The Elephant Under the Rug: Denial and Failed Energy Projects

[dpeilow]

The Elephant Under the Rug: Denial and Failed Energy Projects

Honda now has a few beautiful, finished-looking, FCX hydrogen cars on the road. But wait! How do we produce and distribute the hydrogen that runs them? The tanker trucks that replenish gasoline stations can carry about 300 fill-ups. However, hydrogen takes up much more space and requires high-pressure cylinders that weigh 65 times as much as the hydrogen they contain! One giant 13 ton hydrogen delivery truck can carry only about 10 fill-ups! By ignoring this fatal flaw in the hydrogen economy idea we have created the illusion of success that is grossly inefficient compared to electric cars. Well-to-wheel efficiency analysis of the Honda FCX shows that the Tesla pure electric car is 3X more efficient and produces 1/3 the CO2 emissions!

 

[vfx]

The Elephant Under the Rug: Denial and Failed Energy Projects

There is something gut wrong with tis proposition, Only 10 fillups? I want to discredit Hydrogen as much as the next EV lover but something is fishy about this argument.

edit:
I read the article and skimmed the source page. The New Atlantis » The Hydrogen Hoax
I guess the numbers are there but what about the working stations like the one Jamie Lee Curtis fills up at? I think they are manufacturing the Hydrogen onsite. Maybe piping it from a nearby facility.

 

[tonybelding]

The author lost a lot of credibility with me when he started going on about nuclear power.

The heavily subsidized nuclear industry died in 1979 when the Three-mile island and Chernobyl accidents made it painfully clear that the radioactive substances used were just too dangerous to be spread all over the map. Both accidents could have been much worse had a real meltdown occurred.

At Chernobyl a real meltdown did, in fact, occur. It was terrible, it was probably about as bad as a nuclear plant accident can get. There's no way it "could have been much worse". And yet. . . Compare with the number of people who've died in industrial accidents involving coal mines, natural gas pipelines, oil refineries, and the rest of the fossil fuel industry. Consider also that Chernobyl was an outdated, poorly designed and horribly run plant, and that valuable lessons were learned from both Chernobyl and TMI. . .

There is no "group denial" involved in the nuclear renaissance. The memories of TMI and Chernobyl haven't been casually, unthinkingly brushed aside. Those were painful lessons, but they don't logically lead to an abandonment of nuclear power.