Does anyone see a problem with hydrogen energy?

Question

I know with the crises at hand it seems a valuable option but what happens when we start eradicating the oceans and seas. I mean the ice caps are already melting. Isn't this a defence mechanism of the earth to heal itself? What would happen if we started to depleat our water supply? I think we need to research more on solar power. What are your thoughts?

Answer 1

Hydrogen is highly  volital & burns clear which is a draw back but the only wast is water. The military has ben using hydrogen fule cells for years & GM has devoluped a fule cell car, The hangup is producing & distrubiting hydrogen gas. The  reason for the slow change to alteranet energy sorces is greed.. Fossel fules are cheep & companys wood rather have a fast buck thain a healthy enviorment.

Answer 2

Currently the only problem with hydrogen as a fuel source is that it takes as much conventional energy to split the h2o bond as it would produce in energy.  

We definitely need to make solar power more affordable so that we can make cooperative grids in residential neighborhoods or the roof tops (especially in the southwest).

Answer 3

its a very good power plant but, what about combat (i know off topic) but this is tyed in becuase in iraq the terrorists use car bombs with gasoline motors imaginew th devastation of the explosion (hydrogen is very explosive a.k.a. hyrdrogen bomb) forget about terroist blowing up a block now think about its like 5 times as bad with the hydrogen, and the vehicles need enoguh power to meet military standards like tanks, (the abrhams has a diesel engine, goes 45ish mph how you gunna do that easily with a hydrogen engine)

Just remember theres pro's anc cons to it all.

Answer 4

First it takes energy to make it, diluting any benefit. Second, that an entirely new infrastructure will need to be built, costing a heck of a lot of money that we could be using for other things. Third is they want us to use some sort of resource to get around because they want something they can tax us for.

Answer 5

jhillftp where did you get 1kw/m2?  In southern Canada there is an anual average of 3.34kwh/m2 (that's counting dark winters).  And as for solar panel efficiencies, they are getting up to the 30-40% efficiency range with experimental models.

Answer 6

Where does the hydrogen come from?

How will you distribute it?

How will you store it?

Answer 7

First hydrogen is NOT A FUEL. You can't mine hydrogen, you have to extract it via electrolysis, or the iodine sulfuric acid combo etc... which are both not very efficient.. and both require energy to make the conversion. Think about it for two seconds (I know it's hard).. How much oil do we get from drilling??? The answer is billions of barrels, and the cost is a very small amount of fuel in percentage. It cost around half the efficiency to produce hydrogen fuel. We didn't have to do any work to store the energy provided by oil.. millions of years of decay did it for us. Now that, that is cleared up.. the product of burning hydrogen is water vapor.. so we will not run short on water.

Now as for solar power...The amount of power the sun shines down on the earth is 1 kw/m^2 and is only 10% efficient at best (and this is when the sun is shining). You would need solar panels EVERYWHERE. I'm talking wipe out the forest near your house cause we need more solar panels.

My thoughts... Nuclear. That is the only thing that is anywhere near as efficient. And for those of you about to whine about Chernobyl.. Look up pebble bed reactors mmkay, we have come a long way since 1986.

Answer 8

I think your healing comment is in relation to the Gaia Hypothesis to where the earth has cycles and ways to repair itself.  As to your main question I think Hydrogen is an excellent energy source and do not understand why you believe this would depleat our water supply.  Hydrogen engines essentially take 2 hydrogen atoms and a oxygen atom and the emmissions is water.  You dont fill your car up with water.  As to solor power there are several companies out there doing great work with thin solar cells electronics companies such as Kyocera are comming up with great solutions.  As for the melting of the ice caps it is proven that the Earth goes through heating and cooling stages and that we have had several ice ages over many stages in the Earth history.  I would not be overally worried as the place where technology has taken us in 100 years is amazing and I know the next 100 will be that much more impressive.  

Good luck.

Answer 9

Nothing like driving the family around in a mini version of the Challenger.

Look at all the fuel leaks the shuttle has.  Imagine how hard it will be to prevent leaks in H2 cars.

Answer 10

We use solar now.Getting our wind generator,next week.

We are in agreement about hydrogen.And now looking into a heat turbine.Something for those of us that are not on the grid.

Answer 11

No, one only needs to put solar electric current to water and capture the gas.

Where did you ever get the idea of eradication of the oceans? What we are doing is overfishing them where they are on the edge of total collapse.

Answer 12

If you are thinking of making electrical energy from hydrogen, that could be a problem as you could wind of with a thermo nuclear hydrogen bomb if something went wrong. That would certainly give you a lot of energy but you might not want it.