Safe Speed Forums

"Transport News Brief

Week 49, Monday 3 December, 2007

No future for hydrogen

Hydrogen and fuel cells have no future as replacements for petrol or diesel in the immediate future, said James Woolsey, the guest speaker at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders' highly acclaimed annual dinner last week. Former CIA chief and now chairman of the US Advisory Board of the Clean Fuels Foundation, Woolsey is a key player in the environmental debate. "Hydrogen and fuel cells are not the way to go. The decision by the Bush administration and the State of California to follow the hydrogen highway is the single worst decision in the past few years." He said a hydrogen infrastructure will cost the US alone one trillion dollars. "In the meantime you have to bring down the cost of a fuel cell vehicle by a factor of about 40 or 50 to make it affordable." Woolsey sees a bright future for 'plug-in' hybrid electric vehicles - using both an electric motor and a conventional petrol or diesel engine, as 78% of cars in the US do less than 40 miles a day. This is well within the range of electric power, would cut the dependence on oil and keep the option to do longer journeys. And using off-peak, overnight, charging would avoid the need for a big increase in the output of America's electricity grid. "The important thing is that there should not be a single solution or decision by governments. There should be a portfolio of ideas," he concluded."

Great. Nice one, Ken!

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

Sorry, is this not the same guy who has just spent millions on buying... err... hydrogen buses?

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Andrew.

That is exactly what I mean! An expert -a real expert- says that Hydrogen power is not a viable option for the moment and Ken Livingstone goes ahead and buys a whole load of Hydrogen buses!

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

Ken Livinghell is never wrong. He just gets bad advice.
In any case, hydrogen for cars being a non starter doesn't mean that buses are going to be a failure. So what anyway, we're paying for them, so what does KL care ?

I know it’s a bit off topic I but didn’t want to start another thread. I noticed this snippet in the Sun Newspaper at the weekend; don’t know how true it is but …

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Just off the top of my head, Carbon Dioxide = CO2; Carbon Monoxide = CO. Not many H2 molecules there.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

The idea is that CO can be used as a chemical feedstock to combine with hydrogen to produce a synthetic liquid fuel not unlike the ones we are familiar with

If it can be got to work this is, most definatly, the way to go. Failing that Using hydrogen to platform (Lighten IYSWIM) oil and even coal is a good halfway point since it is a way of extending the life of these resourses.

Now, I admit that for those who worry about such things. Platforming oil and coal wont eliminate CO2 emissions. But it would reduce them.

My prefererd Hydrogen production technology is http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2003/pdf/schultz.pdf See also http://gt-mhr.ga.com/index.html

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

If I fit a saturn V rocket to my van can I register it as biofuel/hydrogen powered and pay no congestion charge?

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

I believe a rocket powered vehicle is not "mechanically propelled" and so is exempt from most of the road traffic act laws. Including speed limits.

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Andrew.

Nice one in local paper "Totnes Times"
Front page article informing the public that an "inventor" intends to create 600 jobs at a local methane conversion plant, converting 1000 cars a month. Apparently the source of the methane would be human and vegetable waste, of which there is "an abundant supply" according to one Raffe Tticombe-James, the source of this ground breaking piece of news.
I haven't been able to discover any link to Monty Python so far, nor is it early April, so I assume the story must be true.
Maybe Red Ken would go for that one? plenty of S--t in London!

Sorry, that should be TITcombe-James..

I was at the SMMT event in London. What wasn't mentioned was that the content of Mr Woolsey's 30 minute address was not about the environment at all but America's dependency on the Middle East for oil. There is big concern that Saudi government which is friendly to the west could easily collapse if there was a regime change. This is being viewed as extremely likely in the next 5-10 years.

He is right about Hydrogen.....it looks good on paper but in reality it is a pipe dream with current technology.

This issue is like many others. It has been dumbed-down so politicians can understand it. Unfortunately it results in dumb decisions

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Speed camera policy Kills