Why are we still using oil when alternatives have been around since 1838? (Fuel Cell)?

Question

The principle of the fuel cell was discovered by German scientist Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1838 and published in the January 1839 edition of the "Philosophical Magazine".

Answer 1

Fuel Cells, Shale, Natural Gas and maybe Cold Fusion. break throughs in any of these areas could make oil obsulete.  But just think about it for a second: If you were the owner of a big oil company making billions of dollars, what would you do? It is a lot cheaper to pay these inventors to keep quiet and I bet you that this has already happened a few times. I am not a firm believer in conspiracies, but come on. Even as an ethical conservative person of integrity as I am. I think that if I were in those same shoes and I made billions of dollars and then a simple invention would instantly stop the cash flow and cause millions of oil company employees to loose their jobs, that would be worse for the world and so in a way we can't blame these oil company executives for paying off the inventors of cold fusion.

Answer 2

Nope.  Fuel cells don't use water for fuel.  They produce it as waste.  Here's a reference:  

http://web.mit.edu/mit_energy/resources/...

It's not free energy and nobody ever thought it was.  They're expensive and finicky and not very practical.  

It seems that you've chosen to substitute a belief in theories of suppressed technologies for the effort it takes to learn the physical laws that actually govern everything.  The latter probably seems like more fun, but after a lifetime of chasing silly theories you may wish you'd initially taken the more rigorous course.  It's vastly more interesting than the fake stuff.  

And if you do, you'll discover that energy is hardly mankind's most difficult problem.  We're amazingly clever at coming up with alternatives, and if there are any lost or suppressed technologies, nobody seems to have found any.

Answer 3

The problem with the fuel cell is the same as it's always been... the operator cannot refill himself, requires switching cells, which is not a 2 minute process....

Answer 4

We still use oil because with oil,  the Companies and the governments can control our power supply which in turn controls us.  There have been many free energy devices invented that have been tested and worked well in the past 100 years that have been suppressed by either buying out the competition or the competition  being eliminated.  Look at Norway there whole country runs on hydrogen power; very efficient.  Read these links: http://www.broandrew.com/suppression.htm...

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thre...

http://www.unexplainable.net/artman/publ...

http://www.befreetech.com/inventors_bewa...

http://www.renovationpress.com/High%20Mi...

Answer 5

Because hydrogen is the worst possible energy storage medium.

Answer 6

Oil is cheaper even now.

Answer 7

The fossil fuels is the best fuel. The plants recycle it for us and that is how it was meant to be.

Answer 8

The internal combustion engine is cheap and very reliable.  Fuel was cheap before these days so it was a good tool.

Answer 9

Because you have to burn oil to make the hydrogen for the fuel cell.  If they would use nuclear (or maybe wind) to do this we could get serious about fuel cells.