What we can do is find other alternatives to producing hydrogen that can be viable. While this article is over a year old, it does give us some insight into the future:

http://www.physorg.com/news98556080.html

While electrolysis would have to be used at the local level for some of the conversion, I do find it interesting that they found that long term this could compete with $3 gasoline, a number we have gone way past at this point.

On The Learning Channel, they had this professor on a few months ago, and there was a demonstration of a motorcycle that was using this pellet technology.

My point being that we need to follow and develop these technologies, but in the meantime use hybrids as a stop-gap for our dependence on foreign oil. At lease PHEVs would use a local energy resource (as unclean as it may be) versus a foreign energy resource, which is much more risky from a geopolitical perspective for the US.

I will apologize for my earlier number of 43% of power being generated by coal…it is 49% now. Feel free to check out this “quasi-governmental” statistic: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/e.....a_sum.html. Renewables (not including hydroelectric) is 2.4% of power generation.

Can you explain to me how, from your PERSONAL experience, you can use renewables to produce the 4,065 MWh that the US needs (as of 10/07)? Any time frame on that, which doesn’t include the use of the word “decades”?

I guess also, if we are employing NIMBY we need to eliminate wind. Ted Kennedy didn’t want it in his backyard…

Hydrogen does not occur alone on earth, we must seperate it from either water or hydrocarbons. Currently, 95% of hydrogen is produced through steam reforming – separating hydrogen from methane (natural gas – a fossil fuel) and results in the production of greenhouse gases. Electrolysis is separating it from water, but that requires passing electricity through it, and we all know where that comes from.

If you are looking at this as a way to combat reliance on foreign oil, it is decent, and hopefully batteries can progress. But there are better options. Focus would need to be shifted to coal for power and natural gas for heating and transportation (especially in mass transit). And possibly nuclear if we can get it going in this country (it already accounts for 14% of power generation, but could be so much more). Hopefully renewables can fill in gaps until they are more significantly more efficient.

Also, KC makes a good point, MOST importantly (at least for me) why spend extra money if you aren’t going to get the return in fuel savings?

Right now the main problem is the dependence on foreign oil and the problems that has on both an economic and geopolitical scale in the US. Getting things back to stored electricity at home while we work on both a newer fuel source and infrastructure is a step in the right direction.

Honda has already produced a compressed hydrogen zero emissions car that is ready for the production lines. Five are being sold in the US to wealthy people. Once that type of car can be massed produced, and once the US can have a distribution infrastructure for compressed hydrogen, we can then ween ourselves off of the electric cars. However, that could take 10-20 years to get into place, and I don’t think we realistically have that kind of timeline for fossil fuels. While I am not a peak oil advocate, I would rather we spend our resources getting that infrastructure into place with a realistic stop-gap of electric cars than try to spend our resources and time looking for possible oil prospects at home.

http://www.teslamotors.com/

a false dichotomy or the easier way to look at the bigger issue? the bottom line is, which is more fossil fuel dependent? at this point in time it remains to be seen, so by breaking it down in to everybody or nobody you can see the issue more clearly.

i agree there needs to be a way to become less dependent on foreign oil. there are some ways i find way too inefficient (i.e. ethanol fuel — you use 2 gallons of diesel fuel per gallon of ethanol produced. no, those numbers aren’t exact or probably anywhere near accurate, but i do know that it’s a huge net loss as far as energy goes). i have a feeling hybrid vehicles will turn out to be the same type of problem once studied further… what needs to be developed instead of hybrid cars are viable solar panels, more efficient wind farms, efficient geothermal power, utilization of the domestic coal supply. i guess you can say it would stop putting the cart before the horse

As to your other point… The problem with gas is two-fold, and you hit them both. You’ve also managed to construct a false dichotomy of either nobody buying or everybody buying. The bottom line is that things need to change going forward, and this is a step in the right direction. While electric power has problems of its own, at least there are potential solutions. And like I said, in the interim, it’s far better (from a pollution standpoint) to rely on centralized power generation where you can minimize pollutants rather than burning fossil fuels up and down the streets of America.

so is the issue with gasoline because it’s from oil or because of it’s pollutants? either way, what’s worse for right now: 1. nobody buys a hybrid and burns gasoline or 2. everybody buys a hybrid and our power plants go in to overdrive to charge electirc batteries every night burning extraneous amount of coal/natural gas because as much as you try you can’t make the wind blow, the sun shine, or the river flow higher.

t: Not sure what you’re talking about. These things can go up and down hills. Sure, it uses more energy, but the gas motor will kick in if you start running low on juice.

As for the coal/nuclear comment… The only way to get gas is from oil. But electricity can be produced in many, many ways — some cleaner than others. While coal (for example) isn’t exactly clean, at least the power is being produced in a centralized location where steps can be taken to capture pollutants. And in the long run, you could envision switching over to clean power entirely. That simply won’t happen with gas powered vehicles.

The batteries in the hybrid we looked at were $3000 each. My personal mechanic said he didn’t know enough about hybrids to work on one confidently (which means work will be done at the expensive dealer). Considering all of our miles are city miles I determined that we wouldn’t realize much if any savings by buying a premium priced hybrid right now.

Maybe electric is the future, but right now the premiums placed on these cars still makes gasoline powered engines the better purchase for most consumers.

oh and if you feel better or worse about using a car that is less reliant on gasoline but more reliant on coal and/or nuclear power…