The kind of areas that would be good would be large, flat, sunny and uninhabited, ie desert. Could be that the Middle East will just go from oil to hydrogen production...Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
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The kind of areas that would be good would be large, flat, sunny and uninhabited, ie desert. Could be that the Middle East will just go from oil to hydrogen production...Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
May's point is perfect. Of course, the automobile came along at a time in human history when people were anxious to be able to get off the farm, or not have to walk 20 blocks to catch over crowded trolley's. The average joe back then NEEDED personal transport for his sanity. It has also allowed the growth of the middle class, which for the most part, everyone on this board belongs to. Without the automobile, what would society look like? Pretty elitist society I would think......Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic
Hydrogen is the best way out of the carbon based fuel quandary we are in that will still provide us with cars that operate with the same efficiencies roughly we are used to. Electric cars do not work well enough yet and they may never work well enough yet. The spoof the boys on Top Gear did brought home for me just how poor the electric car still is compared to regular cars. In cold weather climes, they are unusuable since providing heat would drain the battery so fast it wouldn't be funny. Electric cars are nice toys, but for range, practicality the internal combustion engine still is the way to go, and we just need to fuel it with Hydrogen. If hydrogen fuel cells work, then maybe those too, but until someone makes one that works in all conditions, it wont catch on.
The car is part our lives, and that has been a good thing overall, so lets stop the fiction we can do without it. What we have to do is to really push to make it better in a manner that will be beneficial to all users of it and lovers of it AND the planet.
Depends on what kind of hydrogen motor you're thinking of.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
BMW intends to use hydrogen in the same way as petrol, compressing it and burning it. Honda sees it more as a fuel cell system, using the hydrogen to produce electricity.
Re: batteries, I just don't think they're going to take off. They had their chance 100 years ago and lost against a nascent petrol technology. Ultimately people like the convenience of filling their car up quickly and going. Replacing a heavy battery or charging up over minutes isn't going to appeal to the mass market IMO. Then you have the heavy environmental costs of producing masses of batteries and the toxic waste after disposal. The problem is big enough now, what happens when hybrids form a significant minority of the car pool?
In that way hydrogen is the closest in terms of lifestyle change to petrol. You simply go to a filling station and fill the car up for another few hundred miles of motoring. If the market is going to take it up I think they will only accept something that doesn't require a big change in lifestyle.
As usual, you said it better than I Dylan....lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
That's what so many campaigners just don't seem to understand. The car is very much part of our lives, our citys, in fact, practically the entire developed world, has grown up for cars, and you aren't going to get everyone to take the train or bus as it's just not practical. So we need to find a way to make cars work in the long term. Investment from governments in this has been very small indeed so far.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa
One thing we do already have in place, and can be upgraded with existing technologies and hence relatively cheaply, is the electricity grid. Now if that is used to deliver power directly to our homes to power our battery cars, or it's delivered to refineries to produce hydrogen, or even if it is delivered directly to each filling station which produces it's own hydrogen using cheap overnight electricity, remains to be seen!
Which all sounds nice till you look @ this -> http://auto.howstuffworks.com/bmw-h2r.htmQuote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
Hardly technology which is ready for primetime anytime soon.
Government will spend more money and get less results. The Car as it evolves will evolve when it makes business sense to, and while the green agenda is important, it will factor in when the car makers and oil companies can find a way to combine that green movement in a way they can make money off it. Cynical? No...just realistic. There is a demand from the public to make cars greener and more efficient, so in a sense, the carmakers and oil companies are reacting to this and we will see the changes I am sure. I do know this much. Outside of large cities such as London or New York, rarely does public transit meet the needs of anything close to the majority of citizens and rarely does it not need massive subsidies from government. The car isnt' going away. If public transit was so wonderful, I wouldn't be looking for a car right now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
Electric cars are a DEAD END. First off, electricity going into our homes often isn't at the voltage needed for the modern electric car, at least in Canada or the US which are on the 110v standard, so to own an electric car here means having another special outlet added to your home. Secondly, and more important, electric cars SUCK in cold weather. They don't keep their windows warm or their occupants warm without killing a lot of range, and they don't take well to snow and then the salt put on the roads to make them passable. A car that is no good in winter is useless in North America north of the Mason Dixon line and in most of the west for 5 months or more a year. That is a HUGE market. The batteries also are filled with lots of metals that are hard to get rid off afterwards, and they are heavy and a possible issue in crashes. No...the electric car MAY be made better, but why waste time spending money on this technology when Hydrogen is on the cusp of being the winner?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
Sure, but the basic technology works and there are running prototypes already on lease to the public. Its a case of refining the technology and making it cheaper to manufacture.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
I wouldn't write off hydrogen as you appear keen to, after all this time 100 years ago people like you were writing off petrol as opposed to steam or electric, after all both the latter were dependable reliable power units whilst the former was some new-fangled dirty technology that was still in its infancy.
Its still too early to see which source wins out. In fact I think different countries will find different solutions, at least initially. Even now, when we talk about oil powered cars we have rural Americans, Arabs and Australians favouring big lazy V8s, urban Americans, Asians and Brits favouring compact petrol cars whilst continental Europeans go heavily for Diesel to suit local factors.
I can see city states and small countries opting for electricity where range and recharging isn't so much of a problem whilst bigger countries may go for fuel cell or something else.
All I'm saying is that I don't see why people are so keen to say that Hydrogen is definitely the future when we're probably only 10% of the way down the road to finding out the potential of Hydrogen. There are obvious problems with hydrogen as well.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
Plants love other things that are not good for you as well. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop