Hey, all:

With respect, all this is wasted energy (pardon) as we dawdle over what really should be a very short transition to a solar-Hydrogen transportation economy.  Any activity that has the real threat to increase habitat loss through clearing and cultivating still more land, drive up food costs, require greater fossil fuel-driven fertilizer/pesticide/herbicide inputs, impose greater threats of developing GMOs still more monstrous than the last, increase the power of multinational corporate agribidness, perpetuate the political lives of political stooges, put even greater demands on water resources--any activity with the above realities and cascading consequences is one I am strongly opposed to.  This is one transition that can be quite short if we have the proper focus.  

People like Stanley Ovshinsky have developed free-standing solar-Hydrogen production modules that can provide Hydrogen fuel on site.   What is needed now is a commitment to deploy them, and move very strongly to create a fleet which will begin to use the fuels, and transition rapidly to a transportation system with sustainability approaching 100%.  

Instead of arguing over which biofuel causes the least amount of continuing destruction (not a happy discussion), we could be arguing which Hydrogen system recovers its emergy sooner and which pays back its financial investment quicker.  Or sittin' at the traffic light with a dead silent, fuel cell-electric-powered ride, and then smokin' some chump still drivin' some wasteful, last-century technology POS heap!  Now thass cool!

Among the first steps in finding the answers is to look at our rooftops--disappointingly non-high-tech, I know, but extremely high in common sense.  

David
Sustainability for Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

Grey,

While I agree with the thrust of your comments (hydrogen is a loser, biofuels a dodge, electrics are the most promising strategy for trying to provide personal cars to those people who must have them) ...

I must say you lose me and, I would guess, others when you cite $0.01/mile as the cost to drive an electric vehicle.  Ain't nobody going to be leasing you or selling you a car where the all-in cost of ownership and use is a penny a mile.  That's just hype just like the hype from the hydrogen drones,  only for a different flavor Wondertoy, and it's like saying that nuclear power would be too cheap to meter.

Curb your enthusiasm a little, in other words.  You are not doing yourself or the rest of us any favors by overhyping the promise of electrics, and you are definitely increasing the likelihood of a disillusionment backlash against EV technology with overheated pronouncements.  

The link you provided was to your own website (not a source for unbiased information, in other words) and even then the link led only to a page with marketing photos and "statistics" that are nothing more numbers that, for all we know, are pulled out of the air.  

But even your own page says the cost to drive the things will be one hell of a lot more than a penny per mile.

So chill a little.  People are starting to get that the great biofuels boondoggle is just that, and more and more people are noticing that hypedrogen is always 10-15 years out.  

I think the only way to defeat the rise of EVs now is for people to oversell them.

I'm on your side in supporting EVs, so I hope you will consider this in the spirit intended.

"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."

Using night time electricity generation we'd have to have replaced 80% of our cars before we would need even 1 new power plant.

And even if these cars were operated on COAL power, the car would still be responsbile for less CO2 per mile than a Prius.

I'd love to be able to believe that this claim is true, but it seems counter-intuitive that we could replace 80% of our gasoline use with plug-in electric vehicles without requiring considerably more generating capacity, even allowing for off-peak recharge.

As Cuba G might say: Show Me The Numbers! And to echo JMG's comments above, let's not depend on the promotional claims of entrepreneurs as evidence.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

An electric car running on the dirtiest coal, is comprable to a conventional Oil car in CO2 emmisions.

Which isn't that bad as far as a "worst case scenario" goes.

Hey, all:

I will reiterate some points I made earlier to clarify, and elaborate on some others, and perhaps to put some misconceptions to rest--actually a speedy death would be a better end.

First, I do not support any fossil fuel source for Hydrogen production.  As I pointed out we need to make a complete shift from fossil fuels and any other unsustainable energy sources, which includes nuclear--these sources merely extend the problem we face.  Hence the reference to "solar-Hydrogen".  Any scheme using natural gas or any other hydrocarbon only displaces the pollution from the roadway to the production plant, and does nothing to reverse GHG output.  It also produces what fossil-fuel industry advocates will likely call "ultra-clean coal", another example of tortured, perverted, marketing, corporate-political oligarchy language--not far removed from "Newspeak".

Second, since Hydrogen is, has been, and will in the future be produced by hydrolysis, and sustainably so with solar, any measures of cost involving CO2 calculations are erroneous.  As long as one wishes to imply or assume or maintain this stance, one will be clearly disingenuous.  

Third, using the term "electrocuting" water for  Hydrogen production can be equally applied to battery technology, and serves no useful purpose.    It simply does not advance the discussion.  In addition, chemical processes take place in battery technology which could be recited here as well, and also serves no purpose.  

Fourth, Palladium is already a widely used metal in the automotive industry, in catalytic converters, and in fact is recycled from scrapped cars.  Suggesting some stress or hardship associated with use in hydrolysis units and fuel cells is therefore disingenuous.  Battery technology, especially the more high-tech they become, could easily impose similar hardships.  

Fifth, efficiencies and consequences of hydrogen use are based on 3 erroneous omissions or assumptions: 1) already addressed is the source of energy and the Hydrogen itself.  2) water for use in hydrolysis can easily be distilled by the same means: solar.  3) "Well-to-Wheel" measurements are also intractably useless, since there is no 'well' involved in solar-Hydrogen.  When you use an absolutely free energy source such as the sun, the costs are largely in the equipment.  

Sixth, the development of low pressure storage media for Hydrogen reduces the need for and efficiency loss associated with compression of the gas.  It also addresses, although it is a straw man distraction to start with, the hazards of Hydrogen storage.  It also greatly speeds up the refueling process.  

Seventh, since Hydrogen is produced on site in a distributed generation system, costs associated with transportation are avoided.  

Eighth, if we are measuring comparative costs of different fuels we need to rigorously include all the embodied energy--"emergy"--associated with the fuel and its processing.  When we incorporate solar into as many of the processes as possible, we reduce the emergy across the board, but solar-Hydrogen still comes out ahead, since both the energy source (sun) and medium (water) are in such abundance--far more egalitarian than any other technology.  In fact, maybe its egalitarian character is a perceived drawback.    

It would be interesting to see some honest, unbiased numbers reflecting the accurate process    
of solar-Hydrogen as it has been proposed, and including ALL the costs--emergy: production, politics, environmental degradation, transportation, unequal distribution of wealth due to continued reliance on grid power, impacts to public health, etc.  As an example, I have not read here any suggestions for the source of electrical energy for battery technology.  We all know the lesson of the weakest link.  

I realize this discussion started out on biofuels ("agrofuels"), but the entire scheme certainly appears to be widely discredited here, and for good reason.  I completely agree that the consequences of such a process, or the process itself, are not sustainable on any time scale, and any net reduction of GHG is highly questionable.  We will have gained nothing but drive up the cost of food.  

Once beyond this conclusion, however, I do not relish arguing over how we rapidly move to transform the fleet, especially when bias, omissions, and false assumptions hamper the discussion.  

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!