Hydrogen Fuel Cells, Global Warming, and Humidity?

Question

A lot of people (mostly politicians) have been pushing the hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. For many reasons this isn't the best course of action (infrastructure, expensive, dangerous, tough to transport etc.). The wast that would come out of this vehicle would simply be water vapor. Great right? What i was wondering was that if hypothetically we turned from oil to hydrogen fuel cells wouldn't the water vapor cause just as many problems as CO2. Water vapor is the most abundant and effective green house gas so how much would this fuel global warming if we begin to pump out all this water vapor? Also wouldn't there be an increase in humidity in city areas replacing the haze and smog of today?

I believe strongly in global warming, if you don't go to the next question. This is a serious question and I don't want to hear, "Its not a problem cause global warming is a hoax." Look at the science. For all you serious people, thanks.

Answer 1

The solution is in your problem. Water vapor has a name in the atmosphere: Clouds. And clouds reflect sunlight AWAY from the earth. Which would reduce global warming, no?

Answer 2

Actually the hydrogen that is used, if it was produced electrolytically from water is merely returning to its original state. Essentially there is no net increase of water. It should not have any effect of Global Warming.

Also you may be interested to know that you do not have to wait until fuel cells for cars come down in price from the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they cost today.

You can have the internal combustion engine in your car converted to run on hydrogen today.

The company that does the conversions is The Hydrogen Car Company, 5700 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California

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Answer 3

Another folly in the making!

Never, never, never use anything to power a motor vehicle that sustains human life, e.g.; water, soybean, corn.

Answer 4

NJdevil - you're wrong as described above

slew - Wow! get some help man.  you're a nut!

Answer 5

There's a natural "water cycle" which rapidly removes excess water vapor from the atmosphere, mostly as rain or snow.  So water vapor is not a cause of global warming.

Except for the fact that warmer air can hold more water.  So water vapor can accelerate global warming.  But then, the extra water comes from evaporation of oceans, lakes, etc.  Hydrogen fuel cells are very minor compared to those sources.

Bottom line:  hydrogen fuel cells don't cause global warming or make it worse.

By the way, the corresponding "carbon cycle" uses plants to remove CO2.  It's slow and we've overwhelmed it's ability to remove excess CO2.

Answer 6

I agree that water can be considered to be a pollutant.    If we add water to an arid area, we turn the ecosystem upside down.  People think water help things grow, and make it more hospitable.  That is true and thats the problem.  If there is moer water in the desert, there are more predators that would kill of the animals that live in the desert.  More water would mean more herbivores to eat the desert plants.  The faster growing plants would out compete the slow growing desert plants.  Plus California does not have the water to spare to make Hydrogen.    Ever since I heard about Hydrogen fuel for automobiles, I was against it.  Electric cars make more sense.  TO make Hydrogen fuel according to current technology, you need to convert some sort of energy source into electricity.  THen you need to convert electricity into making Hydrogen.  You lose energy converting electricity into Hydrogen.  The people supporting this try to mislead the public into thinking it's a new energy source.  It is not.  THere is no Hydrogen mine .  We still need to use the old methods to make electricity to make the Hydrogen.  Granted, putting up more wind turbine might help, and my least favorite , nuclear reactors.  As for water being a greenhouse gas, thats disputed.  Some think that clouds reflect light back to space while others think that clouds reflect heat back to earth.  I doubt it would be significant, since cloud cover is more dependent on heat.  Also another intersting note, Energy efficient engines like the ones that are advertising by GE, is actually create more greenhouse effect than energy wasting engines.  The GE engine does not generate as much heat and the water vapors turn into clouds that causes the greenhouse effect.  The energy wasting engines generate more heat and the water vapor totally evaporates.