I think it's brilliant if they pull it off. If it becomes widespread it will also be cheap, plus it will probably result in gasoline prices going down due to competition, instead of constantly rising due to increasing demand and decreasing reserves.

I don't get why car/motorbike enthusiasts are so against this and i'll explain why. The vast majority of drivers are not enthusiasts, they are using a vehicle in a practical fashion. They don't care about the nice throaty sound, they care about cheap operating and maintenance costs.

The thing is, if all these guys get those cheap to run cars on renewable energy, both them and the enthusiasts benefit.

-Less pollution, so less restrictions on the remaining minority of internal combustion powered vehicles.

-Lower fuel prices and better ICE technology in terms of performance vs consumption, due to competition.

-Combine the previous two and you get potentially bigger engines on your ICE vehicle.

etc etc

The way i see it, if this thing goes forward (and i really hope it does), people will be able to run an H2 powered family car for their day to day business at very low operating cost and then use some of the leftover cash to get something fun for the weekends.

At least that's what i would do if i was a family man and the technology was available, plus i wouldn't have to pay 1.7 Euros per liter of gas every time i wanted to go on a ride with my motorbike.

At the current prices i need 18 euros per 200km (and that's a 650cc motorbike we're talking about, imagine a car), so yeah, bring on the H2 fuel cell technology and get them scared a bit, then we can all enjoy a mix of cheap transportation and vehicles with character. Why sabotage this and shoot ourselves in the foot?

For me it's a question of practicality, economy, environment (yes, it's a practical issue as well if it pertains to my health) and worldwide supply/demand issues, not if the hippies like it or not. Why cut off my nose to spite my face? ;)

Some electric vehicles are claimed to give BETTER performance than the gas equivalent:



http://hellforleathermagazine.com/20...-on-the-snake/

http://www.core77.com/blog/transport...ross_21599.asp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3robHRHhNHY

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

The advantage of e-engines is the fact the got 100% torque from almost 0rpm - no wonder they win.

The problem is not increased use but technology itself.
Production of H2 has only some 60% efficiency - i.e. for 100W you put into h2 production you'll get <60W worth of H2.
Of those 60W you'll lose another 50% if you turn them back into energy.

Using it on vehicle comes with a few other problems as well:
- 1L H2 = .3L gasoline
- H2 Tanks are tiny bit heavier than gasoline tanks

You basically use the same argument and hope for Fusion Power.

This. If AofA knew anything other than to call people who support this progress "hippy green socialists" then he might understand some of the tech behind it. If we adopted this attitude with computers we wouldn't be talking online about it now, I would doubt AofA has such a resistive attitude to a new CPU.....

Anyway, even with compressed tank Hydrogen dissipates faster than any other fuel so if there ever were a puncture to a tank and the fuel leaking out I'd rather it be Hydrogen than petrol. Put a spark to either and there's trouble.

It's a very biased argument because you haven't included the efficiency of oil to petrol including finding it, drilling it out, transporting it and refining it.

Very true, and not to mention the energy efficiency of combustion engines themselves after everything else is said and done.

so ... should I sell my oil shares yet?

I always thought bacterial oil would be the next big thing? pump hot C02 from power plants straight into a huge VAT .. add sunlight and you get oil.

.

You'll have to transport H2 too, not such a huge difference there.
Actually you'll need triple the volume for the same amount of energy but we're going off track - this scenario is far away.

Not really - we all know the combustion engine doenst really have a future.
What we do need to focus on how to feed them - it's absolutely irrelvant how efficent an otto engine is.

Baseline: It's not an alternative yet, longterm maybe - all we know is we'll need a sh1tload of energy in the future and we have absolutely no clue where to get if from.

:confused:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1210162222.htm

isobutanol instead of oil maybe?

Don't. There is more done with oil then just petrol. Everything that is made out of plastic, as a starting point. And given the rising costs of Oil exploitation, it won't become cheaper anytime soon. Even if the first western nations manage to switch over to alternatives, the BRICS and other developing countries will need a decade or two longer to provide similiar infrastructure. Petrol won't go away that fast.