Tom60

I agree that hydrogen will eventually win over. The problem is getting the infrastructure in place. You'll need hydrogen fuel points every, what, 200-300 miles? It's going to happen, but will take time.

fatbrit

You need a government wielding carrots and sticks for such a dramatic change. The current status quo is too engrained to be changed by normal means, and the unhealthy corporate influence resists change well.

Tom60

By "carrots and sticks", I'm guessing you mean tax-breaks on hydrogen vehicles. Well, if you have to pay a luxury tax to buy a Lamborghini that gets 12mpg, it makes sense that they'll give you a tax break on a hydrogen-powered vehicle. As for corporate resistance, well, I can see big oil companies investing in this, if they have any brains. Plans for hydrogen fueling points are already underway: http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/blog2/

Ray

I really think the OP means Scotland

MsElui

i can remember telling my mate last year what she should bring over if she came to visit - and it was a long list of stuff i couldnt live without. I was thinking about the list yesterday and realised that it would be a lot shorter now and likely getting them to bring things over here like marmite or tea bags or cadburys- that i COULD get easily enough here - just for a heap more money.

I am hard pressed to describe sometimes what is better or worse here than the UK - i mean REALLY vastly better/worse - as i think here has just become the norm and its where we live. Its not so different- or at least the differences seem rather inconsequential or irrelevant. it feels like home (although I am a brit and that will always be home home!
I no longer so strongly hanker to go back for a visit (bacon sandwich cravings are almost gone lol) although i wouldnt say no to more firends and family visiting me.

fatbrit

I'd go further than that. The government needs to declare that the next fuel for personal vehicles will be hydrogen and how it will be delivered -- standardization.

The gas stations need to be told to supply it and the manufacturers to produce it. Whether they continue to use an internal combustion energy or use it to generate electricity to power the car or whatever....is up to their ingenuity. But I'd go far further than just tax breaks.

Hydrogen is the ideal long-term fuel because there is an endless supply and we can generate it off of any power source. It removes our dependence on any fuel supply.

another bloody yank

Well that's a new one.

Tom60

It's kind of an odd thing to put on the list. Maybe he's a book dealer.

Tom60

That's where we differ. Government control. I'm all for a tax incentive for car buyers, but other than that, they need to stay out of it. Leave it up to free enterprise. If there's a dollar to be made, and a competitive environment, the system will work.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Hydrogen is still in the experimental stage. Fuel cells are expensive to produce, are lacking in longevity, and their costs don't scale. Hydrogen is difficult to transport and store, and most of what might produced in the US would almost certainly require hydrocarbons.

I have serious doubts that hydrogen will ever be made into a workable, cost-effective alternative. What we could benefit from is some viable storage alternative to batteries, which could in turn make electric cars more practical for the average person. But that is also in the experimental stages, and wouldn't be ready for prime time anytime soon.

fatbrit

There's a foolish belief that free market capitalism is a pure religion that works perfectly on its own over here. It doesn't and it never has. The mess at the end of the last 10 years should have been a clear enough example of what happens if government doesn't oversee and steer.

As an analogy, let's look at the mobile phone system. European governments dictated the standards to providers and then let them get on with it. The GSM standard was chosen and everyone had to adhere to it. Over in the US, everyone got to do their own thing and there were several standards. When I came over from a decidedly second-world European country just emerging from communism a decade ago, I brought my unlocked GSM phone with me. To my surprise, it was a major talking point since it was a couple of years before that model made it to America. The system over here has encouraged lock-in, monopolies and stifled development. The 3g revolution in Europe led that in the US by many years.

It's not that we don't want government in out lives but rather that we need government to represent the everyday folk rather than corporate interests. For the future fuel for personal transportation, it is not going to happen unless the government dictates what it is. The corporations, especially US ones, do not have and indeed are not required to have the foresight to standardize this. That is a function of government.

fatbrit

Hydrogen is the fuel of the future. Hydrocarbons are the fuel of the past. It really is that simple. The technology will catch up quickly when it's given direction.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Hydrogen is generally produced with electricity. Most electricity in the US is produced with some sort of fossil fuel, such as coal, oil or natural gas.

There is no alternative that could possibly replace all of the US's hydrocarbon-based power production. Fossil fuels would be needed to make hydrogen.

There is no magic bullet solution to the energy problem. A number of alternatives will be needed, and we are going to have to conserve. Hydrocarbons aren't going away any time soon; we are far too dependent upon them for that to happen.

fatbrit

You're muddying the field here. The reason for changing to hydrogen is that it is the best way we are likely find of having a large amount of energy in a small space as required for our transportation. As you correctly point out, we can make it forever and the only requirement is electricity. It's done pretty well powering our universe for the last few years, too.

It is also eminently practical in that existing internal combustion engines can be easily modified to use it as a fuel, and the developing technology of hydrogen cells will no doubt bring us further advances in the future.

Gasoline is out of date: it's resources are finite and a lot of it lives under other countries that are not friendly. Methane and others are similarly blighted. Battery technology is still insufficient to provide for anything much more than a milk float or golf cart, and hybrids are a side-step since they still require fossil fuels

The answer is clearly hydrogen. The current status quo is maintained by vested interests muddying the clean, blue waters.

Tom60

Well, we clearly need to do something. Hydrogen technology is just one of several means of holding us until we are able to wean ourselves off of foreign oil. Nobody said capitalism was perfect, but socialism is a dead end, in my opinion, and that is one thing that you truly never will sell to the American people. We don't want the government dictating anything. That's the way it is, like it or not. I'm not saying they shouldn't play a role, but that role should be as limited as possible. I'm obviously not going to sway your opinion, and you're not going to change mine, so I guess we'll just disagree.