Well that was quick. After the Honda Clarity gave Jamie Lee Curtis' bologna a first name (O-S-C-A-R), some members of the mainstream media have cottoned-on to the fact that hydrogen has to come from somewhere. The UK's Independent newspaper thoroughly slams Honda and its sexy fuel cell car. "Is Honda's technologically dazzling hydrogen programme the long-term solution to CO2 pollution?" scribe Michael Booth asks. "Yes and no," he answers. "Mainly no. Almost entirely no, if you ask people who know." Booth argues that the fuel's a waste a time as it's created with conventional energy. The process merely shifts the site of pollution; it's like breaking wind and blaming the dog. Booth also notes that hydrogen fueling stations are notable by their absence. "Right now there is just one hydrogen station in the UK. Even Japan has only 12." Alas, Booth concludes by saying that electric cars should be our high tech future– and that's where his own arguments do him a disservice. Shifting the source of pollution from power generation? Check. Infrastructure problems? Check. Environmental problems from battery disposal? Check. Still, props for calling Honda's buff. I mean, bluff.
Find Reviews by Make:
Read all comments
The thinking is Hydrogen + Nuclear, I think.
This car has its skeletons in the closet, just like the Prius. But if it leads to an eventual transition away from gasoline, it won’t have been for nought.
In the mean time, the celebrity associations will be pimped out by Honda in order to raise their green profile and recover what they lost to the Prius. In the mean time, we’ll have to deal with paparazzi shots of hollywood celebs with 12 cars in the garage staging photo ops with these new types of cars, acting smug, and going on about how their “art” is changing the world. With all the nausea that entails.
ALL motor fuels use “conventional energy” to produce. Fuels are manufactured as a PORTABLE energy source, not a primary energy source. Manufacturing takes energy. Making gasoline takes conventional energy. Making ethanol takes conventional energy. Making and charging batteries takes conventional energy. And, guess what, making hydrogen takes conventional energy. Until we find a way to harness laughing as a power source like in Monsters Inc, we will use conventional energy to produce manufactured products, including products that are meant to produce energy.
This is a test. Google ‘honda hydrogen solar’ and you’ll get lots of hits about what they’re trying to get to which is hydrogen produced via solar power.
http://www.ieahia.org/pdfs/honda.pdf
That’s what I’ve always wondered. What ever happened to Solar? It could be a viable source of energy that could produce hydrogen or even charge a Li-On battery car.
Is solar such a difficult tech that advancing it is just not worth it? Can it’s efficiency not be improved?
I would think that monies should be invested in the one tech that does not produce pollution…unless producing the solar cells or panels creates waste hence pollution.
Can’t charge for solar.
John
I’d just rather nuclear, done right. But I don’t think people can be trusted to properly run nuclear power plants.
Even Honda’s pushing for nuclear.
The point is, hydrogen has the potential to be totally green.
It’s already viable.
And even if hydrogen production stays dirty, the technology can squeeze over twice the mileage out of the same amount of energy because it’s so much more efficient.
Case in point is that a 3,500 pound Accord gets around 27-30 mpg on the highway. The 3,500 pound Clarity? 74 mpg.
Why is the public so dense that they can’t figure it out. There is no magic solution – no snap of fingers and we are oil independent and carbon neutral in our energy development. It comes from somewhere (many greenies see it as so long as the car they drive doesn’t pollute they are fine…EVs and Hydrogen cars are like this – but the pollution comes from the conventional energy grid to create the fuel to power their cars).
What is happening is that EV cars and Fuel Cells need energy to recharge their batteries or create hydrogen fuel. This can in the future become 100% solar / wind or other non green house emitting / polluting versus fossil fuels or nuclear which still has toxic and extremely dangerous waste.
We need to cut our energy dependence from our enrichment of unstable anti west countries – they have us by the balls and we knowingly and selfishly put ourselves into this position.
Step 1: EVs and Fuel Cells are promising and do not raise fuel prices – though we need to further develop the technology. It requires coal, etc. plants to develop the energy to produce the electricity however the coal, natural gas, and uranium are mined and produced locally within North America – thus cutting our need for foreign oil. Also note that 70% of the energy contained in a gallon of gas is wasted as the heat is its biggest resource rather than its detonation.
Step 2: we move to further developing efficiency of our EVs and fuel cell technology to reduce the draw on the grid and further improve our solar and wind and hydro energy production and capture methods reducing the need for fossil fuels.
Step 3 – cold fusion – I guess.
Yes I didn’t do the underpants gnomes or E85 route…step 1 collect underwear, step 2 ???, step 3 profit.
Excuse me…was there an article in there somewhere?? I was busy reviewing the picture of Ms. Curtis…
Meanwhile, people tend to conveniently forget that it takes energy (and thus resources) to make these cars. But I agree in the premise that if there is anything we can do to reduce/minimize the dependancy we have on countries that would just as soon see us dead, I’m all for it.
“Justin Berkowitz :
June 24th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I’d just rather nuclear, done right. But I don’t think people can be trusted to properly run nuclear power plants.”
What do you mean by this? We’ve been running them just fine in the US for years. The problem is that the only ones in the know about running a facility (read: nuclear engineers) are all retiring in the next 10 years. We need new blood to run these aging and potential new plants.
Gasoline infrastructure didn’t exist 100 years ago either… I don’t think Honda is claiming they can roll this out tomorrow and solve the world’s problems. Honda is merely proving the viability of a hydrogen-powered car, assuming the existence of hydrogen infrastructure and a cost/pollution-effective source of hydrogen. The world can decide whether it’s worth building that infrastructure. What’s wrong with that? The more viable propulsion technologies the big car companies come up with, the more likely one of them will stick.
Is the world so cynical now that we have to criticize every new innovation for not being the ultimate solution to all our problems? I guess we might as well all commit suicide. Or drive Expeditions.
The whole argument over “green” energy is specious, and relative. There are ALWAYS tradeoffs. Most important are the immutable laws of physics, which is to say quite simply that you will ALWAYS get less energy OUT of a given source of enregy, than what goes into producing it. Exhibit 1: The “fuel vs. food” debates over the efficacy of ethanlol as a viable fuel source.
On nukes: The facts are: Not a SINGLE death has occurred from nuclear power in the United States or the west, including the Three Mile Island accident. In France and Japan, for example, nukes have for decades provided between 30 and 78 percent (depending on how its calculated) of each country’s total electrical energy supply, with NO accidents, deaths or societal ill effects attributed to the operation of their nuke plants. Is there a nuclear waste issue to deal with? Yes, but its politcal, not real, with the NIMBYs and politicians standing in the way of implementing already scientifically vetted solutions.
The ONLY fatalaties from nuclear energy occurred in the world’s greatest socialist paradise, the former Soviet Union, as a result of the Chernobyl accident. The reactor that melted down and exploded was an inherently inferior and less safe graphite design that, other than for early nuclear experiments in the 1940s, US and western countries have since all rejected BECAUSE of its inferior design to more modern pressurized water reactor designs.
The potential for human error will ALWAYS be present in any human endeavor simply because humans are inherently fallible. Does that mean we should discount the very, very small statistical chance that US citizens might suffer ill effects or die from a nuclear reactor accident, as a tradeoff for much higher energy costs in the future by ignoring the obvious benefits of nuclear power as a carbon-free source of energy? There simply is NO OTHER known or available “carbon free” abundant, reliable, cost effective source of energy that would provide the amount of electricity needed to sustain even modest US economic growth into the future besides nuclear energy.
Finally, it should be pointed out that most engineers running US nuke plants come out of the excruciatingly rigorous US Navy nuclear power program, having spent years training on and operating nuclear reactors in subs and aircraft carries (which by the way have a 54-year perfect track record of safe operation). It is no coincidence that, Three Mile Island nonwithstanding, US civilian and military nuclear power can boast an over 5 decade-long track record of casuality-free nuclear power operation because the entire US nuclear power “complex” is a result of the near-perfection in engineering and operation of nuclear reactors originally demanded by Admiral Hyman Rickover, the true “father” of nuclear power in the US and, indeed, the west.
Dang… I don’t mind pictures like that, but usually I can see one coming based on the article name. This one caught me by surprise and that was a bit of an awkward moment.
Anyway, I don’t care if hydrogen isn’t perfect. Nothing is. It’s the best chance I have of being able to buy internal combustion engines attached to stickshifts 30 years from now (when I’ll finally be able to afford something really nice) so I want it to work!
Let’s pick the tradeoff – oil from Iran and huge trade deficits or EV / fuel cells using local resources to recharge them? ICE dependence and reliance still on oil via e85 and 25% less fuel mileage while increase food prices in the US by 25% +? I’ll vote for EVs and fuel cells.
I have a love hate relationship with solar.
First, it costs so much that you never really get your money back. Even with the tax credits which the government only gives you so they can screw you on them later when they change the rules.
Them, I figure they will raise my property taxes for bothering to put one in. A good sized system is worth over 20k. That will set me back about 400 to 500 a year in my neighborhood.
Then you have to ask, is it really green? How much energy does it take to build the thing? I am worried that the cost is reflective of the fact that it uses a lot of energy and transportation (also enerrgy) before it gets to my roof.
Then, if it ever breaks at all, that’s completely money wasted because it was already a loser.
All that, and you get to look at it.
I think solar really could work, but somebody needs to get serious about it.
On nukes: The facts are: Not a SINGLE death has occurred from nuclear power in the United States or the west, including the Three Mile Island accident. In France and Japan, for example, nukes have for decades provided between 30 and 78 percent (depending on how its calculated) of each country’s total electrical energy supply, with NO accidents, deaths or ill effects attributed to the operation of their nuke plants.
The ONLY fatalaties from nuclear energy occured in the world’s greatest socialist paradise, the former Soviet Union, as a result of the Chernobyl accident
Just to be clear, the US nuclear industry is in shambles because of heavy privatization and a lack of oversight. No, no one has died, but there have been a number of close calls and the infrastructure is suffering. Japan and France heavily regulate their industries and have done much better.
I don’t think the problem is socialism (Americans really don’t understand what this word means), it’s accountability. In the US, private energy companies aren’t accountable because the people have no power over them (ugly, decades-long lawsuits notwithstanding); the the USSR, the government wasn’t accountable for the same reason. France and Japan play the middle ground because the government, and the regulators they appoint, are directly answerable.
The US system was well designed to start with, but the return-on-investment demanded by a privatised provider has really torpedoed the industry in the US and Canada.
That said, I have some trouble seeing hydrogen as a valid option. It’s practical efficiency doesn’t seem very high (compared to gasoline or electricity) and the infrastructure isn’t there. It seems like we’re likely to see fast-charge electricity distribution (there’s already a grid, and the in-vehicle storage isn’t nearly as problematic) before hydrogen becomes remotely feasible. Whether that power comes from nuclear, hydro, solar or pixie dust doesn’t change the fact that hydrogen, well, doesn’t really work.
There are doubters standing on one leg on this side of the pond too. And not to run the risk of being banned: is TTAC running these Honda FCX Clarity articles because that’s what’s in the news or because y’all just looking fer excuses to post Jamie Lee photos …? Or is this some clever run up to her debut column?
The thinking is Hydrogen + Nuclear, I think.
Why bother? We can make gasoline from nuclear power. NYT
Nuclear -> hydrogen -> wheels is a little more efficient than nuclear -> gasoline -> wheels, by maybe about 10%.
It’s not worth trying to replace the huge gasoline infrastructure with an untested unknown infrastructure just for a 10% boost.
Hydrogen is a good choice in a few specific applications, like rocketry. And maybe if it was 100 years ago and we were first building a fuel infrastructure, it might make sense to go for hydrogen instead of gasoline (although there are serious questions of storage and transportation that we don’t yet know the answers to).
Hydrogen: just say no.
Just to be clear, the US nuclear industry is in shambles because of heavy privatization and a lack of oversight. No, no one has died, but there have been a number of close calls and the infrastructure is suffering. Japan and France heavily regulate their industries and have done much better.
Huh? Not to get completely OT, but how exactly is the US nuclear industry in shambles? And what is so much better about the situation in France and Japan?
So hydrogen is less efficient than petrol? I thought it still required an energy source to create, but the overall efficiency was much higher than our current system.
So we are to leap from petrol to 100% renewable energy in one fell swoop, or not at all?
The US nuclear power industry, both private and public, is HEAVILY regulated. This excessive regulation beyond what is reasonably necessary to promote nuke plant safety is the problem. The regulations make it almost impossible for BOTH private and public utilities to build economically viable new nuke plants.
Ultimately, the added cost for such regulations is passed to rate payers, be it customers of a private utility company, or a public one. This is why most public and private utilities build coal-fired power plants – they are much cheaper and coal available in such abundace that utilities build them to keep operating margins high and rates as low as possible.
The US could probably learn from France and Japan about balancing necessary regulation with the need for providing abundant “clean” power generating capacity cheaply and efficiently.
I completely agree about accountability. I’m not aware of many instances where private or publiuc utility officials or executives have not been held accountable for their actions (go visit former Enron execs in federal prison and ask them how they were held accountable). That was not the case in the USSR, nor is it in most totalitarian countries, where leaders and commissars are always above the law and unaccountable.
So hydrogen is less efficient than petrol?
Hydrogen manufactured from nuclear power is more efficient than gasoline manufactured from nuclear power. But not by much.
Compared to pumping gas out of the ground, or charging batteries with grid-supplied nuclear power? Hydrogen is nowhere near as efficient.
So we are to leap from petrol to 100% renewable energy in one fell swoop, or not at all?
In the short-term, we’ll transition to more hybrids and plug-ins as battery technology improves. When gasoline gets more expensive to pump out of the ground than it is to manufacture, we’ll hit a ceiling on gas prices.
Maybe after we’ve squeezed all the efficiency we can out of our current system it’ll make sense to switch to hydrogen. For now it’s mostly a distraction.
Just to be clear, the US nuclear industry is in shambles because of heavy privatization and a lack of oversight. No, no one has died, but there have been a number of close calls and the infrastructure is suffering. Japan and France heavily regulate their industries and have done much better.
Yeah, I am going to have to go ahead and strongly disagree with you here. Sources? Keep in mind I have ties to the industry, and would love to hear where you came up with this “clear” information.
Daft,
Since it’s grossly off-topic, mail me at my user name @gmail.com to continue this.
In short, though: my objection isn’t to nuclear power, but to the idea that somehow socialized power generation was the reason Chernobyl happened. I have a strong objection to knee-jerk “government=bad, market=good”.
See http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/thin-films-lead-us-solar-production-307.html
First Solar, the largest thin film producer in the US has signed contracts to provide modules for $1.85 a watt in 2009.
There is an odd assumption among some posters that nuclear deserves to be promoted. Nuclear has been heavily subsidized compared to solar and wind. Yet, nuclear is hugely expensive. Supposing we just slap a carbon tax and let the market decide what to do about energy sources? If an unsubsidized nuclear can compete with solar and wind, fine. But in 2007, 10 times as much wind capacity was installed WORLDWIDE as nuclear. Despite the fact that a lot of countries would like civilian nuclear programs in order to feed nuclear weapons programs.
David,
The folks that complain about the costs of nuclear always seem to bring up the initial investment, but the plants have a huge lifespan. Do you know what the cost per watt (or other measure) is over the life of the facility for various plants? I know that the size of plants can vary greatly, but I don’t really care if you compare my garage roof to a nuke plant. I do care if you start talking about how the “real cost” of this or that isn’t measured because whether one agrees or not, the cost of environmental damage is actually impossible to put a price on. As soon as that rhetoric comes out, my BS detector goes off and I assume the speaker is a big fat liar.
I have seriously looked at solar panels for my home, but the BS is just sooo thick, and you can’t get a reasonable cost comparison that says you will ever save money except in a perfect world.
BTW, $1.85 a watt means nothing. I want watts per time for x years of life and a total lifetime cost. Only an insider would have any idea what that link you gave really means.
Nuclear power!
Just not in MY back yard.
Landcrusher,
Good point on watts vs watts per time for x years. I don’t have that figure. But with respect to wind, I think the wind vs nuclear installations are indicative (see my post above yours).
I also had a figure of 7.7 cents/kwh for wind plus flow batteries in Ireland vs 10 cents for nuclear in Europe from Tapbury Management in UK.
I don’t like nuclear, but what I really object to is the assumption that some make that nothing else can do what nuclear can do (relatively carbon free power). I generally don’t think the government should be in the business of pushing one technology over the other. In an ideal world, carbon taxes or cap and trade create incentives for alternatives, and the market decides what works. In that world I’d be surprised to see nuclear come out ahead. If I were going to bet, I’d bet against it.
Over and above cost, I do think environmental effects ultimately have to be taken into account somehow. Someone above said there have been no deaths from nuclear, but there certainly have been among miners (I wrote about this 30 years ago). But this sort of thing is a moving target, and I don’t know what the current situation is.
I also think you have to weigh the possibility of terrorism–planes into nuclear plants.
Despite these concerns I’m not out and out condemning it. I think global warming is a far more dire problem, and if nuclear ends up having to be part of the solution, so be it.
David,
I think the nuclear push is mostly one reflecting the desire for living in a world where energy is still relatively cheap, and virtually limitless in supply.
How many windmills would it take? I fly over parts of northern TX, and there are windmill farms that seem to go on forever. They are HUGE. I know it’s it anecdotal, but it leads me to believe that wind won’t make it as even a secondary source. Even if we go nuts on it. It’s something to add to the mix, but best to be something that we use to pair off with coal plants for a lower average pollution per watt.
I can’t remember the gentleman, but he is well known for pushing micro solutions. If many more of us had a small wind turbine and/or small solar installation in our homes and businesses we could take an insane chunk out of the problem. I like that approach, though I worry about the guy behind me who hasn’t painted in over 15 years and has rotting trim on his 800k house. What will his turbine sound like? He is upper middle class. How well will Joe six pack maintain his turbine (not the one who does it himself, the other guy with no skills)? Also, how many people will put up their solar installs in an aesthetically pleasing way?
Large commercial use of solar for generation is still not economically viable unless you have customers willing to pay extra to be green. No thanks, I live downwind from Mexico.
Nuke, OTOH, seems to be something that will fly pretty well except for NIMBY costs. BTW, I am a pilot, and a bit of an expert in air defense (it’s what I did for the Army). Nuke plants have little to fear from commercial aircraft impacts. If you were really concerned, it would not be all that tough to use point defense against a large plane, small planes can simply be laughed off, they would need a suitcase nuke to make a dent because they can’t lift enough explosives. I have heard scenarios about sites that have some of their waste unprotected, and in a perfect storm the result could be some fallout lifted by a fire, but the solution for that is to simply protect the waste, not give up on nuke.
So, I understand the nuclear desire. It’s a known workable solution that can scale. I have hope for solar being a good source eventually, but wind is something I worry about.
Now, to cap and trade, no thanks. Cap and trade is a boondoggle for existing producers, reduces innovation, gets overwhelmed with political favors, and it’s regressive. Carbon taxes are also suspect, but a pollution and waste tax which has a carbon element that could be used to replace the income tax is something that you could sell to conservatives. Unfortunately, it won’t fly with the left because poor folks percieve that they use as much energy as rich folks, who would then not be paying their “fair share”. I think they are wrong, but I couldn’t prove it.
Landcrusher,
I think you’re thinking of Amory Lovins
Texas alone has plans for the equivalent of 1/4 of the US nuclear capacity in wind farms, which is about 5% of electricity. The Great Plains, where I thikn the best wind resource is in the US, extend far beyond Texas.
Scientific American described a plan for getting a substantial fraction of US energy from solar by 2050, and almost all by 2100, here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan&print=true
I hear you on the politics of cap and trade, and I can only hope that that will be dealt with responsibly in the new administration. I dealt with that at the end of this piece, and you will see that I am not a raving optimist about this sort of thing:
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2008/116-6/focus-abs.html
Your suggestion of defense for nukes against airplanes is certainly wise, and sounds doable, but as with carbon disincentives, the question is, will the feds do what they should?
I see PVs as much more practical for homes than small windmills. I do’nt know how they sound up close, but I could imagine the noise being a problem. Also, I suspect that the resource is a lot more limited where homes are. We have a lot of wind just off of Cape Cod, but I don’t think a windmill on my (second) home out on the Cape would generate near enough to be worthwhile. But I wouldn’t be surprised if I have PVs on both houses within 5-10 years.
David,
SA was down, but I did read most of your piece. It’s interesting. One thing of note –
“…wrote Larry Lohmann, of the British NGO The
Corner House, in the Spring 2007 issue of
Synthesis/Regeneration. “Covering the land
with windmills and biofuel plantations will
be of little use unless fossil fuel extraction
is stopped.”
What does the gentleman think modern windmills are made out of? I don’t believe organicly sourced plastics are quite up to being made into large wind turbines. No fossil fuel extraction, no windmills, Signor Quixote.
Hydrogen’s versatility makes it possible for it to be produced from any renewable resource or from nuclear energy by splitting water via electrolysis, which eliminates all harmful emissions. Hydrogen is produced from nuclear energy by cooling uranium, simply by using water. Treehugger.com posted a story, “Energy is Wasted, Wasted, Wasted…”, describing how much energy is wasted to create electricity and power transportation. The next generation of nuclear reactors, High Temperature Gas Reactors (HTGR), will improve efficiency of hydrogen production from 25% to 50%, as hydrogen is far easier to split from water at the extremely high temperatures the nuclear reactors utilize.
Incorporating hydrogen within the world’s energy portfolio will simultaneously reduce dependence on foreign energy imports, while improving the country’s carbon footprint by reducing greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, and spark worldwide economic development. We must come together by stressing to our government and business leaders to support the development of an alternative energy infrastructure. This will allow for hydrogen to be produced from water using renewable resources and improve the overall effectiveness of renewable energy. In the meantime, we must also use the resources we have available to establish a hydrogen infrastructure. As a representative of the Hydrogen Education Foundation, I am helping people to understand that both a hydrogen and alternative energy infrastructure can grow side by side paving the way to a sustainable energy future.
To learn more about the benefits of hydrogen, we invite everyone to please visit and ask us questions at http://www.h2andyou.org.