helene_t, on Jul 12 2006, 09:45 AM, said:
Hybrid cars polute less than conventional cars and they're available.
They do pollute less because they need less fuel because they do not
waste fuel. Of course this is true only if the car is travelling in
urban areas where much stop and go occurs. When travelling on the
highway, a hybrid car has no advantage at all. This is probably the
reason why I have never heard about hybrid trucks - trucks relatively
seldom drive into the middle of the city.
Quote
Fuel cells and hydrogen are nice science fiction dreams.
started already in the 19th century. It was first used for street
illumination, and became available to homes for heating and cooking in
the early 20th century. The hydrogen portion in the gas was 50%. What
needs to be done in order to get pure hydrogen is just separate it,
which is no problem with todays technology. This means, it is easy and
efficient to produce hydrogen from biomass or any other hydrocarbon
material. The technology is available.
Fuel cells are available as well. If you plan to operate them with
hydrogen you need a most simple device with no moving parts inside,
which could be produced very cheaply if high quantities were demanded.
A network for the transportation of hydrogen from the biomass
converters to homes and business is available, too: I was first used
for the syngas, today it is used for natural gas, and can be easily
used for hydrogen in future.
This concept is unique because prevents pollution, saves very
significant amounts of money and eliminates the dependency from the big
energy multies and oil producing countries.
The only problem is that you cannot start to produce hydrogen if
nobody has fuel cells and there is no point in buying a fuel cell if
hydrogen is not available. Therefore, the society would have to decide
to restructure the energy distribution by converting from electrical
current to hydrogen. This is not easy of course as both oil industry
and the providers of electrical energy would lose their whole business
if this succeeds. But the advantages are so great that I think it is
worth a try. This is why I started this thread: to promote the idea.
It can only become true if at least many people know about it.
Karl