Are Hydrogen cars the solution to Global Warming?

Question

As these veicles give off water as a waste product, and water is a greenhouse gas (little known fact as it is mostly ignored for being a natural greenhouse gas), does this not mean that they're just as bad for the environment as regular cars. Possibly worse, as I got told in Biology that water vapour is 300 times more effective at absorbing high wavelenghs of light than CO2 (or some randomly high figure).

Is really the amazing solution that the media is portraying it to be?

Answer 1

It would also produce large amounts of NO2 . Hydrogen is the most explosive gas of all gas . It has the smallest atom and will leak through almost any thing ,such as hose or connectors. I don't thing the world is ready for such a explosive material .

Answer 2

It is water vapor in the stratosphere that is a massive greenhouse gas.  There is very little water vapor up there now but with hydrogen as a fuel there could be quite a bit.  How will the water vapor get to the stratosphere one may ask?  The hydrogen molecule is extremely small and will leak quite often out of fuel systems.  Hydrogen has a molecular weight of 2 and is very bouyant.  Hydrogen does not react with oxygen unless it has a spark source so the hydrogen will not react with oxygen in the atmosphere.  Upon reaching the stratosphere where there is ozone the hydrogen will react with ozone without the presence of a spark and viola you have water vapor in the stratosphere and a big ozone hole.  This will have terrible consequences for life on planet earth.  Hydrogen as a fuel is a myth for this as well as a dozen other reasons.  go to www.greenenergyexplained.com

Answer 3

If water is a greenhouse gas then we have no hope!  What will we do about the great big oceans lapping our shores??

Answer 4

Imagine cold-weather cities with a lot of traffic (New York, Boston, etc) in January, and all the cars sitting at red lights dumping water vapor down onto the streets all day long.  The streets will become ice rinks in no time.

Answer 5

If there were no muslims in the world there would be 90% less war, meaning less weapons made, tested, used etc and about 30% of governments budgets more to spend on combatting global warming. you want someone to blame.....blame the muslims!

Answer 6

At the moment, no.  Mainly because the environmental impact of manufacturing Hydrogen Fuel cells is so high.

Answer 7

No they are not, but for different reasons than you think.

Water vapor is the byproduct of burning hydrogen, but it will not contribute to global warming.  This is because the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere depends on the planet's temperature.  If the atmosphere is warmer, it can hold more water vapor, but you can emit as much water vapor as you want and the amount in the atmosphere won't change unless the planet's temperature is changing.  It will simply fall to the ground.

This is a common misconception.  Also, water vapor is an extremely weak greenhouse gas.  It accounts for 95% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but just 36-66% of the greenhouse effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_...

But like I said, it doesn't matter, because water vapor cannot initiate global warming.  It can amplify a global warming, because if something else (say increased CO2) causes the planet to warm, then the atmosphere can hold more water vapor, so it will make the warming a bit worse.  But we can still emit as much water vapor as we want and have absolutely no impact on global warming.

However, it's the other end of the hydrogen fuel that's the problem - getting it in the first place.  There's not just pockets of hydrogen sitting around that we can gather up and use as fuel.  You have to get it from somewhere.  You can theoretically get it from water via electrolysis, but to break the atomic bonds requires more energy than you can get out by burning the hydrogen, so it's a net loss.

The main current source of hydrogen is from natural gas, but the process releases as much CO2 as burning the gas directly as fuel, so there's simply no benefit.  Plus natural gas is a non-renewable resource just like oil.

Then even if we figure out a green way of getting hydrogen, there's no infrastructure for it.  You need a transportation and storage infrastructure so cars can refuel, and it would cost billions of dollars to build.

No, in terms of transportation the best solution to global warming is electric cars.  They produce relatively small amounts of CO2, we can make them as green as we want by building more renewable power plants, and the infrastructure (power grid) is already in place.

Answer 8

hopefully in the future when combined with fusion and pebble-bed reactors (which both produce hydrogen as by-products) a hydrogen economy is long-lasting and will solve the world's problems (not just global warming).

Answer 9

no comment. dont know enough about hydrogen.

Answer 10

Always remember that they hydrogen has to come from somewhere- it doesn't naturally occur on its own (at least not in any significant quantities)

The two current sources fo hydrogen-

1.  Seperate it from natural gas in an energy intensive process, the byproduct of which is CO2

2.  Crack it from water, using large amounts of electricity.

Hydrogen doesn't solve our fuel problem- its just another way of moving around the energy we have created.

The water vapor exhaust will not be a big deal- consider that much of current auto exhaust is water vapor, as with any combustion of a hydrocarbon.

Add to that the life cycle costs of producing and disposing of fuel cells, andyou have what hydrogen cars are today- expensive technology demonstartors whose practical use is a long way off.

They aren't the solution to global warming.  Changing how we get our energy and how we use it (and how much) is.

Answer 11

Apparently just the thought of developing hydrogen cars is enough since the ice pack in Antarctica is thicker than it has been in many years.  OH, wait, could it be that mankind isn't a major factor in this natural cycle at all???  Surely not!!!!  LOL

Answer 12

Not at all, because you need energy to produce hidrogen, that element does not exist free on our planet.

Answer 13

no

Answer 14

I agree with most of the other answers.  Hydrogen is not an easy solution.  However, that doesn't mean we should rule out fuel cells altogether.

  Although the media doen't mention it much, there are several types of fuel cells, some of which don't require pure hydrogen. Some run on methane, natural gas, methanol etc.

  I think we'll see fuel cells in other applications, if not in cars.  fork lift trucks are being outfitted with fuel cells.  Some companies are developing micro fuel cells that run on small catridges of methanol and are designed to charge small batteries or replace them.  They are more efficient than batteries.  

  One company has commercially availabel fuel cells for power plants that run on natural gas, using it in a cleaner way.  I believe they are also more efficient.   They can also run on methane at sewage treatment plants, landfills farms, etc.

  Some companies are developing novel ways to store hydrogen, like storing it in amorphous metals.  One company has a system that stores a compound of borax and releases hydrogen on demand to the fuel cell.  

  I agree that electric cars are a better idea.  The cleaner our electric grid becomes, the more this makes sense.

Answer 15

No, the "World's Cleanest Car" is my choice.

" BBC News is reporting that a French company has developed a pollution-free car which runs on compressed air. India's Tata Motors has the car under production and it may be on sale in Europe and India by the end of the year.

The air car, also known as the Mini-CAT or City Cat, can be refueled in minutes from an air compressor at specially equipped gas stations and can go 200 km on a 1.5 euro fill-up -- roughly 125 miles for $3. The top speed will be almost 70 mph and the cost of the vehicle as low as $7000."

Being this is the first of its kind means it only will get better.

Answer 16

First, the hydrogen cars are at the moment to expensive and insecure(in case they get hit, the explosion will be far more greater than in a normal car's case). But, if it would be found a solution to this, then, yes, I think they could solve global warning because, even if you said about water is true, H2O vapors DO condense and the result is...normal water. Which will be recycled in the ecosystem again and again....and again, unlike CO2 which is too much at the moment to be recycled by plants.

Answer 17

Not yet because hydrogen is made easier from fossil fuels vs water so greedy manufacturers will make it from fossil fuels defeating the purpose and making a fuel out of a fuel and wasting energy in the process while causing pollution.  Water as a green house gas means that rain is bad which sounds a bit fishy.