GM lent me a Fuel Cell Chevrolet

Now wait a bit... We don't have a HUGE infrastructure for all that. But we do have it. And some states like WA have mostly hydro! It works. It is getting bigger every day. All these things you mention. They ARE making electricity, today, in a practical way.

And to this reality, you are comparing making H2 from bacteria and viruses? Where can I buy that in large quantities? And for how much. Does it have infrastructure that we are using today? This makes H2 more flexible because it CAN be made like beer? We're doing one. We aren't doing the other.

Don't fall into the trap of down-playing the reality of today while making the future promises sound so pleasing. (Much like pointing to Tesla's EXISTING product and 5-year warranty and assuming that FCV's will be way more durable).

A bird in the hand is worth about 1 million in the bush.

 

Good news folks. We're packing up the EV and heading out for a week of visiting. I won't have a connection most of the time, so I won't be able to respond. It isn't because I don't love you.

 

Have a safe trip ! :rockon:

 

Oh, thank goodness. You are such a pain, Darell, it will be good not to have to put up with you all week.

Bon voyage, mon ami.

So, you can just plug in your EV wherever you go?

 

Oh, get serious. This is a load of crap! Sure there may be bacteria that give off some hydrogen but, in case you have not figured this out yet: IT TAKES ENERGY TO MAKE HYDROGEN FROM WATER! As for viruses, I wonder if you read the article yourself: They are using sunlight to make a little bit of hydrogen. The virus is only a mediator.

As Darell says, it's not a question of how many obscure ways can you find to inefficiently make a tiny bit of H2 in a science project, it's a question of oil companies using the promise of a technology that does not exist, and if it did exist would be IN REAL LIFE fueled by FOSSIL FUEL (natural gas) in order to block a technology that DOES EXIST NOW!

All the electricity that I buy from my utility company comes from the Bonneville dam, except for a small amount which comes from wind. This is NOW and it's REAL.

I prefer renewable rather than fossil fuel. Hydrogen TODAY and for the foreseeable future with oil companies calling the shots, comes from fossil fuel.

I get my electricity from renewable. Darell gets his electricity from renewable.

But I'd rather have a combustion engine whose fuel came from renewable, than an electric engine that got its electricity from fossil fuel.

FOSSIL FUEL IS DESTROYING US. We need to move away from fossil fuel. Hydrogen is Exxon's and BP's and Texaco's way of keeping us addicted to fossil fuel! For half the money we spend on oil and oil wars and cleaning up oil spills, we could convert to renewable energy.

The only difference between hydrogen and natural gas is that to drive on hydrogen you need a half-million-dollar car. Would I drive one if they gave it to me for free? Sure I would. But I'd rather they gave me a half-million-dollar sailboat, or a half-million-dollar's worth of credit at a local brothel.

 

Go for the boat! You'll get more out of the boat!

 

H2 and electricity can be converted from one to another. Duh, my claim was simply wrong.

Tesla and Nissan disagree with this. They both stated that fast charging lowers the battery pack life.

We are on the same page here. I only have an issue with the portrait of the zero emission BEV charged with renewable energy as the perfect solution.... and damn the fuel cell powered by fossil fuel.

1) We don't have electricity generated purely by solar, wind or hydro yet. It is a hoax to claim zero emission. The same goes for FC with that claim.

2) H2 can be generated by renewable energy as well. Claiming that it is purely fossil fuel is another hoax.

We are also in agreement that BEV makes more sense NOW because

1) We already have power line infrastructure.
2) BEV can be affordable (for short range).
3) We have a practical ways to harness solar, wind and hydro power. However, this require more investment on top of current government incentives and tax breaks.

We need improvement on both BEV and FCHV. If the price of FC stack come down faster than battery, it will have a huge advantage. On the other hand, the battery price can come down as well. In the end, the best solution may be a plugin FCHV.

I am going to quote Steven Chu:

"Right now, the way we get hydrogen primarily is from reforming gas. That's not an ideal source of hydrogen...The other problem is, if it's for transportation, we don't have a good storage mechanism yet. What else? The fuel cells aren't there yet, and the distribution infrastructure isn't there yet. In order to get significant deployment, you need four significant technological breakthroughs. If you need four miracles, that's unlikely. Saints only need three miracles."

I think we are very close in reaching three of the four FC miracles. To close this discussion, I am not a hydrogen skeptic nor BEV skeptic. I will continue to monitor progress of both camps. I think both technologies need to progress to reach the ultimate eco-car.

 

Thanks, 'Yo.

Yeah... it turns out that every one of my friends has electricity right there at the house. Imagine.

 

I pointed that out because someone made a statement about FC stack durability while assuming the battery is way more durable.

 

It is great to see your RAV4 EV can reach that far. Don't let the hydrogen discussion bother you during your visit. Enjoy your EV and don't charge at non-renewable plug.

 

We, kemosabe? Yes, we do. There's so much hydroelectric around here we feed it into the grid and sell it to California. Our commuter trains are electric, too.

Of course, it can be. But wouldn't it be more efficient to just use the electricity instead of making hydrogen?

Good. We agree on something.

In some ways, the ultimate eco-car isn't a car at all. By that I mean there are ways to do without them, and we can make significant progress on the sustainability front by redesigning cities instead of cars.

 

WOW!~! go on a 3 day trip and this thread EXPLODED!!

now dont get me wrong; i love PC, but sometimes its topics can get a bit crooked ya know? but this thread has been one of the best in a long time. not much info provided that we all did not already know, but the views expressed, the many ways of looking at the very same thing has been tremendous. great points, great ideas, great thoughts! this whole thread should be a sticky!!

what it all really boils down to is that we all want whats best for our home, Earth. we all know what the end point looks like; clean renewable energy accessible without compromise to our environment. now, how to get there is the only real question.

investing in H technology is a good thing. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, so finding beneficial ways to use could revolutionize our world, BUT abandoning EV's in 2000 to do so was criminal, no...abominable, hmm, nah... actually there is no single word that come close to how stupid of a decision Bush made.

we cant afford to not diversify our path to a clean new world. we simply dont have the time to develop the perfect solution. we need to synergize our efforts. right now, every little bit helps and the LAST thing we need to consider is how much its gonna cost us because Oil is costing us far far more.

USB; its easy to see your point. your in an area where space is a premium. portable power is needed. u cant put solar in, no room for wind, etc. and lets face it, installing 250 charging stations on the street in front of your building isnt viable either.

but that is not how it is everywhere. we in the west, sure its a bit crowded when you get within a hundred miles of the coast, but for the most part, we have space. lots of space. so green, renewables are easy. i get 96% of my power during off peak from hydro (we have a currently small but rapidly growing wind power developing) but only 55% during peak hours, so even dripping wet WA has to fire up the coal plants to provide the electricity needed. (actually if we kicked them aluminum plants out, we would have tons of power... well actually, they do run full bore at night to help maintain the load and they use more power than hydrogen does!)

but the point is, we have more power than we need or can use. another power hungry business that is really booming here is Server farms. these are main internet backbones processing data in on the mega terabyte scale. they run HOT, so they are housed in what is basically a gigantic sub zero freezer.

so electricity we can do and it also has room for improvement. we have the technology, we only need a reason to spend the money which will be a lot. but putting the nation on an EV diet will be the key to unlocking the investment dollars. right now, its simply pathetic that WA State cannot generate power and send it efficiently to Chicago when needed. to be honest with ya; we waste electricity simply because we cant use it.

but as important as electricity is, we only use it to fill a relatively small list of needs. if we expand that need, we will expand the knowledge, the investment dollars and associated cottage industries supporting the expansion will pop up.

remember that oil used 20 trillion (pulled that number out of my nice person) investment dollars to provide a need and electric cars will do the same thing.

one thing for certain; if we keep going the way we are going, we wont have to drill for methane, it will be plentiful in the skies over the Arctic but then again, we might kill ourselves trying to get at it.

 

What the bunny are you talking about??? Where I live ALL the electricity is generated by hydro, except a little bit by wind!!!!!!!

Can be but ISN'T!!! HYDROGEN IS JUST ANOTHER WAY FOR OIL COMPANIES TO SELL US FOSSIL FUEL!!! It's a bunny-slobbing hoax because the public are morons who think hydrogen just comes free from water. Even Dave, who knows better, repeated the old line about hydrogen being everywhere. Sure it's the most abundant element in the universe and on the Earth. But it's locked up where it's useless unless we use energy to free it. But three quarters of the American public are so bunny-biting stupid that they think that once fuel cells are perfected they'll be able to drive their cars for free because of all that hydrogen floating around in the water. And that's why it's a hoax: because the crooks pushing it are letting them believe just that, and encouraging the press to talk about hydrogen being so abundant, without ever finishing the sentence: abundant but useless!

Bush's decision to kill electric and push hydrogen fuel cells was not stupid. It was criminal. It was dishonest. But it was not stupid, because hydrogen benefits the oil companies who make it out of fossil fuel, and the oil industry are Bush's cronies.

What's stupid is believing the politicians have the interest of the nation and the public at heart. Politicians are in it for the power and the money. Their pimps in industry bankroll their elections, and they pay them back by stealing from the public, and that's what Bush was doing when he killed electric and pushed hydrogen. He was helping his cronies to make more money.

Next time a politician does something that benefits his cronies and hurts the public (which will probably be in about five minutes from now!) don't call him stupid. Call him a thief, because that's what he is.

And hydrogen is nothing but bunny-slopping fossil fuel with a party hat and a firecracker for the fourth of July. There is NOTHING environmentally benign about it. Every renewable way of making hydrogen goes through electricity and is less efficient than using the electricity directly. The only thing hydrogen is really good for is to power space rockets.

 

Fuel Cel ... um yea ... GM just lent ME one also ... in fact GM lent me TWO of 'em. You mean all you people didn't get one too? Pictures? Sure ... I'll get back with you on that ~




From the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/automobiles/09equinox.html

Almost down to $50K ... right ... just $950,000 left to knock off the price ... practically there ... but what the hell ... if the FED's are paying for it (since we the Fed's own GM) now I understand why the FCV giveaway by GM ... it's on YOUR dime and mine.

The Honda FCV on the other hand (not that it in anyway charges enough to break even) will lease for $600 a month.

Am I the only one who's P.O.'d that GM is still pee'ing away tax payer money without any concern towards paying back the stock fund money?!? Maybe they should start promising a free jet pack with each free FCV ... as it looks like both will be financially practical in (you guessed it) ... just a few more years.

.

 

Aw c'mon, Daniel, tell us how you *really* feel. Don't hold back, we can take it.

 

When H2 comes from natural gas, CO2 has to be released chemically as a by product. Not very environmently friendly.

When generating energy to feed BEV, it can come from a clean source. As per today, it is getting cleaner.

 

If you are suggesting that the OP does not really have a FCV loaner, I'd say his posts sound sincere.

The people running GM are criminals of the worst order. But note that the U.S. government owns a controlling interest in the company, and can boot the bastards out any time it chooses. The real question is, Why has the government not taken control of GM??? As Michael Moore suggested in his open letter, way back at the time of the bail-out, we could use the manufacturing capability and expertise of GM to begin building large-scale sustainable-energy infrastructure.

Of course the reason we have not done so is that Big Business owns our legislators. That means that Big Business owns our government. Government of, by, and for the people? Bunny pellets!!!! It's government of, by, and for Big Business. That's why "we" bailed out GM, and that's why, after buying a controlling interest, we left the same criminals in charge of the company.