Well Chris....I didn't mean to start a fight...actually I think we're in agreement on most of this. What I have read about how California plans to produce their Hydrogen is pretty much on the mark with what I related, which is a crazy idea, which is what I thought you were refering to. If you're going to burn hydrocarbons to generate electricity to power electric/hydrogen cars...well that makes no sense to me at all. Americans are overly afraid of nuclear power and once again, we're going to need about 50 new nuclear power plants and nobody has built one in ?20? years in the US. Even without converting completely to Hydrogen fuel we are going to need these plants as we soon will not be able to afford to buy fuel from the Middle East.

Although....the one thing I'm not interested in is driving around in a car that has extremely high pressure hydrogen tank in it. Talk about a fireball waiting to happen. But when Audi builds me TT with a fuel cell in it that isn't prone to blow sky high and still goes 130mph and will go 400 miles....count me in.

Rogerb

Yes, I agree that the plan to burn oil to make hydrogen is stupid. ( and I don't see it as a fight at all)

But then, when it comes to nuclear energy, Americans tend to be stupid.


As bad a Chernobyl was.... film footage from that area shows a paradise... the animals and plants thriving... And the fallout? A 50% increase in thyroid cancers over the next 40 years?


Since only 12 in 100,000 people get thyroid cancer, on average... that means 6 additional thyroid cancers per year.... and its one of the most treatable forms of cancer, to boot.

As to the high pressure hydrogen tank?


Probably would not be that.... since it simply can't hold enough hydrogen.... but even so... High pressure hydrogen tanks are far safer than gas tanks.

I watched a video test of a HP hydrogen tank... they shot it with a high powered rifle...-- it poked a hole and the hydrogen came out, and dissipated up into the air immediately... they did it again with a source of ignition.... what they got was a little blue flame like a propane torch... it didn't blow up... in fact, they could not get it to blow up...
And even when ruptured catastrophically....the fireball rose into the air and away from the test rig....


Hydrogen is astonishingly safe...
More than half of those aboard the hindenburg survived... because the burning hydrogen went UP instead of down all over them.... and, Under the fireball... it was raining.



But its definitely the "goes 400 miles" part that is the challenge to hyrdrogen...

I might could be happy with 350 miles.....but it still has to go 130mph and zero to 60 in under 5 seconds.....

Currently, they are trying like crazy to fins a way to get enough hydrogen on board a car to enable it to go 300 miles...
A bus... no problem... but a car....

They are actually experimenting with solid materials that actually hold more hydrogen per cubic centimeter than liquid hydrogen!
Not sure what something that absorbs hydrogen would be able to hold more than the pure stuff in liquid form.... but they do it....



As to zero to sixty... Hydrogen engines perform just as good if not better than gas... No soot, the oil stays cleaner, turbos and plugs stay cleaner and the water condensation cools the exhaust.

Chris,

I just refound our thread ...I assumed that a hydrogen car would be a fuel cell? Using the Hydrogen directly to generate electricy. A electric car with a suffiencently powerful electric motor should get great performance. Actually I read an article in Wired a number of years back about people that build their own electric "Hot-Rods". Their cars are pretty fast.

Check this out http://www.nedra.com

If you could free the car from all the batteries?.....