Future of energy is all up in the air
Wed, September 17 2008
The cost of oil is draining billions of dollars out of Americans’ wallets and putting it in the hands of regimes often unfriendly or downright hostile to the U.S., reported the Christian Broadcast News.
“We simply cannot rely on countries that simply don’t like us for our fuel,” General Motors’ spokesman Dave Barthmuss said.
Some see hydrogen as ultimately the cleanest and best replacement. And it’s not just a pie-in-the-sky idea. Hydrogen-powered cars are steadily marching their way toward us.
General Motors has a fuel-cell vehicle called the Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell that’s been placed in the hands of hundreds of drivers in the New York City, Los Angeles and Washington areas where hydrogen-fuel stations already exist.
“This is the greenest thing I’ve ever done. It makes me feel great. And I haven’t stopped at a gas-station in months,” Tom Albert, a participant in GM’s Project Driveway said.
These vehicles can do up to 100 miles an hour and go about 150 miles before they need a hydrogen fill-up.
In Japan, Toyota already has the “fuel cell advanced” operational and going some 470 miles before it needs a fill-up.
And last year, they gave a hydrogen-powered car one of North America’s toughest tests: the freezing cold and often rough road of the Alcan Highway, stretching from Fairbanks, Alaska to southern Canada.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe.
You can get it many ways — from water, by pulling the hydrogen out of the h2o, using renewable resources like solar, geothermal, wind-power or something called biomass.
“It’s crop waste. It’s maybe the husks and hulls from the corn, or the stalks and stuff like that, and really a step toward compost,” Bill Reinert of Toyota explained.
He says fuel cells in an h2-powered car work pretty simply.
“All you’re doing is combining hydrogen with oxygen. You get an electrical reaction (and) produce electricity,” Reinert said.
And that runs the vehicle. Chris White works for the California Fuel Cell Partnership, where automakers, energy companies and government are all working together to create the hydrogen future.
“The beauty of hydrogen is that no one country or no one region of the world can own the energy source,” he said. “It can be manufactured by every country, every region, in the way that makes the best sense for them.”
They call this a ‘disruptive technology.’ Imagine the world of gasoline-powered cars completely thrown out and replaced with a hydrogen economy. “These hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles will do to today’s cars and trucks what today’s cars and trucks did to the horse and buggy of a hundred and 50 years ago,” Barthmuss claimed.
And they may actually be cheaper to operate.
Studies show when a hydrogen economy is fully up and running, a fill-up will cost the equivalent of two to three dollars a gallon of gas. if it’s taxed just like gas, add on another 57 cents to make the cost $0.68 to $1.68 still a bargain compared to what most people are paying at the pumps right now.
