How many times have you heard people parrot these kind of sentiments? If you're anything like me, quite a few times. I gnash my teeth whenever I hear the "technology will save us, let's just sit back and wait for the inventors to come up with the solutions" line.
James Kunstler, puts it thus: "The widespread belief that hydrogen is going to save technological societies from the fast-approaching oil and gas reckoning is probably a good index of how delusional our oil-addicted society has become."
The hydrogen car plays to the sad desperation of those who cannot fathom a post-carbon world or a ravaged planet and would do anything to pretend that the mass car-ownership world is not about to expire. Promises of hydrogen transport encourages doing nothing. It's a dangerous idea.
Don't be fooled when car companies like Honda roll out seductive prototypes like the FCX before a gullible public. Writing for the LA Times, Dan Neil says the FCX "may be the most expensive, advanced and impractical car ever built." Car companies demo futuristic prototypes, we keep driving because we believe we can switch to the futuro-model when it's out, and the auto show demo car is never seen again. It happens all the time.
The proof is in the pudding. Is the prototype scalable? In other words, are enough resources cheaply available enough for its adoption across society? Can the infrastructure necessary for its use be implemented in the short time we have left before peak oil pulls the rug out from under our feet?
Read into the subject and you'll quickly realize that hydrogen-powered vehicles are a joke. Hydrogen, with its low atomic weight, requires an incredible degree of compression for a car to travel a reasonable distance, making hydrogen prone to catching on fire. This means that if your car doesn't just explode in a crash, it would probably leak all the hydrogen anyway since hydrogen small atoms allow it to easily escape through tiny holes. It's extremely corrosive too.
These considerations also make the distribution of hydrogen around the country a daunting prospect. Hydrogen would corrode the seals and damage the pumps required for pipelines to push gas across vast distances. Filling stations would necessitate approximately 21 times the number of trucks as for gas to deliver hydrogen. And how would these trucks move around?
You should know that hydrogen is not actually a fuel; it is more accurately thought of as a form of energy storage. Pulling hydrogen atoms apart form oxygen atoms, often by electrolysis, delivers a poor return on energy invested. In fact, you get roughly 1 unit of energy for every 1.4 invested. And that energy has to come from somewhere. Don't believe Honda, or any other car company, that hydrogen cars can be carbon neutral. It's impossible, they're lying.
It should be obvious to everyone who does the reading that hydrogen is a dead-end. But be aware that the proponents of every process, technology, and activity whose days are numbered will attempt to convince us that, with a twist of technology, we can update the old ways and continue on more or less the same as before. I've discussed it with hydrogen cars and we certainly have heard about it with coal.
Of course, arguing that hydrogen is a false savior is not an argument that mass car ownership in general is ready to die. But in an energy-constrained future, such an inefficient, energy-intensive way of moving people around as the private car just isn't going to wash. We may as well accept it.
Technological, non-renewable energy-dependent industry is itself an industry of denial. Every day we are drenched with its fantasy-addled messages. We cannot afford to be fooled.
Adam
ps. Yes, the Gubbins Experiment is still going swimmingly. Thanks to all who have asked. Spread the word - you can do it!
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1 comments:
I think the emphasis on debunking hydrogen needs to be on the latter part: hydrogen isn't a fuel.
Technology really might be able to overcome the storage and transmission problems.
But it can not, even theoretically, make up for the fact that there is no supply of hydrogen we can extract and use. It has to be made, and making it takes energy. That energy has to come from somewhere, so using hydrogen is really no more than a new type of battery. Electricity is produced by coal in this country. Hydrogen doesn't change anything.
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