Comments on: Are Hydrogen Cars the Answer?

By: The Green Meanie - Hydrogen Cars

The Green Meanie - Hydrogen Cars — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:25:39 +0000

[...] Are Hydrogen Cars the Answer? – detailed article with research references! [...]

By: Hydrogen Car: Is It The Future? | Personal Finance Analyst

Hydrogen Car: Is It The Future? | Personal Finance Analyst — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:00:50 +0000

[...] the car is very… I mean very expensive. Hydrogen technology is a new thing. And as with all new technology, costs are abundant. I [...]

By: Climate 411 » Plug-in Cars: The Lowdown - Blogs & Podcasts - Environmental Defense Fund

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:43:27 +0000

[...] Plug-in Cars: The Lowdown 2. Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles 3. Fossil Fuels and [...]

By: Sheryl Canter

Sheryl Canter — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:01:51 +0000

That does look interesting, but I'm no expert on algae. I'll ask some of our car experts here what they think.

I'm about to go on vacation for a week so you may not hear back from me right away.

By: used cars

used cars — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:49:30 +0000

I read a very interesting article on alternative fuel sources for Cars at

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-10/biofuels/biofuels.html

Maybe Algae is the way to go. See page 6 of the article above

By: Greg B.

Greg B. — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:46:27 +0000

Unfortunately, Sheryl has repeated arguments made by Romm that are myths.

For those that want to see a breakdown of the myths, I have written the following detailed blog post titled "The Hype Against Hydrogen: Setting the Record Straight on Six Hydrogen Myths Perpetuated by Joseph Romm."

http://hydrogendiscoveries.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/the-hype-against-hydrogen-setting-the-record-straight-on-six-hydrogen-myths-perpetuated-by-joseph-romm/

Here is a summary of the myths:

Myth #1 – Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are decades away because fuel cells are 50 times as expensive as they need to be

Reality – If they are mass produced, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be competitive with gasoline-powered internal combustion engine vehicles beginning in three or four years

Myth #2 – Hybrid vehicles are as efficient as fuel cell vehicles

Reality – Fuel cells are twice as efficient as internal combustion engines

Myth #3 – Plug-in hybrids are better than hydrogen fuel cell cars (for whatever reason)

Reality – Plug-in hybrid technology can be used in hydrogen fuel cell cars, so any benefits of plug-in hybrids will also be realized by hydrogen cars

Myth #4 – Hydrogen fuel is three times as expensive as it needs to be in order to be competitive

Reality – The cost of hydrogen will be $4 to $6 per kilogram, which is equivalent to gasoline at $2 to $3 per gallon, due to the efficiency of fuel cells

Myth #5 – Making hydrogen for use in cars is not a good use of renewable energy

Reality – There is more than enough renewable energy to produce both electricity for homes and businesses and hydrogen for cars

Myth #6 – The high cost of building a hydrogen infrastructure means hydrogen should not be pursued

Reality – The cost of building a hydrogen infrastructure will be high, but far less expensive than the costs that will have to be paid if the current path is maintained

By: The Hype Against Hydrogen: Setting the Record Straight on Six Hydrogen Myths Perpetuated by Joseph Romm « Energy: Problems and Solutions

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:11:00 +0000

[...] Over the past several years, Joseph Romm has been a harsh critic of using hydrogen in cars. He has been so successful that it has become fashionable to bash hydrogen. It is very common for people to talk about “hydrogen hype,” which has been fueled by Romm’s book The Hype About Hydrogen. Moreover, as exemplified in a recent blog post, which also appeared on Yahoo! Green, his arguments are often repeated by others. [...]

By: rwjonessr

rwjonessr — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:44:34 +0000

Are Hydrogen cars the answer, not ENTIRELY but it's a darn start, and we just absolutly MUST start somewhere. When the darn boat is leaking from mutiple places you attempt to patch them all. HSRT (High Speed Rail Transportation – reverse magnetic polarity monorail's as in Japan and elsewhere, hydrogen cars, and everything else we can come up with is the solution. One thing that IS NOT the answer is the present status quo. Our nation must be made aware and made to believe that this is not only urgent but a doable task. There is a hidden plus to this – JOBS!. We simply must emplore tactic's similar to the old WPA program Mr. Roosevelt used and turn our country around and off of the oil addiction we are on. Even third world country's wont take our cars. You can't market one in China even due to the fact that they do not meet the Chinese governments environmental standards. It's a disgrace. God Bless all of you for taking an attack stance on this subject. This is the WAR we must win or our grandchildren will not have an Earth as we know it.

By: P_Top

P_Top — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 05:43:12 +0000

To the poeple against this and the authur (using .gov info that is 6 years old) is this ?. Are you all making a living off of oil or a company that makes its money from the oil industry? Jeng and PatrickS said all i was thinking while reading your out of date and one sided info. If your going to care about these issues be part of embracing any way away from gasoline starting with ev's that we watched gm and the gov kill then move to phev and watch it morph into the hydrogen vehicle, because the hydrogen vehicle is a phev using hydrogen as the range extender. the ev conversion market is very strong. picture a day when you can drive your first vehicle or a 57 chevy powered by a more clean way than anyone has ever dreamed use your power and energy to help not cut down some miner set backs and consevitive ways of thinking. the more of these vehicles on the road the more accustome people will become. Well if your rich because of oil then i understand the way you talk.

By: johnshaw

johnshaw — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:18:53 +0000

The problem with a hydrogen grid (pipeline network) is cost. To build a pipeline network now would be extremely expensive due to the need to buy the land and lay pipe. Also, compressing and pumping H2 is very inefficient and expensive. This would be on top of the expense and inefficiency of converting electric power to H2 through electrolysis of water.

It would be far cheaper to connect wind power or solar power to the existing electric grid to reduce the need to produce power by burning coal.

The problem with hydrogen is that it is not a source of energy. The hydrogen that exist in nature is already in molecules of water or hydrocarbons (natural gas, oil, coal). The amount of energy that it takes to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen (water molecule) or carbon (hydrocarbon molecule) is the same at the amount of energy that would be produced by a fuel cell or hydrogen combustion, assuming perfect efficiency. Of course there is no such thing as perfect efficiency. The actual efficiencies would be far from perfect.

Because, at normal temperatures and pressures, the amount of space that would be required for a given energy content of hydrogen is extremely large, it would be necessary to compress or liquefy the hydrogen. These process consume large amounts of energy.

We must keep in mind that if the objective is to reduce consumption of oil or production of greenhouse gas, hydrogen is not an alternative energy source. It can function only as a means of storage or transportation of energy, but a very poor means at that.