what do you guys think?

http://www.msnbc.com/news/865910.asp?cp1=1#BODY

 

I think it's a great step ahead. Sure, I love internal-combustion engines, but I think hydrogen-cell cars are the next step. Zero-emmisions (harmful ones anyway) are great for the enviornment, and moving away from fossil fuels means we don't have to rely on importing oil from wherever to keep up with the demand.

Thumbs up, so long as it happens

 

Oh, and toward the end of the article, the damn enviornmentalists are bitching about this because they say the "Big 3" domestics aren't doing anything like toyota or honda with their hybrids... But I just saw on car and driver TV last week that GM has a few hybrid's coming out... A sierra (first pickup hybrid), I think a malibu too. Not only that, but the Ford escape is going to have a 2004 hybrid model. Damn hippies, get the facts straight, go complain about something else!

 

cool.

but i don't think it'll be soon that they find an econmical method to create enough hydrogen to make wide-spread fuel cells feasible.

they mention obtaining hydrogen from petroleum but i sure as hell hope they have a better idea than cracking methane to produce hydrogen. that just consumes more fossil fuel and produces ***.

water may be a good source. i don't know what the by-products of that process would be though. i only know a bit about the methane cracking.

 

If you happened to Wreck a hydrogen powered vehicle, wouldn't you have your own little nuclear holocaust?

 

no

http://www.fuelcells.org/fcfaqs.htm#hydrogen


hydrogen bombs are



whatever that means.

hydrogen bombs get their hydrogen from deuterium or tritium, not elemental hydrogen.

 

Yep, separating the extra Neutrons from 2H or 3H produces "nuclear energy", but the bonding (or breaking) of H & O = chemical energy

Here's a link or two which may be helpful:
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid313.php
http://www.fuelcells.org/index.html

Hydrogen is not really as explosive as one might think - there is more hazard with liquid petroleum
because it contains carbon (remember the Pinto problems?).
I think calculations have shown that the energy efficiency of fuel cells using Hydrocarbons (rather than pure Hydrogen) is much greater than internal combustion. Thus, even if such a route was taken, less CO2 is produced per mile driven.
And while it may be costly to perform hydrolysis for H2O separation, that too would likely be far cheaper than the 100's of Billions of $$$ we pour into military enforcement of the foreign oil supplies.
And for the record (funkdaddy, I am not picking on you here), the use of labels to describe folks as "environmentalists" does more harm than good. The labels themselves become offensive. I would think that any one who breathes air or drinks water, etc., has some concern regarding these issues. Thus isn't everyone an "environmentalist"? We all share the same environment!

 

cool.

thanks for the links. the extent of my nuclear knowledge comes from google and reading "the sum of all fears" so i've got some work to do.

 

oh yeah, here's another thread from a while back, discussing the same issues...
You guys need to thank ProtegeMaster - he's the one that got that thread moving, and provided some very cool links...
http://www.protegeclub.com/forum/sho...threadid=13199