Re: Hydrogen? Dream or reality?
whoa guys there a few billion dollar company's that sell fuel cells today. There are many applications where they need energy 24x7x365.<br /><br />what one post mentioned is true hydrogen is a fantastic storage device.<br /><br />Use wind farms, solar, sea farms, to produce electric, coal plants in wv, or even mexico which produces hydrogen the hydrogen is then pumped to where it is needed - something you cannot do with electric. <br /><br /> Electricity needs 2 things<br /><br />1 to be produced near where it will be used, <br /><br />2 needs to be made for max peak demand. So the electric plants are way over engineered to begin with.<br /><br />The first uses of hydrogen will be at the home, where you will have a fuel cell to produce the electricity that the home needs. <br /><br />Produce the electricity where it is cheapest to produce, hydro in remote canada, wind in ND, solar arrays in Nevada/mexico, make they hydrogen and pipe it to where it is needed.<br /><br />A solar array the size of TX would produce all of the energy the US needs all by itself.<br /><br />2nd will be cars<br /><br />The issue with cars is that the cost to the wheel of hydrogen versus gasoline. Until the cost of oil reaches 70-80 per barrel and stays there then hydrogen is NOT cost effective.<br /><br />With oil at 60 you see alternative sources biodiesel, ethanol etc coming into play. When oil is at 50 those fuels cannot compete beyond their local markets.<br /><br />Corn right now, due to biotech, produces 26% more energy then it takes to produce it. In essence corn is solar power. However ethanol only has something like 66% of the energy in a gallon that gasoline does. So as these numbers come into a better balance and advances are made in other areas. Better biotech making better corn. Then these technologies will come into play.<br /><br />Again as the price of oil goes up there are many alternative sources of energy out there and you will see them come into play.<br /><br />The magic number for oil is 60-70 a barrel and it must stay there for investors to invest in other forms of energy production.<br /><br />After doubling in size, then doubling again the past few years, the ethanol industry consists of 95 U.S. plants that produced 4 billion gallons last year. That's only enough to replace 3% of the 140 billion gallons of gasoline the USA burned last year. And it's almost ridiculously far from the 119 billion gallons of ethanol necessary for a nationwide switch to E85.<br /><br />An additional 32 ethanol plants are under construction, and nine are being expanded. That will add about 1.8 billion more gallons annually but still leaves ethanol a bit player in the fuel game.<br /><br />Again there is much effort being put into finding MORE oil to keep the price low versus creating alternate energy sources. <br /><br />IMHO <br /><br />Hydro cars are not that far off. Here is the scenario.<br /><br />You have 2 cars 1 will be hydro<br /><br />The hydro car is hooked up to the house so that it powers the house during the normal operations, when you leave the house you dont need the power requirements so you run the house of the electric grid. The hydro car is used for around town, limit of 200 miles per tank, but for most people 200 is plenty, remember you fill it up each night in the garage. The second car is gasoline and that is the long range car.<br /><br />Cities with major air pollution will provide credits to the people who buy and use these cars.<br /><br />As far as being more explosive - not much difference between 4 sticks of dynamite and 8 in the fuel tank of your car.<br /><br />Pressurized tanks will go the route of the blue rhino propane tanks, you wont pull up and fill your tank - you swap it out for a full one and the leave the old one behind. They think you will have a combo tank, one that is not pressurized but for local driving and if you want to go long distance you plug in the pressurized tank.<br /><br />IMHO hydro will be first in China, as they make more money they will buy NEW cars not replacement and their air quality will make it easier<br /><br />- I have read up on this for the past 5 years and I wondered the same thing <br /><br /><br />Tomatolord
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