Using hydrogen as an energy source for ground transportation, despite
being the pipe dream of Greens everywhere, has not made an entry into
the market because it is technolgically and economically unfeasible
until the price of oil reaches at least $60 per barrel, i.e. not in the
forseeable future. Remember, you need to make that hydrogen at power
plants, and without nuclear plants, we are talking about fossil fuels
(if all of the wind and water power in the world were harnessed with no
consideration for environmental effects, it would add up to less than
15% of current demand; with automobile power demands on the grid, expect
this to be less than 3% of demand). While the concept of producing all
power at power plants where generators run at maximum efficiency
(75-95%) on a constant basis is an optimum one, using hydrogen as a
medium of transporting that power is not.
WHile hydrogen is light, it is also very bulky, and has a very lower
power density, as bad or worse than current electric batteries. It is
also extremely corrosive, making storeage, pumping, and engine parts
very expensive to build and maintain. Use of this fuel is also not 100%
efficient either, contrary to the prior writers statement. The most
efficient hydrolysis of water attains 98-99% efficiency, while the
motors in cars that would burn the hydrogen have the same levels of
inefficiency as current motors, as that is what they are. An internal
combustion motor is at shaft typically 45% efficient, while the
efficiencies of the power train and surface and atmospheric drag cause
this rate to be degraded to around 18-24% or less, no matter what fuel
is burned. Hydrogen also burns very hot, requiring materials of higher
temperature endurance than normal engines.
Until fuel cells become compact enough to be really usefull, which I
think will happen in 5-10 years at most, the optimum power system for a
car is a small 15kW gas turbine generator running electric drive motors
and maintaining an electric charge in a battery system 1/10th the size
of that currently used in electric cars, which is only needed for on
demand power needs (acceleration). The turbine runs at constant max
efficiency, like a large power plant, is compact, with a high power
density.
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@tpk.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/Mikey's Animatronic Factory My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA) MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH) ------------------------------------------------------------ #!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL @k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_ ]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256; &S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}