Hydrogen Powered Cars A Fact or Delusion?

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Hydrogen Powered Cars A Fact or Delusion?

Excerpts:
1. Much of the general public and politicians fail to realize is that hydrogen cars are currently an unrealistic dream that will neither reduce our dependence on foreign oil nor improve the environment.
2. Hydrogen appears to provide tremendous advantages: burning hydrogen releases more energy per pound of fuel than any other material on earth.
3. Growth of interest in hydrogen fuel was spurred by the key invention of the fuel cell, which allows for a controlled consumption
4. Auto manufacturers have developed concepts for hydrogen-powered cars - General Motors recently announced that it will place 100 hydrogen-fueled cars on the road next year.
5. Burning hydrogen reduces neither demand for fossil fuels nor emissions of carbon dioxide, because almost all the hydrogen used today comes from natural gas - The most common technique for producing hydrogen is known steam reformation using natural gas in which natural gas is heated with water at high pressures, yielding hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide, which is converted to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Thus hydrogen cars do produce greenhouse gas emissions!
7. More environmentally friendly methods of generating hydrogen, such as coaxing bacteria to turn water alone into hydrogen, are still largely in the exploratory phase.
8. Other technological hurdles for hydrogen vehicles include distribution of hydrogen, safety of hydrogen in cars, large sizes of fuel tanks etc.
9. Hydrogen, which is at best a troublesome way to store energy, is being touted as an energy source when the actual source of hydrogen is a fossil fuel.
10. We have some promising, but highly underdeveloped, ideas, from massive oceanic windmill farms to gasoline-oozing bioengineered algae to corn-derived ethanol...

See the full article here - from The Crimson, Sep 20, 2006

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