PowerSwitch

This is quite interesting.

http://fifthgear.five.tv/jsp/5gmain.jsp?lnk=101&id=1198

Fuel cells are the holy grail of environmentally sound cars. They convert hydrogen to electricity with the only by-product being water vapour, creating a truly zero-emission vehicle (unlike battery powered electric cars, which just move the pollution from the exhaust pipe to the power station).

What rot. That statement would only be true if there was a zero emission source of hydrogen available. There is no more a zero emission source of hydrogen available than a zero emission source of electricity available.

Fair enough there is a limited zero emission source of electricity and therefore hydrogen available through renewable but the statement that hydrogen has an emissions advantage over battery power cars is rubbish.

Woah Chris.

Another link to the hydro-electric facility that produces the hydrogen where they are doing the testing. Also a bit more info.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/mai ... hyd215.xml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4686826.stm

So Chris, am I right in saying you can see no advantage of hydrogen fuel cell cars over electric battery cars? Do you think this will be the case in 10 years from now too?

snow hope wrote:Woah Chris.

So Chris, am I right in saying you can see no advantage of hydrogen fuel cell cars over electric battery cars? Do you think this will be the case in 10 years from now too?

Yeah sorry... I shouldn't let it get to me.

That comparison with battery powered cars just got my goat - to suggest that battery cars are bad because of emissions at the point of electricity generation yet hydrogen cars are clean is a straight out lie. If the hydrogen was generated from zero emission electricity then that zero emission electricity could be used to charge the battery, likewise if the hydrogen was manufactured from natural gas or some other fossil fuel then emissions would have occurred.

Advantages of hydrogen fuel cells over batteries... at the level of the single car there are advantages (lighter, greater energy density, longer range, faster refuel etc) but looking at the whole system I see very little advantage. In fact since we already have all the distribution infrastructure in place for electricity and the cars themselves could charge intelligently, a large fleet of rechargeable cars would allow a far larger amount of variable generating capacity to exist on the network.

My plan for cars - stop making <40mpg petrol/diesel cars, get the fleet average up over 50mpg over the next 10 years whilst also reducing annual mileage by say 5% per year, halving the countries oil consumption as the North Sea declines. So far no new technology required at all.

Then it gets tricky, in 2020 what's going to be tighter? Oil supply or electricity supply? Even with a 2010 global peak oil and rapid North Sea decline I'm doubtful whether electricity would be cheaper and more abundant than oil in the UK given gas decline and nuclear decommission!