Cars and Hydrogen Power
Well I just read the post on Hydrogen power for power plants and I decided to see if there was such a thing for cars (seeing as though we are talking so much about the air). I found tons of things advocating the use of hydrogen cars and then I came across an article by Katharine Mieszkowski. Although hydrogen cars are more "environment friendly" the hydrogen must be created somewhere, and currently we have no system that can do that without environmental consequences. Perhaps there is a way to combine these projects with those being supported by the President which will allow us to breathe a little bit clearer.
posted by Nicole and Andy @ 2:59 PM
1 Comments:
One aspect on the "clean" hydrogen cars that has not been discussed is the source of hydrogen. Hydrogen is not something that we mine and get without other byproducts. Two major processes are currently used to produce hydrogen.
One source of hydrogen is to break up H2O and use its hydrogen. This takes alot of energy to break apart the tightly bound hydrogen and oxygen bonds. The source of this energy comes from our power plants that are for the most part coal powered. What is "cleaner" about producing hydrogen this way? Burning coal is as "dirty" as burning fossil fuels.
The alternative source is to break up methane (CH4) molecules for hydrogen. This is a significant source of carbon dioxide. In this instance we are simply trading the resource of gasoline for methane.
Read a complete article on this subject here.If I remember correctly, current hydrogen cars only get about sixty miles per tank of hydrogen. Good luck traveling if you live in rural Utah.
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