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Half-baked opinions, served lukewarm.

Why Hydrogen Sucks

matthew's picture

OK, folks, I've been taking some flak at work for opposing hydrogen-powered cars. For a thorough look at why hydrogen is currently an awful choice to drive your car around, I refer you to here:

http://mb-soft.com/public2/hydrogen.html

To sum up:

  • It costs seven times as much power to generate the hydrogen -- usually via coal-fired power plants -- as you can get out of it driving around.
  • Without substantial investment in energy-producing infrastructure (read: solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear), a hydrogen economy is not possible.
  • The storage requirements for hydrogen are awful and extremely heavy. Smart people are working on this via hydrogen gels, but at present, it's still a pipe-dream.
  • Methane (natural gas) is a better choice for the short-term, and we have abundant resources to create it in a renewable fashion, unlike gasoline.
  • Hydrogen, ultimately, is an immensely expensive, dangerous, and inefficient method of producing power for cars. The only net benefit versus alternative powering systems is cleaner air around cities... which may be a useful goal in itself, but is not the goal being pitched to the American public.

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Sammy G's picture

But air doesn't suck

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/08/08/air.car/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Neither does inventing a transporter device, a la Star Trek.