SciAm article on cleaner cars

bonkey

Just wondering if anyone had read, and had any comments on the article in this month's Scientific American which looks at the relative efficiency of the proposed cleaner cars.

They looked at the total energy cost - including the cost of processing, transporting, etc. the fuels used and other "hidden" factors as well as the vehicle emissions itself.

Rather surprisingly, they concluded that the two technologies were more or less equal....which gives the hybrid-tech cars the apparent edge as they are a more progressed development which will suffer fewer rollout issues.

One interesting thing for me, though, was that there didn't seem to be any particularly efficient way of manufacturing vast amounts of hydrogen cleanly. Even when using clean electricity, the conversion-cost of conventional methods made the hydrogen too costly in efficiency terms.

I seem to remember reading stuff from Type and others at some stage about clean, cheap / free ways of "generating" hydrogen. Anyne still have anything, or am I imagining things?

jc

Typedef

http://www.hybridcars.com/hydrogen-fuel-cell-cars.html

All about hybrids.

http://www.hybridcars.com/how-hybrids-work.html

Equally I read a link on slashdot recently about how the criteria used to measure hybrid's efficiency are skewed and the cars may not be as efficient as we were all led to believe.

Heres a visual walk though of how hybrids work

http://www.techreview.com/articles/visualize1102flash.asp



True enough Hydrogen as a closed fuel cycle could be wonderful

http://www.tcnj.edu/~energy/altfuel/Hydrogen.htm

The ability to get out more then we put in, in terms of energy or store and transport hydrogen efficiently and safely is a big black hole.

I think that honestly, Solar, Nuclear and hopefully Hydrogen are *the future* in terms of energy production. I don't, see that happening until the fossil fuel starts to run dry and we need a replacement fast, probably in about ... thirty years time, give or take a decade.

Hydrogen fun facts.

http://www.hydrogenus.com/hydrogen-basics.asp

Again though, we always get back to point that Hydrogen technologies are in their infancy and need much further development. Unfortnately the political climate nor the desire to develop Hydrogen as a fuel source exists.

Capt'n Midnight

newsnight last night - several billion $'s will buy you a powerstation. - for the same money insulating several 1,000 buildings will save you enough energy not to need a powerstation.

Hydrogen - storage is the real problem - though batteries that on methane would be a nice compromise - yes kiddies burning H2 or CH4 only uses about 1/3 - 1/4 of the abount of energy you'd get with electric conversions.

Funnily enough over long distances the loss of voltage in electricity cables means the H2 pipes would probably be more efficient for heating puposes than electricity !

bonkey

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
Funnily enough over long distances the loss of voltage in electricity cables means the H2 pipes would probably be more efficient for heating puposes than electricity !

Does this take into account the electrical cost of extracting the hydrogen in whatever manner its done?

jc