is testing hydrogen-powered vehicles across the world, touting them as a renewable alternative to gasoline.



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1642908,00.html

where the equipment and the fuel are reasonable.

The real problem is that it requires ENERGY to produce hydrogen-
a lot more energy than it "saves" on the road.

We need to burn the equivalent of several gallons of gas
to produce hydrogen equivalent to...a gallon of gas.

This is NOT a solution to any "energy problem".

No matter how we PRODUCE the electricity to generate the
hydrogen, it will always be more efficient to skip the
hydrogen step and place that electricity directly into
an electric vehicle.

Same as electric cars.

That's the way our masters like it.

So long as this grim, almost feudal, situation continues, we won't see a realistic solution until there is no more profit to be made from oil or coal fueled vehicles.

As a replacement for gasoline, hydrogen will never be realistic, because if you have the energy to make hydrogen you have the energy to make much more convenient fuels.

dp

Ethanol is also stupid, along with biodiesel, and the lot of these liquid fuels. The only way to go is pure electric with more public transportation. The only reason they haven't gone that rout yet is because with a liquid fuel they can control the supply.

Yeah yeah batteries etc blah blah: theres an electric car on sale that goes 300 miles between charges. Oh what about the time to recharge? Oh, what about switching out the batteries at a "fill up station"? Its a freakin battery... what's the problem here?

Imagine every roof of ever house and apartment building covered in solar panels.. every backpack and every hat charging your phones and pda's (i have the backpack it's great). Who makes money on that? The solar panel people? Oh that's not nearly enough money.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR why are people so short sighted and freakin evil!?!?!?! Killing their own children like the lowest form of slime mould or arachnid. Revolting creatures

Whenever there's money to be made you can no longer call it a conspiracy... it's a business plan :mad:

:hi:


agree w/ you entirely.
dp

Welcome to DU from another newbie.

The electric car technology is here and was here a long time ago. There's not enough profit in it for the car companies because it doesn't require oil changes every few months/parts replaced every so often. The electric car is too efficient and the service center/parts department of auto dealers would be giant losers if everyone was buying electric. Now, the car companies win and our children lose.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

One scene shows a auto mechanic who explained the cost of maintenance and repairs to internal-combustion cars. He had laid out on a work table all the components that fell into this area: spark plugs, wires, oil filter, oil, muffler, catalytic converter, brakes, radiators, hoses, etc. He mention that mufflers alone make up a multi-billion dollar-a-year business. It became clear that internal-combustion automobiles provide a huge jobs program which could be eliminated with a switch over to electric cars.

Oh, and he mentioned the regular "tune up" procedures for the electric car: rotate the tires and fill-up the window-washer resevoir...

inner workings of an electric car and explain their costs, too?

in response to your post, tired_old_fireman:

1) Quickie Lubes and Valvoline long ago eclipsed dealership oil changes, driving prices down. Dealerships don't make that much money for the car companies on oil changes.

2) With the advent of electric cars as majority transportation, you've traded replacing old stupid dinosauric mechanical parts with replacing: electronics, battery packs, drive engine motors and the like. What do you think is more expensive to build and maintain?

Just a couple thoughts from the peanut gallery.

If your electric car is plugged into a wall socket that is powered by an outdated coal burning power plant, that also has a large environmental cost. In addition, one of the most environmentally hazardous sites in North America is supposed to be a smelting operating in Sudbury, Ontario that is important in the manufacture of the batteries for hybrid vehicles.

We have to find a mixture of the "least worst" energy sources, but solar is the only one that is truly clean. I'd like to see the US government lease some of its large areas of government owned deserts in the southwest for industrial-scale solar energy. Also, we need better tax credits to encourage solar energy - which Carter started and Reagan killed.

With panels on every house -- costs brought down due to economy of scale -- power your car from your house.

I'd like to see ALL credits/subsidies removed from oil, gas, coal and applied to solar...

...if we can get solar panels deployed like that.

But today we're dealing with a lot of coal, oil, and nuclear power plants which makes the electric car not as great as many here would want us to believe.

and apply them to solar...

We got a man on the moon in less than 10 years, inventing most of what we call "modern technology" in the process -- Decentralized Solar should be duck soup...

It's NOT a technical problem or even a problem of logistics, it is, like hunger, a political problem.

power plants are going to go right along with them. The power companies are looking for every free source they can, and if they find one it'll most likely be clean~er~ish~Solar, wind, wave, geothermal, etc. So then they still charge us for transmission and whatnot. Gotta keep the economy going. It'll end up being cheaper in all the ways that matter. I know we're going to win this battle in the end. It's still going to suck for awhile yet. --But-- Someday, we'll look back and say: "Wow"...
The "LiveEarth" concert was an eye-opening moment for me. I opened my eyes to hope.

>Ethanol is also stupid, along with biodiesel...

You're welcome to your opinion, but hopefully you have facts to back it up. Ethanol uses solar energy to stretch the energy resources we have in use today. Biodiesel does this better. Both lessen the need to invade middle eastern countries for oil. That is smart in my book. If you want to say we should not ever use coal, petroleum, etc., let me just say that I would starve, and I'd prefer not to. I know it's selfish of me, but I am making an effort to wean myself off of the petroleum and coal industries. I'll bet that you still eat food brought to you by truck.

Bill

http://www.cato.org/dispatch/08-14-01d.html
Pimentel's report, to be published in the 2001 edition of the Encyclopedia for Physical Sciences and Technology in September, says that producing ethanol is more trouble than it's worth: 131,000 British thermal units of energy are required to produce one gallon of ethanol, but a gallon will only give you about 77,000 Btu of fuel energy. In other words, producing ethanol results in a net loss of energy.

Consequently, Pimentel thinks the only reason people like to talk about ethanol being a valid alternative to gasoline is "politics and large corporations who are getting big bucks from the government (in the form of ethanol subsidies)."

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=Ethanol+net+energy+loss&btnG=Search

I thought that anti-ethanol BS was debunked in the Energy/Environment subforum ages ago. :banghead:

If I have the option of E85 at $3/gal and gasoline at $3/gal, gasoline is the winner since it's going to give me many more miles for the same amount of money.

the first link quotes Tad Patzek, the head of the oil industry funded think tank, the University of California Oil Consortium. Interestingly enough, he co-authors similar studies with Pimentel, none of which are peer reviewed. The National Corn Growers Association doesn't need to have studies done specially to show their point of view. Peer-reviewed studies from disinterested parties are readily available.



http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/agNews_050719crETHANOL.xml


Here's the DOE study that NCGA refers to:


http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/altfuel/eth_energy_bal.html

If you object to Pimentel and Patzek, the solution seems clear:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=Ethanol+net+energy+loss+-Pimentel+-Patzek&btnG=Search

>If you object to Pimentel and Patzek, the solution seems clear:

What, ignore the DOE and other studies and look for editorials that support your position?

Bill

I didn't know that the Energy/Environment subforum on DU was the final arbiter in scientific matters.

Wow!!!! :sarcasm:


The amount of ethanol needed to replace petroleum would cause food prices to quadruple, easily. Corn comes from somewhere...that somewhere is, oddly enough, corn fields...think tortillas and hamburgers...

Bio-Diesel -- I looked into it. Similar logistic problems as ethanol and even burning bio, a diesel is still a highly polluting vehicle -- especially when compared to electric vehicles "filled up" by Decentralized Solar Power.


Decentralized Solar -- wasting time on anything else is just that, wasting time.

But of course, it won't happen 'cause the big corporations can't own it.

So, grab your ankles and kiss your asses goodbye. At the rate they're going the corporations and their bought and paid for stooges in government are going to remove mammalian life from Earth.

I agree that ethanol from corn will not replace gasoline. Cellulosic ethanol from corn stalks, switchgrass, even hemp would do better at replacing gasoline. Biodiesel from algae may well replace petroleum diesel, it is encouraging, but remains to be seen. Biodiesel fueled engines produce much less pollution than even gasoline engines in several categories, including net greenhouse CO2, but also including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and total hydrocarbons. Those benzene fumes that escape into the air every time you fill your gasoline tank are not there with biodiesel. The particulate matter in biodiesel exhaust is much less harmful than in petroleum diesel exhaust, and even gasoline contributes to particulate pollution, according to a Harvard study I saw several years ago. I agree that decentralized solar is desirable, but I rent, so I can't put it where I live. And trucks will still cross our country, so let's get them cleaner, shall we? I haven't seen any electric 18 wheelers yet.

Bill

use hemp. You can grow four times more hemp in an acre than corn. You also get up to 3 crops a year in some areas farther south.

which does not solve our energy problems. It seems like a way to throw subsidies at corporate farmers instead of honestly providing an alternative to our fossil fuel addiction.

These guys:

ADM
http://www.admworld.com/

CARGIL
http://www.cargill.com/

Among a very few other giant mega-corporations...


On Edit: Ah, just saw your "corporate farmers".... :hi:

I prefer to not use petroleum as much as possible, given the existence of cars and trucks that were in use in the world before I was born and are not easy to live without. Please continue reaching for long term solutions, but don't get mad that I don't want people dieing in the middle east so that I can get to work.

Bill

it comes to the consumer, cafe standards, and the environment.

fuck ford--i will never own another ford again.

They totally suck for being the first automotive company to offer an SUV on a full-hybrid platform.

And their Rouge plant sucks, too: consider that dirty, messy, natural living roof; the groundwater filtration and circulation system; the natural lighting, built along with state-of-the-art flexible manufacturing.

You seem so knowledgeable on Ford's environmental policies (or lack thereof) - do you work there?

by American Workers anymore?

What percentage of the labor is American in an "American" car?

I don't support any corporation that fucks over its workers...

The domestics build more cars in the U.S. than their foreign counterparts ever will. They also impact more jobs in this country, via suppliers - and therefore many, many individual states - than any foreign automakers can match. But that's unimportant here.

I really don't understand what this has to do with my post about environmental actions by Ford. Clue me in on the relation?

It is my understanding that most of their labor has been outsourced from the United States and sent to lower wage locations. Same with their suppliers.

I also read recently that Toyota has hired more Americans than GM or Ford still have under hire...

I was interested in checking my information and you seemed to know something about this subject...and may be able to provide links...

-------

On edit: Toyota is of course not blameless. They seem to locate their plants in mis-named "right to work" states to take advantage of tax subsidies and a low wage workforce with no other opportunities...

It's NOT true that all production has left the U.S. - period. The domestic companies still employ over 300,000 workers in this country at the main companies alone; suppliers are not necessarily counted in that figure, which could run towards the million point, if properly tallied.

Keep in mind one other thing that a lot of people do not understand: the domestics have "sub-companies" within their walls (transmissions, engines, etc. - really complex components) that have their own GM/Ford/Chrysler 'Engine Plant' titles. They're not suppliers; they're part of the company, yet they provide good, important jobs to U.S. workers. Don't know how they're tallied, but they leave a swath across the landscape of active plants providing good jobs within the U.S.

I'll work to find the post of active U.S. plants I posted not too long ago. It's sobering, for the record. The myth out there is that the domestics outsourced everything; the truth is that they didn't. There are many, many thousands of people employed by the auto manufacturers and their suppliers IN THIS COUNTRY who would disagree.

"happy workers at Delphi?" :evilgrin:

http://www.uaw.org/delphi/delphiupdate.cfm?duId=23

Seriously, I'd like to read that if you can find the link again... :hi:

Not happy at I'll, I'd be willing to bet.

As for the article, it disappeared into the archive hole...I've been searching this afternoon, but evidently not well enough. I'll try to get it up here later tonight. Right now, I'm heading out to dinner. :-)

Hope the links work for you - they did for me on Preview, but looked funny...

Main thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2753018


Relevant posts:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2753018#2753956

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2753018#2757327
:toast:

:hi:

Thanks for the welcomes :D I'm a long long time lurker heh... let me state as well that I currently sell cars hehe. Most of the money is indeed in the service and I think you're exactly right about the idea that the manufacturers don't want em for that reason. Hell I've heard people say that they hate selling diesels because they last forever.

And check this out... company name removed because.. well look at my name heh:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Request your immediate support for H. R. 2927, the Hill-Terry Bipartisan Fuel
Economy Bill

Dear *** Dealer:

First of all, thank you for contacting and visiting your U.S. Senators over the past few
weeks, urging them to support more reasonable fuel economy (CAFE) standards. Our
*** dealer family showed tremendous engagement and support, sending more
than 8,000 messages to 99 U.S. Senators asking them to support the Pryor-Bond CAFE
alternative in the U.S. Senate. Your efforts made a difference and set the stage for the
next critical battle in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As you may know, the Senate voted recently to hike fuel economy requirements by an
aggressive 40 percent by 2020, with no distinctions between cars and trucks. The Senate
bill undermines several longstanding elements of the CAFE program that balance
increasing standards with safety, consumer choice and the continued viability of
automobile manufacturing. This was obviously not the result we wanted. Therefore, it is
critical that the House not repeat these flaws when it considers CAFE legislation this
summer.

For this reason, I'm asking you to focus your efforts on your U.S. Representatives in
Congress. If you see or visit your Representative this week for an Independence Day
Par ade or ot her event, as k her/him to support and co-sponsor H. R. 2927, the Hill-Terry
Bipartisan Fuel Economy Bill, that sets challenging, yet reasonable increases in fuel
economy standards. Tell your Representative that it is critical to respect the important
functional differences between cars and trucks and set separate standards.
Please take action today following the instructions in this action alert attached and also
encour age your empl oyees, associates, friends and family to do likewise. Thank you for
your time and efforts on this critical issue.

Sincerely,

Self Interested Corporate Scumbag

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They've been pushing us really hard for this for awhile now... :puke:

I'm highly suspicious of hydrogen if for no other reason Bush keeps advocating it -- and there's never been a thing that Bush advocated that does not line the pockets of his croneys and, in one way or another, wreck America.

Thing is, hydrogen has to be manufactured somehow. Right now we get it by using up hydrocarbon fossil fuels and it's incredibly polluting. Possibly in the future we can develop another cost-effective way of extracting it, but that's not in the immediate cards...

One of the biggest promoters of hydrogen use for fuel is Air Products and Chemicals Corp., based in PA. They produce industrial hydrogen products. Their local congressman, Charlie Dent, is a big proponent. It turned out he owned a large amount of Air Products stock for years, which he just sold when he finally realized there might be a conflict of interest.

every day...

exploding when rear-ended, if memory serves.

the original roll-over SUV...

And Ford wouldn't do shit about it even though they knew what needed to be done...

They preferred paying the rare multi-million dollar wrongful death judgement 'cause it saved them money -- more profits...

It's the capitalist way... Don't let human death and misery get in the way of profits.

Pinto with a fuze trailing out of its gas tank filler cover...

An owner with a sense of humor...

I had to rent one once, what a slug....

equals 2 sticks of dynamite in the bilge.

yeah, let's have some of that "clean coal" manufactured hydrogen.

Nice to know that they are promoting this just as coal is peaking as well.

What a bunch of fucking retards. It's like these guys don't read anything.

Yes, it precipitates out of the atmosphere regularly, but we know from the contrails of jets that humanity fooling with the water vapor content of the atmosphere can have dramatic warming consequences.

or manufacturing hydrogen. We get if from fossil fuels currently.

I have been combing Scientific American because I know I read an article that stated that to produce the amounts of hydrogen necessary, factories would still have to use enormous amounts of energy to produce said hydrogen thus negating most of its benefit. I could be thinkning of ethanol. I can't remember. Either way, I would love to see a shift to better economies of scale for alternative energy production such as solar and wind. When major corps start doing this, the Earth will benefit even more and so will we as a race.

Which is why the oil companies love hydrogen. Oil is the most likely source right now.

I knew I had read that same fact. :hi:

The simple electrolytic process can turn electricity into hydrogen at close to 100% efficiency. And there is the rub. We don't get any more energy out than we put in, and never will.

demands similar power to function. High power required for both.

And finally break our dependence on petroleum.

FoMoCo is a MoFoCo

and a cracking plant are a great start. Anything that does not rely on dino juice has my support.

Biodiesel hybrids are also a strong technology.

dependent on fossil fuel and the process produces copious quantities of greenhouse gasses.

"The use of nuclear power causes...approximately one-third as much CO2 -emission as gas-fired electricity production. The rich uranium ores required to achieve this reduction are, however, so limited that if the entire present world electricity demand were to be provided by nuclear power, these ores would be exhausted within three years. Use of the remaining poorer ores in nuclear reactors would produce more CO2 emission than burning fossil fuels directly."

<clip>

"It has long been claimed, and still is by many, that nuclear power emits no carbon dioxide, thereby making it a superior choice for future power with the threat of climate change. It is true that the process of generating heat and steam from nuclear materials does not produce carbon dioxide in itself, but to ignore all of the other processes used in nuclear power is either ignorant or disingenuous. It is rather like claiming that a pumped storage hydroelectric plant is a power creator; it is only if you ignore the fact that more electricity is used to pump the water up in the first place than is generated when it falls.

"Large amounts of carbon dioxide are emitted during the building and decommissioning of the power plants, and during the mining, refining and enriching of the uranium. Since you can hardly have nuclear power without the plants or the uranium, that carbon dioxide is as much part of the emission from nuclear power as the direct releases from fossil fuels. (To be fair, this also applies to renewable sources since turbines and solar cells have to be constructed, transported and built, and then maintained. But the amount of carbon dioxide emitted is far less than nuclear.)

"The other pollutant that is produced by nuclear is, of course, radioactive waste. The waste includes 1,000 tonnes of high- and low-level waste per year per plant, waste that includes parts that remain dangerous for hundreds or thousands of years. Uranium mill tailings can amount to much more. The problem of dealing with this waste has still not been solved."

http://wolf.readinglitho.co.uk/subpages/nuclear.html

---------

not to mention that;

"Building enough nuclear power stations to make a meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would cost trillions of dollars, create tens of thousands of tons of lethal high-level radioactive waste, contribute to further proliferation of nuclear weapons materials, and result in a Chernobyl-scale accident once every decade," the group's Web site claims.

According to the consumer rights group Public Citizen, last year's energy bill provided $13 billion in subsidies and tax breaks to the nuclear industry. The figure includes operating subsidies and money for research and development and construction of new plants."

<clip>

"the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental think tank also based in Washington D.C., thinks the nuclear industry may be headed for a meltdown.

"Renewable sources of power provide about 20 percent of the world's electricity today, more than nuclear power does," Worldwatch president Christopher Flavin wrote in the latest issue of the organization's magazine. "More importantly, they are active, growing industries, attracting over $25 billion in new investment last year.

"The generating capacity of new wind plants alone that were ordered in 2005 was triple the figure for nuclear power. And because renewable technologies are smaller scale and modular, their cost is falling rapidly as the scale of production rises. In recent months, renewable power has become one of the hottest sectors for venture capitalists looking for 'the next big thing.'"


I'd rather spend a trillion on Decentralized Solar and Electric vehicles...much cheaper, safer and sustainable...

http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/135843/1/

Funny, I could have sworn that the same diesel-powered equipment used to mine uranium ore was also used to mine the steel and aluminum ores for solar panels and wind turbines.

disposing of any of those pesky leftover nuclei after the solar panel gives up its electrons. :)

Have you got any solution to disposing of nuke power plant's crap? :)

-=-------

Seriously, you are correct, the initial bootstrapping of Decentralized Solar Technology would have to use fossil fuels.

The difference is that once the technology has been bootstrapped, expansion doesn't need diesel...could be electric. The SUN is the power source. It's not a finite, limited source like fossil fuels. The Sun doesn't run out. Once you've bootstrapped the technology, the sun provides the energy to expand the system.

With centralized nuclear you must constantly feed the system with fossil fueled infrastructure. You cannot decentralize nuclear the way you can with solar.

Decentralized Solar can be self-sustaining, nuclear cannot be...

Ask over on the EE board about the numerous toxic byproducts of solar panel production, such as heavy metals. Nuclear waste has a half-life; heavy metals are forever.

"Have you got any solution to disposing of nuke power plant's crap?"

Reprocess it like the French and Japanese do and put it back into the fuel cycle.

"Decentralized Solar can be self-sustaining, nuclear cannot be..."

Well, there are those breeder reactors that put out more nuclear material than you put in, hence the name "breeder".

but one fact still remains...

Nuclear is a Centralized, UNDEMOCRATIC form of power generation. It is and will be owned by large capitalist corporations and therefore we remain at their mercy. In addition, there's a cost involved in transmitting the power from the plant to where it's needed.

Decentralized Solar is a Democratic form of power generation. Supply lines are short, more efficient. One can actually own one's own "power plant" instead of being a slave to the corporation that "owns your power"...

The Democratic vs. undemocratic model of energy ownership and generation makes Solar more than trump nucular for me!


And "heavy metals" can't "melt down" and take half of New Jersey with 'em... :)

"Decentralized Solar is a Democratic form of power generation. Supply lines are short, more efficient. One can actually own one's own "power plant" instead of being a slave to the corporation that "owns your power"..."

I live in an apartment; where do I put mine? My coworker wanted to put up a small wind turbine in his backyard; the city denied him a building permit for it. My friend's townhome development won't even allow them to put up a clothesline to air-dry their clothes in their own backyard because "it negatively impacts the appearance of the community", much less their own home power plant.

Here in America, the very layout of our cities and suburbs precludes us from doing much more than shoehorning in some solar panels and wind turbines here and there. For the foreseeable future, most of our energy production, be it from nuclear or renewables, will probably be centralized. Just look who the big players in wind and solar expansion are right now. BP is building solar farms. GE is building wind turbines. AMD and Monsanto have a large stake in factory farms that grow ethanol and biodiesel. I'm sure we'll see companies like Exxon Mobile dive headlong into the renewables business within a decade as oil production falters. Renewable energy generation will likely be controlled in large part by the same people who control the current forms of power generation from coal, oil and nuclear plants.

self feeding. An amazing technology. I'd rather back a viable technology.

This auto goes 125 miles on a fill up of compressed air and only cost $2.00 to fill up!

Read about it here:

http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/mar2007/bw20070319_949435.htm?campaign_id=rss_topDiscussed

That's interesting, but I guess it's not quite ready for the land of the H3 Hummers and Tahoes, unless you have a deathwish.

Just tax those dinosaurs out of existence...

It takes lots energy to make hydrogen gas from water, therefore a hydrogen fuel cell is functionally like a very crappy battery that wastes energy. Why not just use battery-powered cars instead?

Hydrogen is a waste of time.

Now if we can pry that battery patent out of Chevron's oily palm . .

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2003/05/ma_375_01.html

"What Bush didn't reveal in his nationwide address, however, is that his administration has been working quietly to ensure that the system used to produce hydrogen will be as fossil fuel-dependent -- and potentially as dirty -- as the one that fuels today's SUVs. According to the administration's National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap, drafted last year in concert with the energy industry, up to 90 percent of all hydrogen will be refined from oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels -- in a process using energy generated by burning oil, coal, and natural gas. The remaining 10 percent will be cracked from water using nuclear energy."

<clip>

"Such a system, experts say, would effectively eliminate most of the benefits offered by hydrogen. Although the fuel-cell cars themselves may emit nothing but water vapor, the process of producing the fuel cells from hydrocarbons will continue America's dependence on fossil fuels and leave behind carbon dioxide, the primary cause of global warming.

"Mike Nicklas, chair of the American Solar Energy Society, was one of 224 energy experts invited by the Department of Energy to develop the government's Roadmap last spring. The sessions, environmentalists quickly discovered, were dominated by representatives from the oil, coal, and nuclear industries. "All the emphasis was on how the process would benefit traditional energy industries," recalls Nicklas, who sat on a committee chaired by an executive from ChevronTexaco. "The whole meeting had been staged to get a particular result, which was a plan to extract hydrogen from fossil fuels and not from renewables." The plan does not call for a single ounce of hydrogen to come from power generated by the sun or the wind, concluding that such technologies "need further development for hydrogen production to be more cost competitive."

...he invented a system to make water powered cars (hydrogen).
see a news clip here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIgOn1kRw5s

it's bothersome, in the video they mention how "the Pentagon has showed interest in it"... he later died mysteriously after eating at a restaurant.

faster than you can say "freon".

Bill

You can put an electrolyzer in the motor pool and make all the hydrogen you want. You're only running short distances, and the zero-emission nature of the vehicle helps you with poisonous/noxious fumes in enclosed spaces like under porticos.

An electric one of these wouldn't be so good unless you were willing to give up cargo space. No battery big enough to push an E-450 is going to fit in the place where the gas tank on a regular E-450 goes, but you could put a couple of medium-size hydrogen tanks in there.

There is a difference between general-purpose vehicles for general consumption and the kind of special-purpose vehicle seen here.

If they are the first to mass produce affordable cars with an alternative energy source, and ensure that the fuel will be available everywhere, they will save their company. It would be very good for Michigan, too.

The ELECTRIC CAR...

They worked great, the people loved them (including my sister and brother in law), the "infrastructure" already exists to support them but...the oil companies hated them...so they were killed...

Actually, they were never meant to succeed. That's why Detroit made them so hard to get and then took them back and crushed them...

This hydrogen bullshit is just that, BULLSHIT....

DECENTRALIZED SOLAR POWER and Electric "around town" vehicles. Intermodule, high speed electric trains for inter-city and interstate transport. It can ALL be done NOW...but the oil companies hate the idea, the U.S. is run by oil "men"...you do the math...

People keep talking about the electric car,

How long does this thing take to charge up? Cause theres no way it will replace the gasoline engine if it takes more then 5 minutes to fill up at the charge station on the highway.

And why not centralized solar panel hydrogen production?
And where are we going to put solar panels on my parent's house that was built in the 1930s? What about places like Seatle that have lots of cloud cover most of the year?

Are you going to put a wind turbine in my back yard?

Centralized power in one form or another is going to be with us for a long time, it's just foley to think otherwise. I'd like nothing more for it all to come non-oil/gas sources however.

--Steve

Perfect for commuters. Long road trips you would use your hybrid or gas. Of course a lot of factors go into the 100 miles per charge. All estimates I have read show it working fine for peoples work commutes.

For General Motors Electric Car (which they killed) the cost of electricity per mile at the time showed it to be about 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of gasoline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EV1#Costs