As I responded in my update to the article, my comment refers to the feasibility of using hydrogen to power automobiles. It is feasible for other uses.
There are many other options, and the best I think are bio-diesel and battery powered EVs and PHEVs. The nice thing about electric vehicles is that it doesn’t matter where you get your electricity from, so you can get it from coal now, you can get if from wind/solar when it becomes available to you, and you can get it from fusion, etc. in the future (whatever comes about).
I am not a “battery only guy”. I would love nothing better than for hydrogen to be a viable resource that we can use to power vehicles. Even if it were feasible, I suspect that collecting the water that would come out of the tailpipe would not be feasible, because it would have to be stored on-board, or else it would become contaminated. Storing it on-board is not going to be feasible, because it will increase the weight of the car dramatically and would require very large amounts of storage volume.
Perhaps you didn’t bother to read the numerous other sources cited in the article, not to mention the numerous facts from the Wikipedia article, nor the numerous citations on which the Wikipedia article is based, nor the resources at the bottom of the article.
I’m sorry, Don, but your statements are patently false. While we may not be running out of salt water any time soon, fresh water is in short supply, even in the U.S. California has been in a drought for many years now, Georgia and the Southeast are facing some very serious water shortages, and aquifers across the nation are depleted and are filling up with salt water (in some cases), rendering them useless.
Patrick, please note the clarification that I made on the article. I do not dispute that hydrogen is not useful, for certain applications, it is simply not practical on any large scale, and especially not for automobiles.
The forklift is a perfect example of an appropriate use: forklifts do not have to go very far, can be refueled on-site, and, therefore, do not need to store a large supply of hydrogen.
Another appropriate use is a fuel cell for a large building. In this case, the building would have the storage capacity to make hydrogen feasible.
Thank you for your comments. If you have read some of my other articles, then you know that there are other ways to extend range of EVs, such as battery-swap. Also, I do agree that the solution to oil is a basket of solutions.
Perhaps the article should have been titled “Hydrogen is not the Miracle Fuel of the Future for Cars”, because I did not mean to imply that Hydrogen had no uses for other applications.
While I agree with your main point, that the future solution to the energy problem is a basket of methods, I don’t agree that the problems associated with Hydrogen are likely to be surmounted for transportation uses. There are simply too many better alternatives. As I wrote in another comment response, Hydrogen does have it’s uses in other applications, such as green building, I just don’t see it making a dent for transportation.
Steve Puma is a sustainability and strategy consultant, technologist and writer. He lives with his wife Cori and pug dog Miles in Northern California. More...
