Don't make me sing Dr Cox's Wrong Song at you.

Burning oil adds fresh carbon into the carbon cycle...carbon that was in "storage" in the ground. It alters the balance.

Burning non-fossil hydrogen does not do this. The water waste put into the environment was sourced from it in the first place.

Tigerdude's comments aren't even worth replying too.

Benja.

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My moblog.

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Let's have a think about this...

...suburban man in Las Vegas. Imports petroleum so he can go to work, imports water so he can keep his garden green.

...future suburban man in Las Vegas. Imports ocean-sourced hydrogen so he can go to work...gets home each day and empties the waste-water tank on his car to water his garden and cut down on his water bill...and the amount of water imported.

Nobody said the waste water from the cars has to be dumped into the atmosphere.

Benja.

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That is an excellent point. Thanks for bringing it up. Just to continue to play devil's advocate, you'd need quite a system in place if you were to cool off or pressurize the H2O gas enough to liquify it again, but I'm sure such a system would be possible.

And there is a way to use ocean water as fresh water via desalinization. Unfortunately it'll use more energy than it yields, since you have to boil the water and collect the steam. We had to do this in Santa Barbara during a drought (also the water you get tastes terrible). Electrolysis is actually aided by salt anyway since it conducts electricity better, so there's no reason to worry about that for hydrogen synthesis.

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If you can read this, you're not our president.

You know, it's actually possible to nullify the carbon monoxide/dioxide output from coal-fired power stations (I believe it uses limestone and some kind of chemical reaction to turn it into a solid waste, rather than airborne pollution), but the machinery required to do it is expensive, so it's barely used.

Turning steam to water in a car should be easy; petrol engines are cooled by water, which in turn is cooled by airflow through the front grill of the car. It'll be easy to pull off something like that.

"Electrolysis is actually aided by salt anyway since it conducts electricity better, so there's no reason to worry about that for hydrogen synthesis."

No real need to worry about energy-efficiency in generation either; even if the process of electrolysis is only 1% efficient, if the electricity required comes from "cheap as free" wind/solar arrays, it won't matter.

Effectively, electolysis of water to create transportable hydrogen is just like charging a battery.

Benja.

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My moblog.

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Hydrogen is the most abundant element on the planet.  Then again why not work on a way to suck water out of the oceans, oh no not lower sea levels, to create more drinkable water.  Only something like 3% of the Earth's water is drinkable, and most of that is glaciers and iceburgs.

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Because last I heard the process for making ocean water drinkable required large amounts of fossil feuls which brings us back to our fossil feul alternative problem.

(This was as taught to me in my 9th grade geography class)

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"It is the wrong question to ask, and therefore, as one  might expect, has
no right answer." - Hans von Campenhausen

This is the philosophy of my life.

What I don't understand is why there aren't a bunch of huge wind mills in the Gulf of Mexico.  There is a nice steady wind stream most of the year, and during hurricane season they get to work overtime.

Similar situation along tornado alley.

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¡Vive la República de Tejas! ¡Libertad de los Estados Unidos de América! ¡Recuerden el Liberty y lo que los zionistas le hicieron!

Because nobody is taking them seriously. Britain is following the Dutch lead on windfarms (they have many), and is taking advantage of Britain's geography (a lot of coastline facing the Atlantic; a great source of wind, and shallow water extending a considerable distance from shore), and offshore is a great place to build windfarms, where they won't bother anybody.

America has a LOT of sparsely-populated land just perfect for large windfarms. It's beggar's belief that you're not building them.

"There is a nice steady wind stream most of the year, and during hurricane season they get to work overtime."

I'm pretty sure they'd shut them off in high winds; they'd spin themselves to shreds.

Benja.

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My moblog.

And, for my uninformed mind, the water produced from a hydrogen engine, is it released as a vapour or a liquid?

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Ring the bells, ring the bells! Let the churches ring the bells!
Natalie, you're too kind.

The water vapor can either just be released into the atmosphere, or you could simply put a tank in the car to collect it.  Either way is feasable, just up to the designer to choose which way he wants to go with.

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¡Vive la República de Tejas! ¡Libertad de los Estados Unidos de América! ¡Recuerden el Liberty y lo que los zionistas le hicieron!

Oh yeah, first of all thanks a lot for all of this insightful comments, wow...

and also to reply to that, second law of thermodynamic restrict heat engines from ever being 100% efficient, let alone 300%. The cars would have to have a cold sink at absolute zero...

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"I still don't understand why cars can't be at least partly powered by heat pumps which are 300% efficient, compared to the 40% of a car engine. I guess it's just not a nice idea for the people who control the major countries of the world and technology isn't that advanced yet."

 
Oh yeah, first of all thanks a lot for all of this insightful comments, wow...

and also to reply to that, second law of thermodynamic restrict heat engines from ever being 100% efficient, let alone 300%. The cars would have to have a cold sink at absolute zero...

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I didn't say anything about heat engines...

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Massive, epic adventure, multi-coloured, multi-layered.
Sort of two/three dimensional Wizard of Oz for the future.

Am I the only person who finds these new windmills rather attractive? I honestly would not mind in the least having them close to me.

When you see a green hill, a blue sky, and the sleek, elegant, white towers and sails of a cluster of windmills cutting a divide between the two, what could be better?

A beautiful natural view can be augmented by careful additions.

As for NIMBYs off the coast...Britain is lucky; with the shallow seabed so far out we can stick them way off on the horizon. Anyone on shore who complains about them might as well be standing on the cliffs of Dover complaining about being able to see France on a good day.

Benja.

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My moblog.