Membership looks heavy in industry, light in academia. May get slanted towards vested interests.

The economic trash can called 'hydrogen' remains open for business. Many problems requiring breakthroughs in basic science, and no solutions amenable to mass-production. Stop kicking this dead horse and let the market decide.

You sound exactly like the tobacco execs chanting there is no cancer... grow up.

This would be comical if it wasn't as serious. Hydrogen is a CARRIER FUEL, not a PRIMARY FUEL. There is a world of difference between PRIMARY FUELS and CARRIER FUELS. Primary fuels are the basic starting materials for the energy business. Crude oil, coal and natural gas are examples of PRIMARY FUELS. Carrier fuels are just ways of delivering the energy to the consumer. Electricity is an important CARRIER FUEL. For the sake of this discussion, it would be meaningful to differentiate between oil (primary fuel) and gasoline (carrier fuel).

Right now, it seems like all the discussion is about the CARRIER FUELS: Ethanol and gasoline, diesel and biodiesel, HYDROGEN, butanol, etc. In reality, the CARRIER FUEL does not really matter. For example, many people seem convinced that eventually we will make the shift to renewable hydrogen - living happily ever after in the land of perpetual motion and no pollution. The fact of the matter is that 90% of today's hydrogen comes from non-renewable sources.

Likewise, in most people's minds, gasoline is just another word for refined crude oil. But it is possible to convert renewable feedstocks into gasoline, using biomass-to-liquid (BTL) technology. The German company Choren (http://www.choren.com/en/) is a good example of that.

The debate about the best CARRIER FUEL is of some importance, but to break the addiction to crude, you need an alternative PRIMARY FUEL, regardless of what CARRIER FUEL you end up using. It should be obvious that neither ethanol nor hydrogen is a replacement for crude, since you cannot replace a PRIMARY FUEL with a CARRIER FUEL. The bottom line is this: what is the best PRIMARY FUEL to replace crude?

It should be obvious that FOOD is a terrible PRIMARY FUEL. Would you burn popcorn to keep your house warm? Of course not. There are cheaper and better fuels for warming the house than popcorn, in spite of the fact that popcorn is renewable, locally produced, etc. etc.

The ideal PRIMARY FUEL would be cheap, plentiful and locally available. Call me unimaginative, but I can think of no better PRIMARY FUEL than waste: widely available, cheap (sometimes you can get paid for accepting it) and, in large part, renewable (40% of US landfill waste is PAPER).

How much waste do we have? According to DOE and USDA, we have enough to replace a third of our petroleum use (http://feedstockreview.ornl.gov/pdf/billion_ton_vision.pdf). So here we are, getting excited about the "promise" of replacing 1% of our oil use with food (corn ethanol) when we could be doing 33% with a feedstock that is essentially FREE.

What about the other two-thirds? If it depends on the market, we are stuck with fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. Beyond that, we need an energy crop. Now, the ideal energy crop would be something that grows fast, requires little maintenance/labor and can be harvested mechanically. It should also not require more land than there is available.

The answer, I believe, is ALGAE. Research by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (part of DOE) showed that one could produce about 625 barrels per day of biodiesel on one square mile of pond in the southwestern US (http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24190.pdf). Since biodiesel has roughly the same energy content per gallon as crude oil, 32,000 square miles (about the size of the state of South Carolina) of ponds could produce all the crude oil the US currently consumes. While that is a lot of land, it is less than 5% than the total US cropland. Difficult, but possible.

Now, again, that research was geared towards a specific CARRIER FUEL (biodiesel). The result from the research does not have to be limited to biodiesel, though. Using BTL technology, the algae can be converted to pretty much the exact same gasoline (and diesel) we are using today. The benefits of doing that is obvious: no need to replace the entire fleet of existing vehicles. No need to replace/supplement the fuel supply system. Just a quiet conversion than nobody would even notice.

Lastly, I want to point out that I am not saying that gasoline (and diesel) will remain the CARRIER FUEL of choice forever. But the challenger should be able to beat the reigning champion without outside help, in the ring known as the marketplace. The internal combustion engine did not need government help to replace the horse: it replaced the horse because it was a better technology. In much the same way the CARRIER FUEL of the future should be able to prove itself superior, without being forced down anyone's throat.

An Engineer:
You did not include solar, wind, or wave energy as the primary fuels and electricity as carrier fuel. I would think with development of electricity storage or use of one of the other carrier fuels, these might contribute some portion of the other 2/3s.

JMartin,
Yes, it is quite possible that electricity would make up a part of the remaining 2/3rds. PHEVs is one way to test the waters in that direction. My main concern with large scale solar, wind and wave would be the fact that you cannot easily match demand peaks with production peaks. Hence the requirement for large storage facilities.

The advantage of BTL from waste (WTL anyone?) over wind/solar/wave would be:
1. A fuel that can be stored relatively cheaply until it is needed.
2. The environmental benefits of recycling the intrinsic energy from the waste.
3. The environmental benefits of taking waste and converting it to non-polluting products.
4. The potential to take biohazardous waste (such as medical waste, sewage sludge) and producing sterile products.
5. Potential to recover fertilizer from the wastes in a form that is not hazardous to handle, unlike for example sewage sludge.

Wrong. There will be no one or even 10 primary fuel/s in the future. There will be thousands.

Amoung these are solar wind wave nuke plant oils of a great many types both natural and gm mutant general biomatter of a great many types again both natural and not coal, tar, shale, sweaty fat white men jumping on trampoleens blah blah blah blah.

H2 is such a big deal and so pushed because it does one thing few other fuels can do. It takes out all the customer side issues of pollution and fuel eff. Only the place that makes the fuel will matter.

And while it may not always be easy to make it cheap it will always be easy to make ANYWHERE.

For reference:

$215 million is what the US spends in Iraq in a day, maybe two.

Wintermane,
Mark my words H2 is going nowhere. Fifty years from now (like fifty years ago) scientists will still be predicting that widespread hydrogen use is "at least twenty years" away. Some things never change.

Don't take my word for it. See
1. http://www.physsci.uci.edu/psnews/?id=6
2. http://www.climatesolutions.org/pages/eNewsbulletins/April_2003/hydrogen.htm

Also note that RENEWABLE hydrocarbons (that is gasoline and diesel produced from renewable sources, such as BTL) solves the bulk of the "sustomer side" issues you are so concerned about.

You also need to understand that as a CARRIER FUEL, hydrogen cannot replace crude, coal or other PRIMARY FUELS. Hydrogen can only replace other CARRIER FUELS.

But hydrogen is not a good CARRIER FUEL. Period. The reasons are legion. See the above references for that.

The zinc-air system has all the advantages that hydrogen claims to have plus none of the storage problems. Its biggest disadvantage is that it can't be extracted from fossil fuels. The committee has people from 3 oil companies and 1 coal company.

More hydrohen FACTS for Wintermane: "There are also safety issues: an electrical storm several miles away can ignite hydrogen, as can a slight charge from a cell phone."

Let me just say, I am staying away from any hydrogen vehicle for now...

Sorry, Wintermane, I should include the reference for that quote: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1559637048/sr=8-1/qid=1150938681/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-4646689-0855215?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Direct high efficiency solar for peak electrical energy. Nuke, hydro (current, tide, wave, etc), multi-gigawatt high efficiecy (~60-80%+) biomass fueled powerplants for base loads. Wind when available.

An Engineer...LOL! You are a joke man. Gasoline is refined man...they don't pump the stuff out of an oil well. It's produced. It's not a primary energy carrier. Worse yet...with today's dirtier and dirtier crude oils...you need more and more hydrogen in the refining process to produce gasoline. So that really makes gasoline sort of a tertiary fuel as it requires massive amounts of hydrogen. The hydrogen currently produced just for oil refining is sufficient to fuel over 100 million fuel cell vehicles and the hydrogen being used in refining is moving towards doubling in the next few years with the shift dirtier crudes.

An Engineer:

Hydrogen economy (and, BTW, global warming) already become kind of religious movement, rootlessly guided and lobbied. It zealots are far beyond scientific discussion or even common sense reasoning. Do not expect much understanding here.

Waste-to-energy is very tricky business. Municipal waste is impossible to use directly because it consisted from very different substances. Amount of paper and useful components in it is dropping year after year due to recycling at source and separation – indeed huge and mostly invisible industry. Whatever is separated, is way more valuable raw material for manufacturing, not for energy production. The rest of organics undergo anaerobic digestion in capped landfills, and biogas is captured and used for energy generation. No place for economical fuel production here.

BTW, if looked closely, all current and planned for near future biofuel production is kind of waste-to-fuel. Obvious sources include cooking grease, agricultural residues, wastes of pulp&paper and forestry industry; but grain, corn, sugar cane, rapeseed, etc., used in production of biofueals, are surplus of chronic overproduction, and hence are wastes too.

Hydrogen economy: because there's a sucker born every minute.

Hydrogen is most easily transported and stored when it is attached to chains of carbon atoms. The trick is figuring out how to recycle those carbon atoms without braking the bank.

As for the hype about the hydrogen highway et al.: you can fool some of the people all of the time. And those are the ones you want.

Oh realy? They why are they ahead of schedual on ALL aspects of the h2 goals? Every single one is ahead of schedual some are already DONE.

There are only 4 things that matter.

1 Can you make enough.

2 Can you move enough.

3 Can you make it cheap enough.

4 Can you cram enough onto the vehicle.

1 Yes
2 yes
3 far ahead of plans ALREADY h2 production is cheaper then gas in some places.
4 With plug in hybrid h2 cars.. yes. With others.. varies a totaly h2 fueled ice car sure cant store enough yet cheaply.


Oh and on the issue of bio fuels.. they still pollute they still requite emmissions control equaipment on the car and that can still get messed up and needs to be monitored anfd repaired..

As for explosion danger.. they already tested it and h2 is already safer then gasoline and getting safer.

When I want to know how solar is doing.. I dont go to the sites that hate solar and I dont listen to the people who want solar to fail. Whe I want to know how nuke is doing again I dont go to such sites.

H2 is doing fine and its backed by a huge number of powerful people and a zillion bucks.

Do I love h2... why? its a freaking molecule for crying out loud! Who givea a flying ardvarrk? What I care about is alot of very useful prgress is being made and no matter if it all works out or not its VERY good for the future. I dont actauly give a rats ass if it becomee uber fuel or not it will be rather damn handy and cool. The futue might be a little less farty cars and a bit more whirrrr cars... THAT I care about.

The molecule you need is C17H19ClN2S•HCl

I dont give a rats ass if its virgin blood as long as I can afford it and my car is nice and the world doesnt go the heck in a handbag I realy dont give a damn.

Wintermane, I think you just proved what was said about hydrogen proponents - our sympathies.

Not an engineer, tell you what, read my posts. then respond.

Audrey, I believe you are wrong about the paper. Paper takes up forty percent and is growing. A year's worth of the New York Times weighs fifty pounds and takes a volume equal to about fifty thousand Big Mac containers. Landfills are stuffed with paper used to package goods - which has grown by a third since 1960 - and also paper plates, junk mail, and computer paper, which have all doubled over the decades. - http://www.engineerguy.com/comm/2959.htm No doubt recycling is increasing, but I don't think it is keeping up. So much for the paperless office.

Biogas from landfill is a good idea, but it is not used everywhere. The problem with that is also that you cannot control the rate of degradation - it may continue for 20 years or more. Much better to put it through a plant where you can control things. Also note a gasification process yields sterile byproducts, a major benefit for some waste materials.

I also think you are wrong about the biodiesel plants. Most of those I read about on GCC are going to use virgin plant oils. Another food-to-oil boondoggle.

Here is a simple fact. Gasoline didnt win because it was cheap it also didnt win because it was safe and it sure didnt win because it was easy. It won because alot of rich people forced it to.

The safe system is in force today. The rich are backing h2 and bio. And yes they have the power to force it to work.

Way to go, wintermane.
I used to be a devout of the anti-hydrogen faith...I used to lash out at any suggestion of the "hydrogen economy." But I kept informed of progress...and...Lo and Behold...One day I saw the Light! and Halleluah! It looks promising that someday Hydrogen can be produced at the equivalent gasoline at $2.50/gallon...from many sources...and especially from GE..."GE, we bring good things to life" you know...When GE talks, I listen...GE has great record as an environmental innovator, with highly efficient power generating turbines, state-of-the-art huge wind turbines...And then, it turns out that hybrid ICE-electric car can utilize H2 and methane almost as efficient as the super-expensive fuel cell cars...you can use H2 to heat up your house same as natural gas...to generate electrical power same as natural gas...that hybrid ICE-electric car can be a bridge between the fossil fuel economy to the future hydrogen and methane economy...
Don't y'all get excited learning about all these exciting stuffs? A clean energy future, free of cancer-causing and global warming fossil fuels...Forever renewable til the end of time...
I'd say, LET'S GIVE HYDROGEN A CHANCE...AMEN!

Yup when bush pushed alot of stuff changed rapidly. In 1 year the cost of making h2 from methane a renwable gas went down 40%. The ability to make h2 from various low weight hydrocarbons has greatly improved. The ability to make it directly from electricity has also improved as they have found catalysts to boost the process.

Now yes in 150 years or so battery power alone will do the job. But not now. Most batteries cant take more then a 20-25% discharge without shortenting thier working life greatly and that means even todays uber batteries have a real operational range of 40 miles. They tout long range.. but jide how you pay for it they tout fast recharge but again hide the downsides. It simply isnt there yet and wont be for awhile.

I don't know about using hydrogen in your home like natural gas. It is my understanding that it is very difficult to contain and pump hydrogen in existing pipes. The hydrogen leaks and the pumps are much less effective. Also, the hydrogen makes the pipe material brittle and prone to breaking.

One thing many doint fathom yet is that over the next 30 years the types of cars various wealth brackets drive will polarize far more then todays differences.

I expect by 2020 alot more people wont be able to afford to drive and will cram into buses and such most of wich will be crippled already due to fuel costs.

I expect alot of working poor will drive super cheap super limited electric cars of rather tiny size.

I expect the next bracket up will drive bio blend cars with limited hybrid designs. Mostly small cars to mid sized.

I expect wealthier people will drive ;arger cars and light trucks able to get past cafe uissues by being either plug ins or wide range ethanol/blah blah blah.. extreme bio blended fuels or even pure bio fuels.

I expect in 20-30 years the well off will drive h2 cars or pure exotic evs. No cafe issues at all any design good to go.. spendy but so are many luxury cars today. We are mainly talking extreme exotics.. designs capable of 1000 mile drives on a fillup and thus total independance 450 mile range to and from home.

Why? Because there will be blackouts in 2020. There will be fuel shortages. There will be bio fuel crop failures. There will be climate change. The wealthyw ill have on site energy plants and storage and will want cars immune to whats to come.

sjc,
yes, U r right, it will require special coating or other preparation to make your home natural gas pipes H2 compatible. But, it's doable. Hard to contain hydrogen? Hard to pump hydrogen? Not that hard, the Hindenburg was full of hydrogen. Hydrogen is currently used often in industry, rocket fuel, and even in petroleum refining. Hydrogen has been known to mankind for 400 years, since the days of Cavendish and Lavoisier, at the earliest days of modern chemistry.

Here is a simple fact. Gasoline didnt win because it was cheap it also didnt win because it was safe and it sure didnt win because it was easy. It won because alot of rich people forced it to.
I see, Wintermane, it is all a big conspiracy. If it is, we have no hope of changing it, do we? So you point is?

Actually, you got the history of gasoline backwards. The Rockefeller got right from being in the right place at the right time. He did not force gasoline on anybody - gasoline was simply the best fuel for cars and he happened to control the production of most of it.

If a better CARRIER FUEL came along, it would do the same thing to gasoline, that gasoline did to alternatives. So far so good for gasoline.

Glad to see you are so optimistic about hydrogen, Roger. I believe you will tap into that optimism as you watch hydrogen fizz. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. Apart from being a great fuel for space travel (high energy to weight ratio) hydrogen has very few desireable properties. So, going head-to-head with gasoline, I just don't see hydrogen coming out on top.

Then there is the seldom mentioned matter of cost. A hydrogen fuel cell car currently costs about $250,000. Yes, mass production could bring that number down to what $100,000? It needs a 10-fold price reduction to be competitive with today's vehicles. How many major breakthroughs will that take? Go ahead, invest in hydrogen, if you like. I know I won't.

Why? Because there will be blackouts in 2020. There will be fuel shortages. There will be bio fuel crop failures. There will be climate change. The wealthyw ill have on site energy plants and storage and will want cars immune to whats to come.
Careful about those bleak predictions for the future, Wintermane! People get burned making those dark predictions. You are assuming lots of things. making those dark predictions. Generally, in a free market, alternatives are pretty quick to pounce on spikes in the price of any commodity.

I will give you this: if it was up to the government, we'd be screwed. Let's hope the government stays out of it to a large enough degree that the markets can take care of this.

Mr. Engineer,
Hydrogen is increasingly available in Northern Europe, and in California, to mention a few locations. Since the fizzle of the ZEV mandate due to battery limitation, the CARB is betting on H2 as the next ZEV-capable fuel. The advantage of H2 over gasoline, Mr. Engineer, lies in its zero emission as a fuel. Once GE and others have perfected the low-cost production of H2 to below the price of rising gasoline, then expect gradual public switching to H2, especially in population-dense areas where H2 usage may be mandated. The most intelligent countries (Northern Europe) and the most intelligent state in the USA (California) are adapting H2 as their future transportation fuel. How can I be wrong?

You do not need fuel cell to power a hydrogen car. As I've discussed, an ICE-electric hybrid can be adapted to be capable of using both methane and H2 almost as efficient as fuel-cell car, using only one type of fuel injector and only one hi-pressure fuel tank. Use H2 for local commute with range up to 120mi, while for extended-range driving, fill up the same tank with methane as the same pressure and you can drive 3 times farther, or ~360mi on one fill up.

Roger,
You just proved my point, didn't you? Allow me to explain.
1. You contend that since the most intelligent countries and state are investing in hydrogen, it has to be feasible.
2. You mention the fizzle of the ZEV mandate "due to battery limitation".
3. You fail to mention that the ZEV fizzle also happened in what you call the most intelligent state.
It follows neatly that if the most intelligent state was wrong about ZEV before, they can be wrong about hydrogen now.

In fact, the ZEV fizzle proves that lawmakers cannot force a technology ripe. If the technology is not ready for the big time, no amount of legislation is going to change that.

Get ready for ACTION REPEAT.

What I see is a very interesting horse race between three very different energy carrier technologies. The defending champ, Liquids, Electricity and H2. (Lets hope for all of our sakes that whatever wins in the end comes from a clean primary source)

Liquids have the advantage of inertia, it's here, it works, its only problem is going the distance, oil won't last forever. Algae to Butanol looks like its best chance to win.

Electricity has only one major technological hurdle to clear, batteries. Recent postings on this site would indicate that there is light at the end of that tunnel. The major problem I see with it is lack of major backers. There doesn't seam to be any big money behind electricity for transport.

H2 has more technological hurdles to clear (on-board storage is the biggest). On the other hand, H2 has some REALLY big money behind it. Big oil would love for us to go H2 because that way they get to stay in business.

So the race is on ... no need to get personal gentlemen.

Neil,
Thanks for summing it up in one digestible package. There ain't nuthin' personal. I just have one word: ENVIRONMENTAL. Which fuel is best for the environment?

xTL (liquid) involves a lot of organic chemistry, ergo high potential for release of carcinogen into our air and water supply. Growing energy crops will take away valuable wildlife habitats and land to grow food crops to support our burgeoning population. Fertilizer, pesticides are polluting. Water needed for irrigation is getting in shorter supply in semi-arid areas (western Kansas,Western Texas, New Mexico, Southeaster California, etc)

Battery--Potential for pollution if recycling program suboptimal. Short supply of critical raw material to satisfy tens of millions of large battery packs for BEV and PHEV. Pollution potential during mining of raw material and manufacturing of battery.

Hydrogen/Methane--Minimal pollution potential. Only during the manufacturing of solar collectors and equipments. Once made, solar to hydrogen will continue to work for decades without hardly any pollutant released. Solar uses 1/20 the land required for farming for a given unit of renewable energy, and solar can and should use land not suitable for farming. Renewable methane is made most economically from gasification of waste biomass, sewage or garbage. A true potential to keep GHG from being released into the atmosphere and to recycle potential toxic and environmental waste.

There, you have it, Neil, in a more environmentally-conserving spin.

Mr. Engineer,
Intelligence is not judged on the basis of success or failure. After repeated failure in his attempts to invent his light bulb, someone asked Thomas Edison what he thinks about it? He said: I haven't failed. I've just learned 2000 ways how not to make the light bulb! California CARB ZEV well-intended and farsighted mandate has lead to the magnificent development of the GM's EV1, Toyota RAV4-EV, etc..and these are the precursors that lent the technology toward the making of gas-electric hybrid such as the Prius, with 5 times lower exhaust emission of a comparable car. The technology in the Prius will go on to make a H2-ICE-electric hybrid that will eliminate CO and HC pollution and greatly reduce NOx emission without requiring catalytic converters. From the ZEV mandate, the follow ups of the BEV, and the HEV, will come the PHEV which will promise to end our dependency on petroleum. The H2-ICE-electric, courtesy of CARB continued obsession with clean air, will be another arm in the reach for clean air, health, and petroleum independence.

xTL (liquid) involves a lot of organic chemistry, ergo high potential for release of carcinogen into our air and water supply.
Organic chemistry = carcinogens? Come on, that's not fair! Keep reading up on the issue, Roger. Sooner or later you are going to understand the significant advantages of liquid fuels.

Growing energy crops will take away valuable wildlife habitats and land to grow food crops to support our burgeoning population. Fertilizer, pesticides are polluting. Water needed for irrigation is getting in shorter supply in semi-arid areas (western Kansas,Western Texas, New Mexico, Southeaster California, etc)
Not quite. As I mentioned above, according to some estimates, the entire US oil consumption can be grown on 32,000 square miles, less than 5% of the total US cropland.

My proposal that would address all of your concerns in the following: Grow algae on sewage (free water and fertilizer). Harvest the algae using a suitable technology, such as dissolved air flotation, which would yield clean water as a byproduct. Convert the algae to liquid fuel via BTL, which would yield renewable fertilizer as a byproduct. If you happen to be in the vicinity of a smoke stack, blow that gas through the algal pond, this would scrub CO2, NOx and SOx from the stack gas. The CO2 would increase algal yield, while the NOx and SOx would be used as fertilizer.

Hydrogen/Methane--Minimal pollution potential. Only during the manufacturing of solar collectors and equipments. Once made, solar to hydrogen will continue to work for decades without hardly any pollutant released.
That is the dream, Roger. Whether that dream becomes reality remains to be seen.

You should famaliarize yourself with hydrogen's limitations in terms of transportation.

As MSNMC reports: But even some of hydrogen’s most enthusiastic proponents say it will be quite some time before you pull up to a pump and say “fill ‘er up with hydrogen.” An influential report last year by the National Research Council, in calling for additional funding for hydrogen research, warned that “success is not certain.”

But there is more: Gasoline is very hard to beat as a transportation fuel. It’s very dense, packing a lot of energy in a small space, and it’s stable at normal air pressure and a wide range of temperatures. You can ship it long distances in large quantities via pipeline and dispense it safely at filling stations to consumers with no special training in handling volatile materials.

Hydrogen, on the other hand, is the lightest element on earth, which makes it very diffuse. To pack enough onboard a car, you need to compress and store it under extreme pressure or liquify it at extremely cold temperatures — both of which present daunting engineering and safety issues. Some researchers believe the solution may lie in storing the gas in a family of materials known as metal hydrides, which act something like a sponge, allowing you to charge up and release hydrogen as needed. But metal hydrides may prove to be to heavy. So far, no one has come up with a workable solution.

And then there is this: But almost all of the hydrogen produced today is made from natural gas, a fossil fuel that is already in short supply and growing ever more costly. The process also leaves behind large quantities of carbon dioxide, which defeats one of the basic appeals of hydrogen power — eliminating pollution. Though researchers are working on a process called “carbon sequestion” — essentially pumping CO2 back into the ground where the natural gas came from — the process is not widely used. It’s also not clear how much impact the added cost of widespread disposal of CO2 would have on the economics of producing hydrogen.

A potentially cleaner way to make hydrogen involves a process called electrolysis, which is essentially reverses the fuel cell’s chemistry: This time, you run electricity through water, splitting H2O back into hydrogen and oxygen. But if that electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, the pollution eliminated from a hydrogen car's tailpipe would simply be shifted to the power plant. So the promise of a clean hydrogen economy requires the use of renewable power sources like solar or wind power. Even the most optimistic projections say it will take decades before renewable power can produce more than a fraction of the hydrogen need to replace gasoline.

In short, you'd have to be extremely faithful (and somewhat blind) to keep believing in the hydrogen economy...

Mr. Engineer,
The algae process and other BTL ideas that you've described will also take decades to perfect all the steps, to secure environmental approval, to secure suitable locations and sites, to build plants and all the infrastructure necessary. As well known as CTL process, and as abundant as coal is, the many Chinese CTL projects that we've just read about here in GCC are slated to be completed by 2020 and no sooner.

If we are going to make energy plan for decades later, why not plan for something that has the least potential for pollution possible?

For additional value of LH2 in aviation, wherein the light weight of LH2 will really shine, please read my latest postings on http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/06/co2_emissions_f.html#comments

The algae process and other BTL ideas that you've described will also take decades to perfect all the steps, to secure environmental approval, to secure suitable locations and sites, to build plants and all the infrastructure necessary.
With all due respect, Roger, you have no idea what you are talking about. BTL shares much of the downstream processes with CTL, which has been in use in South Africa for more than 50 years. BTL using waste wood as a feedstock is being implemented in Germany, as we speak. A lot of the technology seems to have been perfected already. As for locations, any old algal bloom would do, including the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, many wastewater treatment plants and some lakes and rivers.

As well known as CTL process, and as abundant as coal is, the many Chinese CTL projects that we've just read about here in GCC are slated to be completed by 2020 and no sooner.
Have a problem reading, Roger? I see them mention the year 2012, last word, third paragraph. That is still decades ahead of anything hydrogen can deliver.

If we are going to make energy plan for decades later, why not plan for something that has the least potential for pollution possible?
I agree! I would also add: why not do something that is workable, can easily be integrated into the existing system and would not require replacing the entire existing fleet of vehicles?

You are aware, of course, that synthetic oil is much cleaner than fossil oil (no sulfur, no aromatics) and is carbon neutral.

For additional value of LH2 in aviation, wherein the light weight of LH2 will really shine, please read my latest postings on http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/06/co2_emissions_f.html#comments
Tell you what, if hydrogen ever gained widespread acceptance in aviation, where its weight advantage actually means something, we will talk again. Until then, you are just dreaming, my friend.

No what fueled gasoline crawling to the top was more parties were interested in it and had more money to put into new engine designs then did electrics. The early electric cars were vastly better then gas and alot safer too. But tghey didnt have much money backing them.

Now we are back again in a fuel tug o war and h2 and biofuels are backed by deep pockets. And electric is not.

RIIIGGHHHHHT!
If electrics are so great, why didn't they produce a winner when they had the CA ZEV legislation to back them up?

Wait, I know! It was all a big CONSPIRACY!

Can't possibly be that the technology just was not there...

The big reason ev cars failed was they came to close after the horrible ni cad fiasco in rechargable power tools.

They are STILL dealing with that image today and thats why they fear the plug.

Its gona take prolly anouther 10-15 years before people raised up seeing only good recharable batteries get into car buying age and they can market a battery car without that shadow hovering over it.

We'll see. PHEV is part electric car. If electrics are that great they can always branch out of PHEV. Of course, big advantage of PHEV over EV, is that you can refill in 2 minutes if you need to (at a price). That effectively removes range limitations.

Oh I agree thats why ford is now concidering lug in hybrids. But you know they already are making low power fuel cells that are well under3k in cost. They wouldnt power a big car but likely they would be enough to keep a small one going if it had a battery pack to catch and use brake energy.

I think the first fuel cell car will eb nothing more then a hybrid where a very small engine was taken out and replaced with a very small fuel cell stack. Ripping out the trans and radiator and all that would more then cover the cost of a small fuel cell stack even today. They have breifcase sized ones that should do the job.

But you know they already are making low power fuel cells that are well under3k in cost. They wouldnt power a big car but likely they would be enough to keep a small one going if it had a battery pack to catch and use brake energy.
That would be good news for fuel cells. You have a link to back that up, and give some technical details?

Meanwhile don't invest in fuel cells, just yet...

There are developments in DME in China:
Since DME has an advantage of decomposition at lower temperature than methane and LPG, R&D for hydrogen source for fuel cell has been carried out.

If you would like to know more on the latest DME developments, join us at upcoming North Asia DME / Methanol conference in Beijing, 27-28 June 2007, St Regis Hotel. The conference covers key areas which include:

DME productivity can be much higher especially if
country energy policies makes an effort comparable to
that invested in increasing supply.
By:
National Development Reform Commission NDRC
Ministry of Energy for Mongolia

Production of DME/ Methanol through biomass
gasification could potentially be commercialized
By:
Shandong University completed Pilot plant in Jinan and
will be sharing their experience.

Advances in conversion technologies are readily
available and offer exciting potential of DME as a
chemical feedstock
By: Kogas, Lurgi and Haldor Topsoe

Available project finance supports the investments
that DME/ Methanol can play a large energy supply role
By: International Finance Corporation

For more information: www.iceorganiser.com