No-one can really argue that carbon based fuels like petrol, diesel and gas are not good for the environment and a good proportion come from politically sensitive regions like the Middle East. Electric vehicles use expensive batteries and have poor ranges. Possibly efficient hydrogen fuel cells may be the future? Korean car manufacturers think they have now reached the point at which hydrogen fuel celled powered cars are commercially viable. Of course we need the infrastructure such as refueling stations. They claim ranges of 300-400 miles, which are fine. They claim refueling will only take a few minutes.
I remember fuel-cell makers trying to convince me that fuel cells were better than Li-Ion batteries for our TETRA radios. At the time it was hype. Things have moved on quite a lot since then. Of course, the oil industry needs to evolve. They should be heavily investing in technologies for the future.
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31926995 .
Unfortunately hydrogen isn't a fuel, it's a storage medium. You can't mine or harvest hydrogen, you need energy to make the chemical reaction to create or derive it. That energy needs to come from existing sources.
ReplyDeleteGoody,
ReplyDeleteAs the most abundant element on the planet, I am sure ways are possible to generate hydrogen which do NOT depend on fossil fuels. Ideally we need hydrogen to be generated using inexpensive renewables.
We are too in love with fossil fuels. At some point this love affair will have to end. I do hope the petro-chemical industry turns its focus towards low cost and clean hydrogen generation.
73s Roger G3XBM
I have a similar question about proposals to mine water from the frozen ice in the deep craters at the poles of the Moon.
ReplyDeleteI keep reading about how this can then be used to make rocket fuel by simply splitting it into H and O2.
Where does the energy for doing this come from? If it is so easy to do it on the Moon, why are we not able to do it on the Earth and solve our energy problems?