Re: Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies

From: quasarstrider (quasarstrider_at_yahoo.com.br)
Date: 12/02/04 

Date: 2 Dec 2004 08:49:33 -0800

"Tom Simonds" <tsimonds@theworld.com> wrote in message news:<coj7n1$vcj$1@pcls4.std.com>...
> I have no idea why anyone would want to use electricity to produce H2
> for use as a motor car fuel. Seems crazy. Use electricity to make H2,
> put it into a car just to convert it back into electricity. And lose >
> 1/2 of your energy along the way. There are several workable schemes to
> use elect. directly - skipping the H2 altogether.
>
> A light weight battery electric car today can be built that'll go 200(?)
> miles on a charge. Then, put up battery changing stations on the
> interstate highway system (USA) for those occasional longer trips. It's
> a no-brainer. Yet another scheme is the plug-in gas electric. Runs on
> power from the grid 90% of the time, uses gas only to extend its range
> beyond the 100 or so miles you get out of the battery.
>
> Either of the above are far better that elect. => H2 => electricity.

None of today's batteries has enough density to replace gasoline. Add the
fact that batteries are expensive and need to be trashed every couple of
years, plus long charging times and you can see why it is a losing proposition,
with current battery technology at least. Why do you think people are working
on methanol fuel cells for powering laptop computers and cell phones?
Also, batteries lose charge on their own, so do not expect zero energy losses,
there is no such thing.

H2 isn't good for automobiles either, but then again, I'm not advocating
the direct use of H2 for automobiles. The fact remains we now depend on
fossile hydrocarbon fuels (i.e. natural gas) to produce cheap H2 and removing
this dependency would be good.

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