Which is more enviormentally friendly and which is more enconimical?

Question

As gas prices soar and the environment worsens I am looking at alternative fuel sources. Three alternative fuels that caught my eye are electric cars,compressed air cars, and hydrogen fuel cell cars. Electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell cars seem to be a bit more advanced than compressed air cars as they can be a comparable size to cars that run on gas. But compressed air cars run on just clean air while the other two have extra chemicals that can hurt the environment. Electric cars and compressed air cars both seem to have hydrogen fuel cell cars beat in the re-fueling category as they both are able to be filled up at home or at commercial stations while hydrogen fuel cells are costly (the fuel cell not the car, though a thing to note is it isn't as expensive as gas) and can only be handled at commercial stations. So which one do you think is both the best enviormental and economical?

Answer 1

Hydrogen is the worst in both environmental (96% of our hydrogen comes from fossil fuels) and economical (Honda FCX Clairty fuel cell car costs $600/month to lease) terms.  

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/hydrog...

Air cars are okay.  The only problem is that they're less efficient than electric cars, because instead of storing the electrical energy directly in a battery and using it to power a 90% efficient electric motor, they use that energy to power an air compressor and use the compressed air to push a piston - an inherently less efficient process.

However, because air cars don't need heavy batteries, they can make up for some of that efficiency loss with a lighter weight.  But there are some electric cars of similar weight to air cars which are far more efficient.

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/air-ca...

Electric cars are my personal favorite because of their efficiency.  Almost every major auto company as well as many smaller companies are also working on either fully electric cars, plug-in hybrids, or both.  So there will be many to choose from.  

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/air-ca...

They're great from an environmental standpoint because they produce low emissions and their batteries are fully recyclable.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/...

So electric and air cars are pretty close from both an environmental and economic standpoint, as discussed in the second link.  It just depends on the individual cars as to which is better.  Since there will be far more electric than air car options, I think electrics win.

Answer 2

for now, i'd say electric.

i would never go hydrogen because i live in canada, and in the winter time, hydrogen is useless. and your right, refueling would be an issue unless if there was a decent amount of refueling stations. and apparantly hydrogen isn't very efficient

electric, sure you use the electricity from your house to charge it, and maybe you get your electricity from a coal buring plant, maybe not. but you would still be doing the enviornment a favor by taking another gas burning car off the road. plus, if you made your own electricity (solar power or wind power), then you could do the enviornment more of a favor and your wallet a favor at the same time.

i don't really know much about compressed air cars, but i'd get one over an electric car if there is a practical air car.

Answer 3

I'm really getting tired of reading the absolute bull being put out by Dana- and his "green propaganda". The reason this nation is dependent on foreign oil and are transferring 700 billion dollars of our national wealth to foreign countries is because of people like Dana's master of bull 1981! This is more than Iraq has cost us since its inception.

I would like to remind all that hydrogen is two thirds of water. Water covers seven eights of the world. When the water in the oceans evaporate they release two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen. So maybe we should drain the seas?

Hydrogen has roughly seven times the energy of gasoline. When hydrogen is used as a fuel the output or byproduct is water. The problem isn't with the cars, the trouble is the manufacturing process of the fuel or the car which in every case is more environmentally damaging than burning straight gasoline in the cars being produced now. Ethanol is destroying the worlds economy, the worlds food supply and does more damage in its production and uses more energy to produce than what is saved when it is used as fuel. Also the average engine loses almost 10% of its efficiency when using ethanol rather than straight gas.  Ethanol is the biggest scam congress has swallowed yet! Dana was probably one of the salesmen.

PS I've got a Doctorate, but I don't use a degree to attempt to convince the public I know what I'm talking about.

Answer 4

Currently biofuels are your best bet. The fuels are available (you can even make them at home). Many regular gas or diesel cars can run on biofuels.

Hydrogen, electric and air are all neither economically nor environmentally viable yet.

Answer 5

You forgot about the alternative fuel that is here and now and has been for years...natural gas! I have 2 cars that run on it and they're very clean and very cheap to fill up ($10 in Utah). Neither vehicle cost much, although the prices are going up as people figure out what a deal this is. Ford made both of mine, a Crown Vic and a F-150 pickup. Honda makes a Civic GX, but they're not easy to find. The main problem is finding a station to fill up at, since not every state is on board with this yet. I'll give some sources so you can check into this yourself. Good luck!

Answer 6

these will help ur cause in some way...

http://www.greenoholic.com/is-biodiesel-...

http://www.FuelCellReviews.com

Answer 7

Of the three, electricity is the best, although compressed air might be better in cities. Hydrogen suffers losses in electrolysis (30%), transport (10 - 30%), and converting the energy in hydrogen back into electricity in the car (30%). Electricity avoids all of these problems. Remember that you can't just burn water, hydrogen is just an ineffiecent, convoluted storage of electrical energy.

Answer 8

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut, it's a conspiracy. I remember when the greenies took over. Detroit took a nosedive trying to clean up. Meanwhile Volvo,Honda and Mercedes coming into the shop with no pollution equipment, were scoring close to zero on the old Hamilton. My '79 Honda w/ the CVCC 3valve was getting 45on the road. That was so good I got a '90 Honda w/ a CVCC 4valve, but that only got 35 mpg. Now I look up the '08 and guess what; 29mpg hwy. Are they getting senile. .........I wouldn't buy any alternative car until they settled down and prove themselves.... Of course Ethanol is already proven to be a scam. Imagine subsidizing farmers to grow non-food, and charging people taxes to do it. Might as well concrete over the land and open a parking lot.

Answer 9

Compressed air probably doesn't have much hope as a fuel (at least not if you want decent range) due to the heavy tankage needed if the energy is just from having it at high pressure (you need very high pressures to store a decent amount of energy).

"while the other two have extra chemicals that can hurt the environment."

Chemical is not a swear word (besides, did you know that air contains chemicals?).

Hydrogen right now is mostly made from fossil fuels, it'll probably take nuclear completely replacing almost everything else for electricity production before mass hydrogen production that doesn't involve steam reforming of methane happens (if we don't just go to synthetic hydrocarbons that burn in a normal engine).

Batteries are fine if you recycle them properly although the effects of electric cars will depend on what generates the electricity where you live (unless you're in France it'll still emit CO2 though probably less than if you used petrol).

From an economic point of view electric is probably the only one that could beat petrol although it would depend on the electricity rates, petrol prices and whether there's an additional fee added to registration because you won't be paying fuel taxes, whilst hydrogen can be burned in ordinary internal combustion engines (i.e. doesn't require a fuel cell) that is less efficient than a fuel cell and you need an engine that can handle hydrogen which most stock car engines can't (and even if it could be modified to run on H2 it'd probably not be worth it).

Alternative fossil fuels like LPG and Natural Gas that can be burned in a suitably modified petrol engine tend to only be cheaper when the tax on them is less and they are still fossil fuels (the continuing stupidity that is wind power is going to mean more natural gas is needed for backing up that wind on still days so that probably won't be a viable replacement fuel if the Pickens plan were implemented).