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Old 05-13-2007   #10 (permalink)
pocadotty
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Boise ID, USA
Posts: 9
Default Re: Hydrogen powered cars

Quote:
Originally Posted by kulgan View Post
There's a small area now that gets energy solely from wind - when there is more wind than need of energy, the excess goes to electrolysis, and when there is not enough wind, the hydrogen is stuffed through a fuel cell generator, and sustains the energy level.
Thats brilliant way to go people in Norway!

Where I live (Idaho USA) I have done some grant work for a feasibility study for forest stewardship. The idea was to be able to generate wealth for taking care of the forests through forest thinning (removing small diameter trees which pose a large fire risk, as well as heightened risk for beetle infestation because some areas of forest are overgrown) and making use of the removed biomass. One problem I have with the way things get done in America is that if there is no financial gain, few people are likely to do anything. So to produce viable businesses from ecological necessity is the best way for change. Anyway, one of our proposals was to produce Grid energy by wind turbines offset when the wind was low by generators powered by biodiesel or bioethonol produced from the forest biomass... I definitely like the hydrogen idea better though, but I don't think there is enough wind in the regions the grant covered to use electrolysis.

Wind can not be deployed unilaterally, because some area's don't get enough, so a wide span of renewable energy techniques need to be deployed...

back on topic...

There are other ways to get hydrogen then from a gas tank. I don't remember what the chemical reaction that is responsible for this is (because I am an Electrical Engineer, and not a chemist), but methanol is an excellent source of hydrogen clean enough for fuel cells, requiring a significantly smaller amount of energy to produce the hydrogen then you would get out from the fuel cell. Methanol is as easy to transport and store as gasoline, so that could be a solution.

Apart from that though, what other forms of transport fuel would you be in favor of apart from Hydrogen?
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