[sjn]

It was fuel cells that they were talking about, not hydrogen. A hydrogen powered car can built built today with relativly little cost, it just wouldn't use fuel cells. It would burn it. Current engines can even be converted to hydrogen suprisingly easily.

Of course, theres not much point. Internal combustion hydrogen powered cars have few advantages unless a scalable sustainable way to generate hydrogen without fossil fuels is found.

Wind power, nuclear power, both can generate hydrogen. I keep posting this to multiple threads, but somehow everyone ignores it completely and keeps talking as if hydrogen can only be used in fuel cells, or can only be created from natural gas.

That's because people like their electricity. It's going to be hard enough to keep that going with NG depletion in places such as North America and the UK let alone transferring the majority of energy production to H2 supply for transport.

It's as if a house were on fire, and people were trying to figure out how to put the fire out, and every time someone mentioned water, everyone else would say, "what, we don't even have a boat!" And when it was explained that a boat had nothing to do with putting out a house fire, everyone said, "there isn't enough water to completely submerge the house, it will never work".

Nonsense, it's more like we've got only just enough water to keep everybody alive so we're better off letting the house burn; probably wise to pull down the neighbouring structures though...

And when it was explained that completely submerging the house was not necessary, everyone said, "look, you're not being realistic, the house is doomed, accept it".

[abelardlindsay]

Apparently he got a patent in 1984 for that solar panel technology. He is not a quack,this is well known ... the question is does he have something that can be mass produced or not. MIT has a page on him here

I watched the show and read the profile at MIT's website. Wow! This guy is obviously not a quack! If anybody is going to save the world from peak oil it'll be this guy! He figured out a way to mass produce cheap solar panels and he's currently rolling them out of his factory and selling them in mass quantities. This guy is a genius! Check out his company Here

[Devil]

Wind power, nuclear power, both can generate hydrogen. I keep posting this to multiple threads, but somehow everyone ignores it completely .

Maybe it is ignored because high-efficiency electrolysers MUST operate 24/7 to maintain their efficiency: OK for nuclear but not for wind/solar. However, much more energy can be had by using the electricity directly than by using the hydrogen this generated. See http://www.cypenv.org/Files/hydrogen.htm

[khebab]

Does somebody known the performances and cost of their thin-film photovoltaic system?

[Jaymax]

can someone post the full show titles etc - I'd ask for a .torrent link, but that might be breaking some site rule?

--J

[Aaron]

No

This one

NOVA

[ChumpusRex]

Metal hydrides have been a recognised way of storing hydrogen for many years. However, there have always been difficulties. The main one being energy density - current hydrides only store about 3% w/w hydrogen, although in terms of volumetric density, this can be almost as good as cryogenic storage.

As discussed in the film, the Nikel Metal hydride battery relies on the storage of hydrogen with a special metal alloy, that can reversibly form a hydride.

The predecessor to NiMH was the Nike-hydrogen battery - lighter than NiCd, it found use in spacecraft - but the disadvantage was the need to have large tanks which would store the hydrogen produced during charging - so that it could be returned to the battery during discharge.

The discovery of metal alloys, mainly based on rare earth metals like Lanthanum, which readily, and reversibly formed hydrides made a new battery possible - Instead of hydrogen tanks, the hydrogen could be stored within the structure of the battery itself.

Some techincal reading about hydrides:
http://hydrogen.msd.anl.gov/hydrogen_storage.html

[spot5050]

What I found interesting about the article was that it said that the MIT automotive research lab director has told congress that fuel cells are "at least 40, 50 years away".

Contributors to PO.com can debate the relevance of fuel cells, but it's a different matter if MIT tell Congress that affordable hydrogen-powered transport is decades away.

Are you trying to state that the opinion of the director of MIT carries more weight because he happens to be heading a prestigious engineering college?

No I found it interesting because when he says it, it has a higher impact than if you or I say it (with respect).

I don't doubt there's a lot of people out there who are more knowledgeable then me but the one question you have to ask is:

Is this guy telling the truth? Maybe he's claiming hydrogen has potential so his college can get more research money from the feds? Ever thought of that?

If that was the case, don't you think he would choose a shorter timescale?

[Caoimhan]

Okay, this is my first post in this forum, but reading all the hype about hydrogen is just getting me angry. I can't help but to think of all the money that's being sunk into it that could be used for more practical solutions. Add in that it's the big petroleum companies and their cronies in the big auto corporations and government who are pushing this...

It really makes me want to grab the lapels of their Armani suits and just shake some sense into them.

Listen... hydrogen fuel cells are a pretty cool technology. It appeals to the techno-geek in me... but THEY ARE NOT A SOLUTION TO THE IMPENDING OIL PRODUCTION SHORTAGE, neither are they as clean as some people claim.

[SchroedingersCat]

Two things about the 'hydrogen solution' that really get my goat:

-It's primarily a way to transition corporate welfare from the fossil fuel sector to something new;

- Hydrogen, if it leaks into the atmosphere, has a very high probability of further damaging the ozone layer. And...fuel cells output water vapor. The worst of all the greenhouse gases! Much worse than C02.

Yeah, great solution.

[Sys1]

You should also add that hydrogen is not an energy source but an energy carrier and that we would have a lack of platinium to craft millions of hydrogen motors...

[JudoCow09]

Yes. Pure Hydrogen is pointless as we could never store it easily or really mass-produce fuel cells. However, combining hydrogen with other elements, chemicals, or molecules may work.

...why did Henry Ford have to go out and invent the car? He couldn't of invented something that wouldn't play out to be the number one impending problem of PO.

[turmoil]

Thinking abiotic oil will save us is equally unnerving.

[MonteQuest]

Yes. Pure Hydrogen is pointless as we could never store it easily or really mass-produce fuel cells. However, combining hydrogen with other elements, chemicals, or molecules may work.

...why did Henry Ford have to go out and invent the car? He couldn't of invented something that wouldn't play out to be the number one impending problem of PO.

Pointless? In the Energy forum you posted this:

Why can't Hydrogen work? Sure, it can't replace plastics, but if Hydrogen can work in cars, it can power the world. Oil is mainly needed to power the world then a few other things, but we can use hydrogen to replace oil altogether in the burning point. It's just a matter of changing everything we use now to use hydrogen. If we had wide-spread effort to do this, the world could. Orginally we would need natural gas to extract hydrogen(although certain chemical reactions would also make hydrogen), but eventually we may very well be able to extract hydrogen using hydrogen. As long as we used a smaller amount of hydrogen to make more of what went in to making it.

Ignorance to expertise?

I smell a rat.

[MD]

Confusion reigns supreme. Hey, maybe it's time to dig up a fusion thread again?

[Maddog]

So what exactly is the problem with hydrogen. It sounds like a reasonable alternative. I mean, there are a lot of car companies investing money in Hydrogen Fuel Cells. Why would they do that if it would prove to be useless?

[JudoCow09]

So what exactly is the problem with hydrogen. It sounds like a reasonable alternative. I mean, there are a lot of car companies investing money in Hydrogen Fuel Cells. Why would they do that if it would prove to be useless?

People believe that Car Companies are investing money into these such projects because basically they say they have a revolutionary idea that will save us from PO and ask if anyone wants to support them.

Monte:
Trying to prove I'm a rat will not work for a good reason. I'm not. It's really hard to tell a cow it's a turkey and convince the rest of the world of the same thing. Yes, you can be wrong and let's leave it at that.

People learn. People read. I learned that pure hydrogen wouldn't work as well as other alternatives. When I wrote that post, I didn't know the storage problems of hydrogen let alone that fuel cells needed metals that were scarce.

[MonteQuest]

So what exactly is the problem with hydrogen. It sounds like a reasonable alternative. I mean, there are a lot of car companies investing money in Hydrogen Fuel Cells. Why would they do that if it would prove to be useless?

Let's debate the issue of viability in the Energy forum, ok?

But to be succinct, it is not an energy source.

[MonteQuest]

Monte:
Trying to prove I'm a rat will not work for a good reason. I'm not. It's really hard to tell a cow it's a turkey and convince the rest of the world of the same thing. Yes, you can be wrong and let's leave it at that.

People learn. People read. I learned that pure hydrogen wouldn't work as well as other alternatives. When I wrote that post, I didn't know the storage problems of hydrogen let alone that fuel cells needed metals that were scarce.

Then spend more time reading and learning and less posting and you will avoid these contradictions. You weigh in here like you have a grasp on the issue and yet you admit you just learned it.

You are parroting facts that you don't yet understand.

[JudoCow09]

I understand basic facts. No, I can't tell you how a fuel cell works. But I do know these facts. I do comprehend them. And I didn't state false things. I didn't anger anyone did I? Not many people including you would argue with the first statement I made in this forum. We all pretty much in agreement that's no lie.