Would there be any harmful environmentally to having hydrogen powered cars?

Question

Then if it gives off a greenhouse gas after being used, why all the talk to switch to it then?

Answer 1

Hydrogen is bloody dangerous, much more than petrol. It leaks constantly, burns immediately on contact with air, explodes in the right mixture. Think about how many accidents there would be if we built a nationwide network of fuel stations...or if two hydrogen-fuelled cars hit each other.

Check out this video of what a hydrogen accident is like

http://www.vidicom-tv.com/tohiburg.htm

Answer 2

London Transport ceased using hydrogen for its buses and there are no plans to renew it .

Also there are no refueling locations anywhere in the U K so that has killed it stone dead

Answer 3

with all things, yes!

Answer 4

Yes.  

Water vapor (the product of using hydrogen) is a greenhouse gas, too.

The hydrogen has to come from somewhere, and if it is coal power, then it produces carbon dioxide to make the hydrogen.  

That said, hydrogen *might* be better than oil.

Answer 5

We need to become more open minded when it comes to alternative fuels as a source of implementation.

http://freefuelsource.blogspot.com

Answer 6

Common misconception:

burning hydrogen with air results in H20.... BUT also at high temperatures N2 and O2 recombine into NOx (nitrous oxides) which are pollutants.

Only the use of hydrogen in fuel cells would prevent this.

Answer 7

You read my earlier answer lol, no harm what so ever providing the hydrogen cell was manufactured correctly its a scandall it hasnt happened yet......... another point on which politicians have let us down in the name of money. Infact, most cars today can be converted to run mainly on hydrogen and a car on youtube did a few hundred miles on 7oz of water, i have a in the past made a generator run on hydrogen a car can be converted for about 200 pound in uk money.

Hydrogen is simply seperated from water using a small electrical charge then convert back to water, the charge needed can come from batteries that are trickle charged from solar power freeeeeee.

There are many hydrogen storage cells around the world, when did we last here of a hydrogen emergency- The Hindenburge? which was a problem made worse by the lead in the paint used at the time, ok maybe a few others but heay nothing is 100% safe but like i say if the cells etc are manufactured with thought it can be a safe as petrol.

The environmental impact is far less that other fuel so therefore must be better..

Answer 8

Hydrogen is a great fuel and gives off only clean water when it is burned. The problem is we do not have any hydrogen so we have to make it. We make almost all of our hydrogen from natural gas.

Making the hydrogen from natural gas puts a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which is a greenhouse gas.

It takes 4 times as much energy from natural gas to make that amount of energy from hydrogen so we would make less pollution and cost if we just run the cars on natural gas.

The reason you hear people talk about hydrogen is that it can be made with electricity.

The hope is that if we can make clean electricity we could  use that to make clean hydrogen.  Right now most of our electricity comes from coal powered generators so that is worse than natural gas.

Some day we may make hydrogen from solar power but that technology can not make large amounts of power yet. Geothermal power may be a better alternate energy source but for now hydrogen is just a future possibility.

Answer 9

Yes, hydrogen is not the environment's gift to alternative fuels.

For one thing, by our current methods, it uses more energy to produce hydrogen than the hydrogen itself creates.  This is not a solution to the global warming problem because much of our electricity is still produced by burning fossil fuels.

Hydrogen is also extremely flammable (look up the Hindenburg blimp on Wikipedia) and could be extremely dangerous in an accident if the tank were to ignite.  There are some people who say the tanks used in hydrogen cars are designed not to rupture, but I'm still skeptical.

Answer 10

No, it is considered good for the environment.I think the point is that oil will run out, and countries that have it will hold it for themselves. So do we have a choice.  Battery cars have not really come along, especially for those countries with limited daylight. Gas fields will eventually run out so the further we go down the road developing hydrogen power the better.  People wave their arms about over wind farms, nuclear reactors etc, but they still want the good life.  There are dangers with hydrogen that have to be fully addressed but this is the way forward.

Answer 11

Well, as all my previous post-ers said hydrogen is a very good fuel.

There  are two issues:

The first one being the storage as it is a gas and to get sufficient amount for the distances people want to drive for example it needs to be compressed and possibly even cooled. This though isn't an insurmountable problem as cooling and compressing gases has been done for a long time and the existing technology only needs adaptation for the new use in cars and other vehicles.

The second issue is the more difficult to solve one. How do you get hydrogen? It can be made by electrolysis of water correct, but that is energy inefficient and the electricity for this process will have to come from somewhere - most likely producing CO2 in the process (that is if it is not a nuclear power plant or wind or solar). Scientists are looking at the moment to generate hydrogen by genetically modifying bio-organisms, this may be a way forward, but not without its own problems either.

Answer 12

Hydrogen power is ideal because when you burn hydrogen, you produce nothing more than heat and H2O condensate (water).  In effect, hydrogen is the ultimate renewable fuel, since it can be electrolysed from water, and when burned, returns to its original water state.

The problem with hyrogen is that it is the most volatile gas on Earth.  It does not compress into a liquid form, as would be the case with LPG).

Hydrogen under pressure in a motor vehicle represents an extremely hazardous fuel if an emergency situation should arise.

There are currently a number of research institutes that are trying to find a way to incorporate hydrogen into an inert carrier, in order to produce a controlled release of gas, rather than the violently explosive release as is the case at present.

Of course, the major oil companies would much rather supress the development of hydrogen powered vehicles because they'd lose their monopoly on the worlds automotive fuels industry.  Favouring instead, the developement of fuel cell powered vehicles which would still run on gasoline fuel products, but use the fuel in a different and cleaner fashion than current gasoline driven vehicles.