Meme,

Yep! Your comment is on point and the last line is a comment is very interesting. Taxpayers funding H2 is like funding Food-Ethanol, Oil Companies or buggy whips.

When politicians who have been coerced by lobbing and campaign contributions make choices for us via taxpayer debt & Fed fiat currency funding one company or technology over the other, free market competition is destroyed and We, the People always lose in the long run.

Keynesian central planning may give the market a temporary fix (like a free money drug addict) and the politician a temporary boost in poll numbers, but it ALWAYS turns bad in the long run when the “free” money runs out (unless politicians can put the taxpayers in to unlimited and perpetual debt to a central bank which creates fiat currency from thin air). This is why the “economic stimulus” can’t work. How will we pay the check when the party is over?

Gov’t & Fed cash/credit pumping led to the malfeasance and Malinvestment that caused the 1920 stock & 1990-2008 real estate bubbles and their resulting collapses and it supported our addiction to oil for much longer that it would have naturally been if not supported with taxpayer funds and military guns. A truly FREE market would have made oil unavailable or unaffordable over 35 years ago.

Even thought the “Fed” has allowed our corrupt politicians to run up over $56.4 Trillion in public debt (your share is currently: $184,000) and has replaced the free market with crony capitalism, it has NEVER been publicly audited.

http://www.pgpf.org/

**IMPORTANT**

Call AND write you your representative repeatedly and DEMAND that they co-sponsor and Support HR1207 in the house and S604 in the Senate "without amendments" so that we can finally audit the Fed and find out where the $Trillions of OUR debt created in the last few months is going.

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Nicely written meme, gave me a good laugh :D
Though the comparison IMO lacks a bit, after all, horses and carriages were a valid method of personal transportation for centuries until cars came along.

Hydrogen is more like trying to replace horse carriages with sleds drawn by cats.

@Tim
Your political rants are annoying and offtopic.
Go away and take your soapbox with you.

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You do have a lot to look forward to 5-6 years from now and hydrogen vehicles are one of those things. Ramping up from the 320 or so on U.S. roads today to many more 100s in the years to come and then 1000s along with several other kinds of advanced vehicles that will also be hitting the roads in the years to come--well, that is if we can all stop bickering about "my technology is the only one that works" (which is ridiculous and wrong) and start supporting a portfolio of advanced clean vehicles (realistic and smart).

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Patrick, I'd be tempted to say "I will if they will", but I know that the H2 promoters will just keep bashing batteries. If BEVs and PHEVs take off, H2FC vehicles simply won't be able to compete, so they have to bash plug-ins to protect their interests.

Sorry, but this is a fight to the finish, and batteries hold all the advantages.

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Since toyota is the largest auto manufacturer in the world other smaller companies often look to them for leadership. They are declaring that they are "serious" about hydrogen and other companies had better waste^h^h^h^h^h invest large sums of money in hydrogen "technology" if they wish to compete with toyota in 2015.

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Let's not forget that for some Honda/Acura models, the annual lease sales percentage can be ~35%, so leasing vehicles is well accepted as a consumer procurement option. Plus, by leasing the Clarity, you're also getting Collision / damage coverage, 100% of service/maintenance costs AND roadside assistance which no Clarity owner has used yet.

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@ Patrick
I know leasing is a good option for the consumer, especially the Clarity lease, since I'm guessing the company is losing money on that lease.

However, lease only means the costs are still hidden and the car is not much more than an experiment. Similar to the EV-1 and MINI-E. It could still mean the car is taken away and never coming back again. Also, I can't support a technology that I don't know the real cost of. If they release something like the Roadster, even if it is initially expensive, it'll at least show hydrogen cars can some day be affordable. Right now it just still seems like an experiment which the consumer is paying for. That's why I'm hoping when these automakers say "release" they mean actual sales and not lease only.

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The picture above has greg in the drivers seat evidently...

Thanks for the blogspam.

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I tend to agree that BEVs are unfit for mainstream consumption. Especially in colder climates, IMHO.

But I'd sooner believe that ammonia powered ICEs are the solution than fuel cells.

Fuel cells are ridiculously expensive.
Onboard hydrogen storage is also expensive.

If you want to convince me (and others)-
Can you tell us what the $/kw cost of a modern fuel cell is?
Can you tell me what the cost of a 200 mile onboard hydrogen storage unit is?

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Blencoe, please, for your own sake, stop pretending that the oil companies aren't interested in H2 fuels. If the oil companies find out how you're slamming them, they might not want to buy your H2 equipment - it isn't a good idea to insult your customers. Both Shell and ExxonMobil are members of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, almost all of the H2 promotional groups have oil company sponsors and members, oil companies promote H2 on their websites, and Shell has even installed a few public H2 filling pumps.

What oil companies really love is profit, and they'll sell almost anything to get it - fuels, petrochemicals, biofuels, H2, batteries, whatever. Speaking of ExxonMobil doing battery research, did you see this:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/06/23/exxonmobil-electrovayas-electric-car-the-maya-300-gets-detail/
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-maya-300-an-exxon-assisted-electric-car/
They see a potential profit in EVs, so they go for it. There are two simple reasons why the oil companies haven't been installing more H2 fueling pumps:
1. They want the government to subsidize all the costs, so they don't have to.
2. they see H2 fuels as a highly risky investment, especially with all the plug-ins now coming to market.

The "negativity towards hydrogen" comes from several reasons. H2 fuel cells were the excuse given for cancelling EV programs and pulling EVs from the drivers who loved them. H2FC cars were continually delayed, never ready, maintaining the gas guzzling status quo while sales of SUVs boomed - until gas prices spiked and the economy tanked. Had there been more plug-ins on the road, oil consumption wouldn't have been as high, and the economic crisis not as severe. It is H2FCVs, not BEVs, that "maintain the status quo".

H2 vehicle research has sucked up huge amounts of government funds, with little to show for it, but until recently, battery research funds were scarce. Ironically, it was the batteries that have advanced far more, and EVs are coming back on the market - but H2FC vehicles still aren't ready, still need 6 or more years of research, still seeking more government grants. Tesla Motors developed, manufactured and marketed the EV Roadster without government assistance, and has put more EVs (over 500) in customers hands than all the H2FC prototypes on the road from all manufacturers put together (318).

It doesn't help when hydrogen promoters wildly exaggerate and even lie about it. The DOE came up with totally absurd estimates for H2FC costs "if mass produced" of $75 per Kw, but the real price of real fuel cells is $4,000 per Kw, and most of that cost is for materials, mass production cannot reduce costs below material costs.

But the main reason for the negativity is that H2 is really a lousy automotive fuel, leak prone, hazardous, bulky and difficult to store. H2 fuel is expensive, H2 storage is really expensive, and H2 fuel cells are extravagantly expensive.

It is rather dishonest for H2 hypers to pretend that all H2 fuel will come from clean renewables, but EVs will only be powered by coal, when both electricity and H2 are made from the same energy sources. It is the H2 planners that "linked Hydrogen with Natural gas", as steam reformed fossil fuels are the cheapest source of H2. The "clean coal" initiative was all about making H2 by steam reforming coal. H2 from clean renewables are dangled as a lure, but very little is or will be produced that way. To make H2 from renewables requires making electricity first, and batteries are 3x more efficient at storing electrical energy compared to the "electrolysis & fuel cell" method. Why waste our limited supply of renewable electricity using H2? As for that "50% of electricity is from coal" canard, turns out in California only 20.1% is from coal and the percentage is dropping as more and more renewables come online. If the H2 promoters can propose new clean renewable sources for future H2 supplies, then plug-in promoters can also propose new clean renewable electricity sources to replace coal - but the electric route would only require 1/3 the renewables and would cost much less!

While many drivers wouldn't want a compact EV with little trunk space and only 100 mile range, they'd love a roomy EV sedan with room for 5 adults and 2 kids, luggage space front and back, range up to 300 miles per charge, quick 45 minute charging and even quicker 2 minute battery swaps, and a per mile fuel cost about 1/5 that of H2. Yes, I'm talking about the Tesla Model S. Apparently, Blencoe sees Tesla as his nemesis and tries desperately to ignore them.

As for that INEL "plug-in" study, I'm from Southeast Idaho, and I'm familiar with the INEL site. It is about a 60 mile round trip commute from Idaho Falls, where most of the staff reside, going well beyond the optimum daily driving range of those conversions, and if they forget to plug in, it only gets worse. In other words, that test isn't typical or representative of most commuters. A PHEV designed as a plug-in hybrid, not a conversion, would do much better.

Finally, as for Toyota reaffirming fuel cells, they had a rather different opinion in a Wall Street Journal article:

March 5, 2008 article titled "GM, Toyota doubtful on fuel cells' mass use",
expressing doubts about the viability of hydrogen fuel cells for mass
market production in the near turn, and suggesting their companies
are now betting that electric cars will prove to be a better way to
reduce fuel consumption.

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SPAM

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