Iceland's Hydrogen Buses Zip to Oil-Free Economy

[Lenny]

Don't think you'd notice the difference between a tank truck full of H2 or one full of gasoline if they ignited anywhere near you.

Oh, my Gawd! Oh, the humanity!

 

[Warron]

What does get me however, is that nothing I've read convinces me there's any *efficient* and pollution-free way of *producing* usable hydrogen. It burns cleanly enough, but it uses fuel, to make fuel. It's like telling yourself that re-chargeable batteries are "free". The hell they are - they use electricity, and they *waste* as much energy as they consume. They're just damned convenient. But there's no net "savings".

This is true but yet incomplete.

While hydrogen fuel is not as pollution free as many seem to think, the advantage is that the pollution is concentrated at a few localized facilities versus spewing from every tailpipe across the nation. This allows for much easier control and mitigation of the pollution. It is much easier to monitor and apply control methods to a few dozen power plants then to a few million automobiles.

And the same applies to rechargeable batteries. 100 million batteries headed for landfills, which will be covered and forgot about in a couple years until the runoff starts leaching into our drinking water. Or a few power plants which are constantly monitored and can have new pollution control technology applied as it comes available.

The savings is that, by reducing the number of pollution sources, you are reducing the effort that goes into detecting and minimizing the amount of pollution.

 

[vraiblonde]

They need to start doing what they should have been doing for a long time.

That is very true but there's nothing we can do about that. I suppose we could pay them to progress, like we usually do, but it doesn't sit well with me to pay people to act in their own best interest. We can't even insinuate that they're holding us back because then we'll have to listen to people all over the world (including the US) piss and moan about how mean and horrible we are.

Ever hear an environmentalist bust on the Arab world for their production of oil and refusal to find a new way to make money? It's rare. What's more prevalent is environmentalists busting on the US for buying and consuming the oil, not to mention exploiting the poor Arabs and raping their land of natural resources.

Some day we'll have a President that says, "Tough ####. We're moving forward and you people either keep up or be left behind." But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.