pic: Cool, but depressing...

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by Jim E

Don't think Hydrogen fuel cells are the answer. The big oil companies are going to regulate them too just like they do gasoline now.

Where will the hydrogen come from? OIL. They will inject the CO2 released from extracting the hydrogen deep into the Earth to prevent it(theoretical) from escaping into the atmosphere. The propaganda will be clean energy since the fuel cell doesn't pollute to the air.

Extracting hydrogen from petrochemicals is one of the most inefficient processes and more polluting as far as CO2 release. It is worse than burning gasoline.

Don't take my word for it. Do your own research. Many of you students take chemistry. Don't be hoodwinked by the hype.

You are our future environment protectors. Wear the banner proud.

My understanding was that hydrogen for fuel cells could from from many places, including electrolysis powered by cleaner energy sources (wind, geothermal, tidal, solar, etc.), and that was the end goal. Inefficient it may be, but if the power for electrolysis comes from cleaner sources, it can provide a cleaner portable power source than either rechargeable batteries (many of which contain really nasty chemicals - cadmium for example) or gasoline (which also contains many really nasty chemicals, and has the obvious climate consequences).

Personally, I think that hydrogen fuel cells, hybrid vehicles, methane powered vehicles, more efficient gasoline engines, etc. are just workarounds that ignore the obvious and somewhat undesirable solution - a shift to mass transit systems being the primary mode of travel.