Re: hydrogen fuel cell car
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ok, you totally misunderstood me I think. I wasn't saying you could drink the water from gas powered cars tail pipe. I was saying the exact opposite in fact. People were appearing to try and make the point that the water vapor in the exhaust form a hydrgon fuel cell car is somehow bad for the enviroment and I was pointing out that regular cars have water vapor in the exhaust as well. But the hydrogen fuel cell car doesn't have all that nasty stuff too.

Geoschmo

[ January 29, 2003, 13:35: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: hydrogen fuel cell car
 

yea, I caught that myself after I hit enter. it was a brain fart. thats why I did an edit. ya just beat me to the punch.

there still is a downside to hydrogen fuel car exaust. that increase of humidity can cause a serious imbalance in the natural environment of that area. thta is what happened in Phonenix. for about 4 years in a row, home built in pool sales had skyrocketed, but during the summer months, the polution inVersion layer increased a lot also. they brought in environments specialists to analyse the problem, and the pools is what they came up with as their responce. the city began making more laws regarding pool ownership, installed more restriction on new ones, and 'asked" the public to slow down a bit.

This was when I was there, about 8yrs? ago. i am sure it would not be too hard to find the actual reports if one was inclined to do the search.

Re: hydrogen fuel cell car
 

Best solution to humidity (if it did become a problem) would be to condense it inside the car and then somehow get it into the sewer system.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, solar panels do not need a bright, sunny day to work. They produce just as much energy on an overcast day. Oh, and I'm pretty sure that a house with solar panels covering its roof can expect to be pretty much self-sufficient. Flats/ office blocks where you have a lot more people space for the roof area are a different matter.

Did anyone readd that thing about generating power from the Earth's magnetic field? You have a really long cable of some kind on an orbital platform, rotating. Apparently this can (theoretically) be used to generate power.

Of course, how that power then gets back to Earth is a different matter...

[ January 29, 2003, 14:23: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: hydrogen fuel cell car
 

some time ago I read the residential solar panel Users had an average 25% reduction in home electricy bills. Tho the panels produce about the same amount for different Users, the electrical bill was talk about in percentage reduction. how they figured all that out, I don't know. they do provide electricy, but not enough to become self-sufficent. of coure, recent technology may have made them better, i am just not aware of those advances.

Re: hydrogen fuel cell car
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Most likely microwave beam. That has been suggested as a means of power transfer for all sorts of orbital generator ideas. Nuclear reactors in orbit, massive solar cell arrays that can be directed to face the sun 24/7, etc. It's a technology we pretty much understand, we just haven't done it on that scale yet.

Geoschmo

Re: hydrogen fuel cell car
 

oh, 25% then. Still, it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Microwave beams do sound cool, except that if the satellite slips out of it's geosynchronous orbit it could accidentally frazzle anything on the ground below it... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: hydrogen fuel cell car
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Good idea for another Bond movie !

Re: hydrogen fuel cell car
 

IIRC, unless you have a cannister of pure oxygen as part of the fuel supply, you do get some nitrogen compounds in the exhaust. So it's not "only" water as exhaust. Still, it's probably a lot better than petrochemicals.

Re: hydrogen fuel cell car
 

Nitrogen compounds? Fertalizer! Hydrogen cars emit water and fertalizer? We can plant crops in the median between the highway. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: hydrogen fuel cell car
 

Automobile magazine, popular science and popular mechanics, i dont remember the issues, have had several articles on alternative feuled vehicles.

they mentioned methynol as one of them and the main drawback was the amount of land necessary to grow the feul. however there are plenty of farmers that are being paid not to grow crops, why not just ask them to grow the feul instead.
as mentioned earlier in the thread hybrid vehicles are out now and they are icreasing the gas mileage, particularly in non hiway driving where it runs off the electric motor instead of the gas one (i think the maximum speed is 35mph on the electric motor).
also europe has a couple of cars that are coming out that help reduce emissions but that wont be available in the us for a while. it mentioned that one of the drawback was low acceleration and that most americans probably would not like that.
another good thing about alternative feuls is it would reduce the reliance on the middle eastern countries for oil. thus maybe the us will keep its nose out of other peoples problems over there. after all that was the main concern during desert storm, the welfare of the people was a secondary concern of the government. also they would not be able to support terrorists if we arent paying them huge amounts of money. (rant over by me on this little subject)
imo within the next 5-10 years i think alternative feuled vehicles will replace most oil based feuled ones. of course it is also going to cause problems as people will have to by new vehicles as they phase out oil based feuls. (which is another scam similiar to the one mentioned about hdtvs in another thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif and the big 2000 scare of computers crashing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

[ January 29, 2003, 17:05: Message edited by: desdinova ]