Hybrids and why they may the be wrong idea...

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Originally Posted by Daniel

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.....

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We are farther than 10%. We are halfway. We know a car can run on Hydrogen and behave more or less like a regular car. The issue is producing the hydrogen and making enough to replace gas and diesel. This is a problem that will be solved when we figure out fusion or some other eco-friendly nuclear solution.

The problems you throw up are there if we go electrical (millions of electric cars will strain the grid just as much as the demands of a hydrogen fuel production system would) are the same.

We have two choices. Go hydrogen, or go electrical. The strain on the production of electricity will be the same, and hydrogen wont cause us to have to use lots of exotic and heavy metals making batteries, which are also a handful to dispose of and process. The water produced from "burning" hydrogen is just counterbalanced by the water we TAKE out of the water cycle to get the hydrogen......

I am sure someone with a physics background will no doubt come up with a theory or explaination of the theroy of conservation of mass and energy, but if BMW and Mazda are spending money on this hydrogen research, it says to me people smarter than us have come to the conclusion this can work.

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

We are farther than 10%. We are halfway. We know a car can run on Hydrogen and behave more or less like a regular car. The issue is producing the hydrogen and making enough to replace gas and diesel. This is a problem that will be solved when we figure out fusion or some other eco-friendly nuclear solution.

The problems you throw up are there if we go electrical (millions of electric cars will strain the grid just as much as the demands of a hydrogen fuel production system would) are the same.

We have two choices. Go hydrogen, or go electrical. The strain on the production of electricity will be the same, and hydrogen wont cause us to have to use lots of exotic and heavy metals making batteries, which are also a handful to dispose of and process. The water produced from "burning" hydrogen is just counterbalanced by the water we TAKE out of the water cycle to get the hydrogen......

I am sure someone with a physics background will no doubt come up with a theory or explaination of the theroy of conservation of mass and energy, but if BMW and Mazda are spending money on this hydrogen research, it says to me people smarter than us have come to the conclusion this can work.

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The thing is we already have an electrical distribution system in place already.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

The thing is we already have an electrical distribution system in place already.

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Daniel, here is the issue. You put a MILLION cars on the grid every night in a city of 2 million, how many more kilowatts of power will THAT require? Have you seen the backlash and hoops regulatory agencies put up for utlity companies to build new plants? Windmills and solar wont meet that extra demand I can assure you. The infrastructure of the grid in many nations isn't robust enough to handle THAT demand if everyone bought the cars, and you still IGNORE my point that in cold weather, electric cars are USELESS. You lived in a country that was damn near crippled because of snow for 2 weeks, and you conveniently ignore my point that an electric car would be no good. If your power was knocked out, and your car needed charging, I guess you would also be SOL. Electric cars have been around for a 100 years and there is a reason they still are not popular. THEY do NOT work for most people. They are a toy for the rich to play with or the enviromentally paranoid to hold over the rest of us....

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Daniel, here is the issue. You put a MILLION cars on the grid every night in a city of 2 million, how many more kilowatts of power will THAT require? Have you seen the backlash and hoops regulatory agencies put up for utlity companies to build new plants? Windmills and solar wont meet that extra demand I can assure you. The infrastructure of the grid in many nations isn't robust enough to handle THAT demand if everyone bought the cars, and you still IGNORE my point that in cold weather, electric cars are USELESS. You lived in a country that was damn near crippled because of snow for 2 weeks, and you conveniently ignore my point that an electric car would be no good. If your power was knocked out, and your car needed charging, I guess you would also be SOL. Electric cars have been around for a 100 years and there is a reason they still are not popular. THEY do NOT work for most people. They are a toy for the rich to play with or the enviromentally paranoid to hold over the rest of us....

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I'm confused. You say there's a problem with having enough power for battery powered cars yet there's going to be enough power in the future to make all that hydrogen? Which is it?

There's a difference between adding bits onto a network like telephone companies do with communications networks and making a whole new network of pipes and storage.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

I'm confused. You say there's a problem with having enough power for battery powered cars yet there's going to be enough power in the future to make all that hydrogen? Which is it?

There's a difference between adding bits onto a network like telephone companies do with communications networks and making a whole new network of pipes and storage.

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Daniel thinks Electrics are the answer NOW. So ok, put a million electric cars on the road in the next two years and watch the price of electricity skyrocket because there isn't enough new capacity to handle it. If we go Hydrogen, that demand will not come on line until the distribution of it and large scale manufacturing of it is solved. THAT is a down the road, and if a major oil company decided to go into a large scale production of hydrogen to meet the demands of a large hydrogen car market, you ever think they will just build their own nuclear power operations to operate independent of the grid? IT can be planned for. Furthermore, you still haven't solved the problems of the electric car.

Neither Electrics nor Hydrogen are ready YET, but unlike Daniel, I don't see Electrics as the future because the cars don't work and yet have had 100 years of work done on them. Hydrogen is something BMW and a few others have been working with in the last decade, and as cars work FAR better than the electric/battery counterparts. The distribution of hydrogen is the issue, and when a method of producing it in large amounts for the right price is solved, the car itself is ready. Electric cars? 100 years on, and they still wont work in adverse conditions, which you guys in the UK just had a mere taste of. Try that for 6 monthes....

Understand this Daniel, If you make an electric car go 600 kms on a charge for 40 dollars Canadian and performs as my gas powered car does, then I will be on board. I am willing to go on record that we will have a hydrogen economy before an electric car ever performs THAT well.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

I'm confused. You say there's a problem with having enough power for battery powered cars yet there's going to be enough power in the future to make all that hydrogen? Which is it?

There's a difference between adding bits onto a network like telephone companies do with communications networks and making a whole new network of pipes and storage.

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Hydrogen can be produced without using the current electrical power system. Solar power and any good heat source can be used to produce hydrogen.

Mark is right, both the US and the UK are already near their power generation limits and both are facing the fact that their nuclear power plants are reaching the end of their lives without replacements having been sorted. We're going to be short of electrical power and won't have excess power to divert to cars.

Regarding the lack of a distribution network, going to hydrogen won't be that difficult. Looking historically, petrol beat steam to power cars. Steam already had a distribution network with plenty of people and organisations around with the ability to maintain steam engines. Noone had difficulty obtaining coal and water. Petrol had to have a distribution network built from scratch. Guess what, the consumer chose petrol over steam and the distribution network was built. People were willing to invest capital in petrol distribution knowing there was a demand. It'll be the same for hydrogen.

Building a distribution network for hydrogen won't be as hard work as building a petrol network from scratch, after all we already have expertise distributing large quantities of volatile liquid safely. Much of the hard work has already been done, we already have petrol stations which can easily be modified and the public don't need any introduction to the concept of taking their cars to such a place and filling them up with fuel.

The fact is that in Britain we've seen LPG become widely available without much of a fuss. Distributing LPG safely is a similar challenge to distributing hydrogen yet that network was built up easily without problems. If hydrogen takes off it won't be long before that becomes widely available too.

Dylan, you as always build a very cogent argument. I couldn't find fault with any of your points even if I wanted to.

What people fail to forget was the ability of the gas powered car to be a better product is what won the day. The Electric car is an inferior product to the Gasoline one. Even the most ardent Green thinking car owners (an oxymoron? No, even renowned eco-activists such as Darryl Hannah and Ed Begley Jr. still own cars) either drive cars that are diesels running on recycled fry grease (Hannah) or Hybrids (Begley Jr.). Why? Because they WORK and are practical. Electric cars have never solved the issues of range and ability to handle adverse conditions. No one wants a car that will need someone to plug it in to get home, nor will anyone want a car that will not keep them cool when it is 100 degrees F or warm in the winter. IF you ask the electric to do either, the range is decimated.

The electric car is a toy....and has been. It works fine if it is a golf cart or a forklift, but forget it as practical transportation for the real world. NEVER Mind the demand for power....

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Originally Posted by Daniel

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.....

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Yes there are plenty of problems with hydrogen, and I don't think its definitely the future. I certainly don't think it is the ONLY future, and I think for decades we will have a wide choice of power units, from fully electric to fuel cell, petrol, Diesel and hybrids. Things will change and I think its far too early to write off petrol and Diesel for a long while. One thing is clear though, unless you live in a city state or a tiny country like Israel electric cars won't be the dominant type.

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Dylan, you as always build a very cogent argument. I couldn't find fault with any of your points even if I wanted to.

What people fail to forget was the ability of the gas powered car to be a better product is what won the day. The Electric car is an inferior product to the Gasoline one. Even the most ardent Green thinking car owners (an oxymoron? No, even renowned eco-activists such as Darryl Hannah and Ed Begley Jr. still own cars) either drive cars that are diesels running on recycled fry grease (Hannah) or Hybrids (Begley Jr.). Why? Because they WORK and are practical. Electric cars have never solved the issues of range and ability to handle adverse conditions. No one wants a car that will need someone to plug it in to get home, nor will anyone want a car that will not keep them cool when it is 100 degrees F or warm in the winter. IF you ask the electric to do either, the range is decimated.

The electric car is a toy....and has been. It works fine if it is a golf cart or a forklift, but forget it as practical transportation for the real world. NEVER Mind the demand for power....

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Electric cars 100 years ago were a formidable opponent for petrol powered cars though, they were clean, instantly powered up and there was little risk of injury starting them up (unlike petrol). They were powerful and torquey and had fewer parts to go wrong. Yet despite these advantages, people STILL preferred petrol over electric, especially once the starter motor came along.

I can see strong arguments for electric cars now but there were reasons it lost out the first time round and they haven't really gone away....