Wouldn't hydrogen vehicles affect the enviornment too?

Question

don't get me wrong, i'm all for protecting the enviornment and stuff. but if hydrogen engines expel water vapour, then wouldn't that equal to more water vapour in the air and therfore much more precipitation? which wouldn't really be a good thing cause then it would change weather systems and would affect various ecosystems.

Would that happen if the whole world went to hydrogen? or am I completely wrong? If i am wrong, can you tell me where i went wrong?

Answer 1

Yes and no. Hydrogen vehicles would affect the environment - we'll discuss that later - but it wouldn't be from expelling water vapor.

Hydrogen vehicles are / would be powered by H2 (hydrogen) molecules (not the hummers, thank god). H2 molecules don't exist in large, easy to access quantities on Earth, so they would have to be synthesized. In order to synthesize H2, a strong electric current would have to be run through a pool of water, creating H2 and O2 (oxygen) molecules. So the net effect on water vapor would be zero - no more water comes out as emissions than was taken in as water in the synthesis process.

There would, however, be major environmental impacts from Hydrogen. To create that electricity, we need to generate an electrical current. In most parts of the world, the majority of electricity is generated with coal, so we would need X amount of energy from coal to have Y amount of energy in hydrogen, and Y amount of energy in hydrogen to push our cars with Z amount of energy. To get X energy from coal we have to pump a ton of dirty, black lung-inducing coal emissions into the air (unless we replace our energy source with something greener like wind or water power). Unfortunately, some of the X energy is lost as waste as it becomes Y energy, and even more is lost as it becomes Z energy... So the hydrogen energy we get out actually caused way more dirty coal energy to be produced.

Sorry if that explanation is a bit confusing... In short, hydrogen is not a power source, it's more like a battery charged up with dirty coal that we can put in our cars to power them. Every bit of that hydrogen energy had to come from dirty coal (or nuclear, also very environmentally unfriendly).

Answer 2

For right now nuclear would be the cleanest answer because it is zero pollution if the presidential order Jimmy Carter put in to prevent recycling of nuclear material was revoked. The nuclear material we have right now is only good for another hundred years because of the presidential order. If that order was removed allowing recycling like the rest of the world does then we will have enough to power reactors for a hundred thousand years, not just a hundred.

But in any case to produce the equivalent of one gallon of gasoline using hydrogen it would require burning coal, oil or gas in a power plant equal to more than two gallons of gasoline. So it is easy then to see that until we have sufficient nuclear or solar capacity to provide the electricity hydrogen fuel will be more polluting than gasoline. You just move the pollution to the location of the power plant.

Answer 3

The reason water vapor is not a problem in this context, water vapor in the air is controlled almost entirely by air temperature. Unlike CO2 or methane, which persist long term in the air, water vapor stays there until it precipitates.

Even forming into a cloud removes the water vapor from the greenhouse gas condition, and changes it into a reflectivity enhancer.

We are concerned about having more water vapor in the air, when it is there as a result of warming of the air. Warmer air holds moisture for a long time, grabs water out of the seas and the earth. Only rising temperature will have that effect.

Answer 4

Gasoline powered engines also expel water vapor in quantities not significantly less than would be from a hydrogen powered car.

Answer 5

it would be good if africans would get some more rain. I've read that they were thinking to make more rain and it isnt working cause they would need a lot of energy to run those turbines on the oceans.

and there is one thing: if hydrogen expels water, then it would be good to reuse that water again. cars could have another tank that would catch the water vapour and you could use water to clean stuff.

Answer 6

You are right for the most part but you missed a major point. Hydrogen fuel is made from processing hydrogen from water. So if you convert one gallon of water to hydrogen and then burn the hydrogen, you will get one gallon of water back. The net result is that you will have just as much water as you did before.

Honestly, though, most of the surface of the Earth is water. I would rather have more water on the planet then CO2. The heat created by excess CO2 is more likely to cause more rain and violent storms than simply having more water. Plus, CO2 could melt the ice caps and then we would have way more water than we could ever make burning hydrogen.

So you are half right.

Answer 7

Very few know that water vapor is the most dangerous greenhouse gas. It accounts for 70% of all greenhouse gas.

CO2 is next on the list.

Water is emitted from a hydrogen fuel cell as a waste product and that should not affect the environment because it is not in a gaseous form.

Nobody talks about water vapour as a global warming gas because there is no political benefit from doing so.