Transportation in the future

[halfdome, Danny]

http://youtube.com/v/ry6w3mRm-FM

[KA]

Wow. That is a pretty cool car.
Kris

[Joseph]

I knew they were working on a hyrogen cell car, but I had no idea they'd actually developed a prototype. The steering strikes me as a bit on the dangerous side, but I imagine it's just a matter of getting used to it.

Now then - how much can it tow?

Joseph

[angib]

That video must be 3 years old as that's how long the RX-8 (at the beginning of that show) has been on sale here.

By coincidence, Mazda is the only manufacturer that has made 'production' hydrogen cars - but only two of them so far!

Andrew

[Leon]

The steering strikes me as a bit on the dangerous side, but I imagine it's just a matter of getting used to it.
Joseph

Not much different than a motorcycle's controls, and the drive by wire has been used for years in aircraft......

[madjack]

I saw a Ford F150 recently on the Discovery Channel that was powered by a Hydrogen Fuel cell....this technology is coming as soon as the oil companies quit paying off the auto companies to suppress it (opps, political rant)
madjack

p.s. think what fuel cell tech means...not just in the automotuve fields but for home power as well...MJ

[Kurt (Indiana)]

I saw a Ford F150 recently on the Discovery Channel that was powered by a Hydrogen Fuel cell....this technology is coming as soon as the oil companies quit paying off the auto companies to suppress it

I wonder if they'll make a conversion kit for my '65 Mustang!!??

I sure hope so.
This reminds me of the post on "water Fuel" several months ago http://www.ebaumsworld.com/2006/06/waterfuel.html

[asianflava]

The steering strikes me as a bit on the dangerous side, but I imagine it's just a matter of getting used to it.
Joseph

Not much different than a motorcycle's controls, and the drive by wire has been used for years in aircraft......

A lot of cars currently on the road have "drive by wire" gas pedals. Honda Civics, (new) VW Beetles and most (don't know if all) BMWs are setup like this.

[halfdome, Danny]

I read a 2 page newspaper article from a former Bonneville Hydroelectric CO a couple years ago and he said Washington state could be the Saudi Arabia of hydrogen fuel . Just the nightly runoff would be a very impressive fuel source. Danny

[asianflava]

Just saw something on the news last night that said there is more oil in Colorado than even the Middle East. The problem is, it is shale oil which is more costly to extract. The reason for the news story is that Shell is experimenting with a method that heats the deposits to get it out. I didn't hear the whole thing because the TV was on the other side of the cafeteria.

Kinda interesting, but who knows if it is just hype.

[doug hodder]

Rocky...they have been working on that for quite a while...as a geologist I punched a ton of holes up in eastern Utah doing oil shale exploration...we got some stuff that you could light up with a match...but then 1982 came along and that pretty much ended it, couldn't swing a cat without hitting an out of work geologist...last thing I did was send off a 55 gal drum of really high grade stuff off to a lab in Japan....and talk about environmental stuff...whooeeee...wait till they want to do that!!! and the target area is absolutely HUGE!!!!Doug

[cracker39]

The shale oil deposits could help as other oil deposits dry up, but I'd rather see the clean air alternative fuel sources such as Hydrogen replace the internal compustion engine in vehicles.

Political rant? I don't think so, Jack. The mega-industries have the $$ to send their lobbyists to DC to buy almost anything they want. And as for paying off other industries to suppress something that would take money from their pocktes, it's done all the time. I've seen some really cool technology appear in the past that woud almost certainly work, but, then it disappeared as suddenly as it appeared. Someone bought the patent and buried it????? Nahhhhh...that wouldn't happen...or would it????

[halfdome, Danny]

In that article I mentioned if hydrogen becomes reality that your local oil company would most likely be your supplier, they would need to invest in the infrastructure though. Danny

[angib]

The thing to remember about hydrogen and fuel cells is that they are only an energy carrier, not an energy source. You still need to have a power station making electricity that is then used to make hydrogen - although the US appears to be committed to also building nuclear power stations that produce hydrogen as another product of the process (see Wikipedia).

As far as I know, a 'conventional' battery is still a more efficient way of converting electricity into power, though you do have to drag the heavy battery around with you and wait a long time to recharge it. For some applications, like urban buses, I don't understand why there seems to be no interest in going back to the trolleybus - though I see Boston still has some.

The value of hydrogen is that it allows the promise that everything can go on just the same as now, with only the refuelling method changing slightly. The belief in a technological solution does seem to be particularly strong in the US. I think Yurpeens tend to be less certain that everything will go on just the same and more likely to think that the world will change fairly radically - perhaps to the point where 'private transport' means whatever you can do with your own legs!

Andrew
(member, Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and other Professional Thinking Persons (AUPSLPTP)*)
*H2G2 quote

[Dave Bob]

The thing to remember about hydrogen and fuel cells is that they are only an energy carrier, not an energy source. You still need to have a power station making electricity that is then used to make hydrogen - although the US appears to be committed to also building nuclear power stations that produce hydrogen as another product of the process (see Wikipedia).

As far as I know, a 'conventional' battery is still a more efficient way of converting electricity into power, though you do have to drag the heavy battery around with you and wait a long time to recharge it. For some applications, like urban buses, I don't understand why there seems to be no interest in going back to the trolleybus - though I see Boston still has some.

The value of hydrogen is that it allows the promise that everything can go on just the same as now, with only the refuelling method changing slightly. The belief in a technological solution does seem to be particularly strong in the US.

Andrew is right on there. If you listen to the talking heads, hydrogen is the salvation of everyone. The simple fact is it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than it can possibly make, so negative return there.

Biodiesel and other biofuels are a much better way to go. This also has problems because that takes huge tracts of land to grow the rapeseed, corn or other crops to turn into alternate fuels.

With a cheap source of electricity (maybe solar some time in the future) the hydrogen economy may be feasable, but there are major hurdles to get there, infrastructure, transport , storage among other things. These things can be overcome but it will take a while.

In the meantime conservation ( I know thats a dirty word to a lot of folks) is something we can all do to help out.

Dave