Well I just finished a 'Fully Charged' viewing. Mr. Llewellyn has been looking at hydrogen for some time and he drives a Hyundai IX35 that looks quite a bit more polished then the Honda hydrogen concept car previously driven.
While the drive was impressive it was Robert's assertion that hydrogen could be produced by wind units that were idled by overproduction that was interesting. Electric cracking of water to hydrogen with otherwise wasted energy sounds like a possible answer to the extreme waste of energy for the process. It might take 2-3 times the electric in but if the wind turbine is otherwise idle - why not. I'm curious if this can be done maintain ably with sea water as fresh water at least on the US west coast is problematic.
Still the next questions are has the drive train and hydrogen storage and cell parts improved in long term service life. Hydrogen tends to corrode and make brittle metals that contain it. The Hyundai rep claimed safety with the cell and tank was not a concern. Finally do the numbers work out for idled green production like the wind towers? If not the oil lobby is waiting to sell hydrogen from their ever carbon intensive resources. I would not like to have clean hydrogen via dirty petrol that has to be extracted offshore with the associated spills and pipeline bursts.
Here's the episode - I agree the technology should at least continue to be researched - just as long as it's not a facade for big oil. Still looks to me like vaporware for quite some time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFrCQE3bEwg
Meanwhile Tesla continues to do well on the stock front. Sadly I will probably never make enough to buy a Tesla S but maybe a 3 when it appears in 2018 or so... Also Chevy and Nissan continue to accelerate efforts to bring us a long range economy car ahead of Tesla - cool with me!
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