Re: Just vote no...

[Rick Woodbury <rick@commutercars.com>]

jerry dycus wrote:
> 
> Fuel Cells
> may produce electricity but by no means are they
> batteries. They are much closer to ICE's than
> batteries.

I have to disagree here. Neither electricity nor hydrogen are fuel
sources, but both are wonderful for transporting energy. A NOVA show on
TV over 20 years ago stated that hydrogen passing through pipes has less
energy loss than electricity through wires. High voltage AC lines lose a
certain amount through radiation it said.

As cars cannot use pipes or wires, the issue is: Can you store more
energy in hydrogen to use in a fuel cell or store more electricity in
batteries in your car? It appears that hydrogen is winning this battle.
Current storage methods, hydride, liquid or gaseous storage all store at
considerably higher density than batteries. Both hydrogen and
electricity produce zero emissions in the car and both can be produced
from either renewable sources or fossil fuels.

> Electricity is an universal energy form that makes
> competition to keep prices low, With fuel cells you're
> at the mercy of only a few sources controlled by
> people who want to stick it to you as hard as they
> can.

Hydrogen is also a universal energy form. It can be made quite
efficiently in your kitchen with a DC power source, a couple of
electrodes and a bowl of water with electrolyte in it. Electrolysis is
not going to be cheaper than extracting hydrogen from natural gas with a
reformer, which is why most of the focus is on this method. The only
byproduct from an efficient reformer is CO2. The jury is still out on
how bad that is. Electrolyzers have been available for decades. I
remember one being advertized in "Hydrogen Progress" magazine for
$15,000 dollars that could produce 5 lbs of hydrogen per day. This could
transport you hundreds of miles. I'm sure that some of us could build
our own electrolyzers and store the hydrogen in hydride tanks. This
would be done by plugging in every night to get a couple hundred miles range.

The fuel cells are still expensive and hard to get, but there are
production lines being built to manufacture hundreds of thousands of
them for cars that are scheduled to be built within 2 to 3 years. Check
out Ballard Power Systems at www.ballard.com 

-- 
Rick Woodbury                    Phone: (509) 624-0762
Commuter Cars                    Fax:   (509) 624-1466
Pushing the limits of Sanity     Cell:  (509) 979-1815
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