After some experience and a little critical thinking, we can learn to spot BS, years ago they taught this in school. I guess now days the teachers fight the paper work and the Master Minds of Education indoctrinate instead of educate. I read through the article and yes it has some BS to keep the Global Warming Kool Aid drinkers happy, but behind it all is a Cost Benefit Analysis of Hydrogen Economics along with the problems that can be verified. Even if we reject the Doom and Gloom Global Warming Hysteria as I do, practicing good Stewardship of the Earth is a logical choice. Cracking natural gas to make hydrogen so a Greenie Weenie can feel good is a stupid waste of energy. Turning coal, garbage, sewage, or other waste products into oil and diesel is logical. I like my diesel and want it to go for the foreseeable future.

_________________
2006 Pearl Green CRD
Magnaflow 2 1/2" Cat Back
KJ Extra Leg Room Brackets, Carter Lift Pump, V6 Airbox, ORM
Fuel cooler, Oil Separator, Progard 7
Gauges EGT Boost Trans Temp Oil Pres, Michelin LXT AT2 245 70 R16
7,000# Draw Tight hitch, PML EX Deep Trans Pan
Centrifuge, SunCoast, Transgo, RAM TCM, InMotion Stage 2
Wife's 99 TDI VW Beetle

While that is a commonly affirmed statement about Wikipedia, it is completely misleading. In order to keep the site respectable any statements made in the wiki can be challenged if there is some doubt as to their validity. If there are no references made in the contributions, the info is likely to be removed. While all information read over the internet should be viewed with an eye to common sense (this forum is a prime example), One thing which cannot be changed about Wikipedia and similar sites is the referencing. The above mentioned article cites such sources as the DOE, National Research Council, National Academy of Engineering, Physics Today, Science magazine, etc.. If I were going to put stock into any printed material, it would be in peer reviewed publications such as these.

Try to change something of import on such a heavily viewed Wikipedia article and see how long it lasts.

_________________
Manure green 2005 CRD sport4x4, GDE Hot tune, Cat Gut, OE skids, Draw tight hitch, Duramax lift pump, 160K on multiple varieties of fuel, XM radio, Escort live with Redline, fog light mod, GPS, Icom IC7000 all band radio call sign KC9QPF, Grabber AT2s on Soft 8s, FIA grill blanket.

Yeah, the one thing they leave out is how they are going to store hydrogen in the car. When I was in grad school, there was this one research group who made super porous materials that would adsorb hydrogen. They did all of these "great" measurements to figure out that they have materials that would uptake more hydrogen than any other known material. ...unfortunately, it's not going to be quite practical to keep the car's tank cooled to 77 K and under 100 atmospheres of pressure. Knowing this professor very well, I can tell you that a lot his science was more marketing than science and sadly, the hydrogen stuff is part fantasy. And as pointed out earlier...the hydrogen stuff is pointless until they can produce hydrogen cleanly.

It will be a long time before any of that can be put to any practical use. We'd be better off having the means to generate clean electricity and using an electric car for reasonable commutes and have a nifty diesel for those long trips.

Don't count out hydrogen. It may seem far out now but there are some very interesting solutions out in the future that will not make it seem so silly in the. Some of the solutions are really practical like using solar or wind to generate it from water in a small localized generation/filling station. This is being done in Iceland right now because they have to import every drop. Think how much energy is wasted tranporting oil and it's by products to get it to gas stations and all the processing and handling steps between the well and the pump. There are some other interesting storage solutions with some new products that act like a hydrogen sponge for storage purposes without high preasure tanks or super cold temperatures. Product development people envison turning the frame and body parts of a car into storage cells filled with the stuff to replace conventional fuel tanks.

Oil could easily top $175 to $200 per barrel by winter and that makes technologies that once seemed unrealistic seem less so.

_________________
Dave

'06 CRD Limited, Lt. Khaki, MOPAR Slush Mats/Skids, DrawTite Front Hitch, Mag Lite, Yakima Bars, Thule Bike Rack, Fumoto, ORM, 245/70 Revo 2

Wish list: Lift, Boulder Bars, Something Bigger in the Front and Back, More Lights

And again, what is the point in converting clean electricity (water, wind, solar) into such an inefficient energy carrier as H2? Iceland does it because they have no other use for their excess power at present and h2 fetches a nice price for industrial uses like petroleum hydrocracking. It's energy density is rediculously low compared to other existing clean technologies such as Li-ion li-po or even lead acid batteries. Honda and BMW are making H2 autos as a greenie-feelgood marketing gimmic just like the duck pond Ford advertizes for one of their car plants or the zero landfill Subaru plant. It also doesn't hurt that federal money helped fund the development of thier H2 projects. According to hondas website the FCX will have a fuel capacity of 4kg of hydrogen compressed to 5000 psi in a 45gal tank with a range of 280 miles. That is all awsome except when you look at the cost of the vehicle, one of Hondas spokesman had this to say earlier this month "the cars cost several hundred thousand dollars each to produce, though he said that should drop below $100,000 in less than a decade as production volumes increase". Lets all go out and get one, oops that dosen't figure on the cost of the fuel according to the website hydrogendiscoveries.com it is some pretty expensive stuff, Electricity from wind power - $3.50, Electrolyzers and hydrogen production facilities - $0.86, Pipelines and storage - $0.37, Compression - $0.50, Trucking - $0.30, Retail fueling stations - $0.51, Taxes - $0.94, This comes to a total of $6.98 per kilogram. which honda equates to a gallon of gasoline. Why go through all that expense and wasteage when the same clean electricity can be put directly into a battery and used for locomotion at ~86% grid to motor efficency compared to ~25% grid to motor efficency for hydrogen. As Supercapacitor technology develops further It will be even more efficient and provide recharging at speeds faster than tie time it takes to fill a gas tank. While the idea of making our own H2 in our garages is pretty cool it will never be economicly practical.

_________________
Manure green 2005 CRD sport4x4, GDE Hot tune, Cat Gut, OE skids, Draw tight hitch, Duramax lift pump, 160K on multiple varieties of fuel, XM radio, Escort live with Redline, fog light mod, GPS, Icom IC7000 all band radio call sign KC9QPF, Grabber AT2s on Soft 8s, FIA grill blanket.

LOGIC ALERT! LOGIC ALERT!

There is also another BIG issue that lots of media people ignore when they are swilling the H2 kool-aid: Transportation of the fuel.

Our current infrastructure is designed around a fuel that is liquid at zero pressure and ambient temperatures. Not a solid or a gas. Even LPG is stored and transported as a liquid, albeit at some pressure, but MUCH less pressure than H2. LPG pressure bottles operate at up to 250psi. But all those pipelines and fuel delivery trucks... All equipped for a zero-pressure liquid.

Anyone pushing the hydrogen-only idea is missing a HUGE cost, that NO INDUSTRY will ever accept: The trillions of dollars it would take to replace all the tanker trailers (JUST the trailers now) the piping, the storage tanks at distribution points, the mega-ships, and every underground tank at every corner 7-11 gas station.

Many of these stations have recently undergone renovation to replace their metal underground tanks with plastic. Are we now supposed to re-renovate to install a hideously expensive carbon fiber tank that can hold a day or two of H2? And then what about the hazard potential? It doesn't matter if you believe the hype that a hydrogen tank will 'powder instantly and harmlessly' in the event of a serious impact... 5000 psi of energy is still there, waiting to impact other solid objects and create a nice kaboom. Oh, and the force is contained with a FUEL source too... So the kaboom will be an "Earth-shattering kaboom" instead. Marvin Martian will love that.


I agree that crop-based solutions are not the answer. But we need to focus on liquid-based alternative fuels, b/c that is the ONLY thing that will not require the replacement of the ENTIRE FUEL INFRASTRUCTURE - again, something that no industry will ever want to touch.

I do agree that the method of producing hydrogen won't be so hard to overcome. As you just stated, people are already doing it. I think the problem will be in producing enough of it. Hydrogen has pretty low energy density compared to other fuel sources.

I agree with the post above concerning the hazard. Pumping gasoline with its flammability is bad enough. Pumping a liquified gas into a car is another proposition. Ever read the warnings on a lead acid battery concerning "explosion potential?" A byproduct of the electrolysis process is hydrogen and this hazard pales in comparison to the prospect of pumping a tank full of it. A good point made above is infrastructure issue...sure won't be easy to adapt. It's hard enough to contain the leaks from a liquid fuel; consider trying contain the smallest molecule in nature. Hydrogen diffuses through pretty much everything.

As far as liquid fuels are concerned, I like the prospect of biodiesel produced by algae farms because it seems reasonable. Dupont partnered with some other companies to develop a fermentation process for producing butanol from cellulosic materials. The advantage of butanol over ethanol is that it can actually be transported by pipeline...much less hygroscopic than ethanol. It also has a higher energy density. I've never been sold on the making fuel from food and I think we're seeing in part how that's working out.

The professor I was speaking of earlier was this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Yaghi It's not very often you have a guy write his own article on wikipedia. His research is interesting. There are others out there with similar idea of making porous compounds to help soak up the hydrogen. This guy had a pretty major collaboration with my advisor in grad school before of left U. of Michigan. The "COF's" were actually proposed by my professor, though he doesn't get authorship credit in the Science/Nature publications. People have found that the interactions of the hdyrogen molecules with the porous structures almost makes it take on liquid characteristics, so they can pack a lot more in. Unfortunately, this guy actually isn't the best scientist...ask him general chemistry questions and struggles with answers. He usually treats his students very poorly, especially if he tells them to do something and they inquire with "how?" It wasn't unusual for students to leave his office in tears. I think most people are willing to work with him and put up with it because of the name and marketing. The work lends itself to pretty pictures. Journal editors love it. The DOE is happy to shower him with money. A few drawbacks to his materials that are often ignored is the fact that the presence of water leads to a breakdown in the structure over time, so the storage efficiency is going to go way down. Also, if they get to hot, in the case of the carboxylates especially, they start decomposing and exuding CO2 and this also leads to a loss in structure...i.e. storage efficiency. There are other research groups that make materials that follow the organized porous structure motif. These and others will probably find some neat applications. However, I'm not sure it's going to solve all of the hydrogen problems. At this point in the game, it's more marketing, pretty pictures, and grandiose scientific claims to get grant money from the government and gain prestige from publishing in well respected journals.

One of the ideas floating around is to build refueling stations that are self-sufficient, therefore can replenish their own supplies, eliminating the transportation of the H2. While development of transportation of H2 via the trucking industry is a part of it, there are other ideas going on in conjunction with it. Self-sufficient stations would be beneficial in small markets.

It is real easy to throw rocks at emerging technologies. 150 years or so ago we were all reading by candles or lamps burning whale oil. Had someone not started poking holes in the ground to find oil and had others not figured out how to distill it into the various products we use today all the whales would be gone and so would the light!

Despite the belief of a few Neanderthals (you know what happened to them when they failed to adapt) there will need to be new technologies to replace the petroleum economy. Right now those technologies are emerging and they will continue to do so. In the end it is likely that for the next 40-50 years there will be multiple choices of biofuels (and yes the algae based biodiesel looks very promising), hybrids (including diesel and plug-ins), standalone electric, and perhaps hydrogen. To discount any of them today simply because the technology is developmental is a little short sighted.

_________________
Dave

'06 CRD Limited, Lt. Khaki, MOPAR Slush Mats/Skids, DrawTite Front Hitch, Mag Lite, Yakima Bars, Thule Bike Rack, Fumoto, ORM, 245/70 Revo 2

Wish list: Lift, Boulder Bars, Something Bigger in the Front and Back, More Lights

I'm all for developing new technologies in H2, wind, solar, etc. If those technologies allow us to one day step away from oil that would be great. But, right now I'd like to see more emphasis on clean coal, coal to liquid, natural gas to liquid, biofuels made from garbage, etc. We can keep the long term goals in sight while still tackling the short term goals and eventually we'll get there.

Absolutely, leave no energy source behind and eventually the best one will replace the petroleum culture which is waning.

Long term I think it will involve electricity combined with hybrid technology. Even though carbon sources of energy are terrible pollutors, point source pollution (an energy plant burning coal for example) is easier to manage than 10 million internal combustion engines. One problem though is that we don't have an adequate electric distribution system to handle all that load either. There is some interesting research being done on plug-in electric cars that charge at night then sit in parking lots during the day serving as a huge storage cell plugged back in to serve the peak curve. It would suck to return to the parking lot after a long hot day though to find your ccar dead because all tyhe cities air cinditioners had been running.

_________________
Dave

'06 CRD Limited, Lt. Khaki, MOPAR Slush Mats/Skids, DrawTite Front Hitch, Mag Lite, Yakima Bars, Thule Bike Rack, Fumoto, ORM, 245/70 Revo 2

Wish list: Lift, Boulder Bars, Something Bigger in the Front and Back, More Lights

I really think sothern California should have more hydrogen filling stations. Maybe if they get enough of them the whole place will go up like the Hindenburg.



I think the final 'battery' solution will be something like this. Solid state, without a chemical reaction like in a real battery. The most important thing about batteries is to prevent them from giving up all their energy too quickly (Dell laptop lithium ions anyone?). Any time someone claims a 1000% improvement on current performance there is, and should be, a healthy amount of doubt. The fact that their original release date didn't happen, yet they claim it's not a delay, should be the real 'truth.'

Even if it is true, it's still kind of scary, charging a 250 mile range in 5 minutes. What if it's winter, and there's a little wet road salt on your charging plug? The BAM will be very bright and you'll have $30,000 of slag in your garage, if you still have a garage.

Sorry, but OEM's have to think that way. Somewhere, sometime, someone, will use a lawn mower as a hedge trimmer, then sue you for losing an arm.



I purchased a Toyota in 1991. I have never met a more arrogant dealership or service organization. The vehicle performed nearly flawlessly, but I absolutely loathed the dealership. I've also had VW and Chrysler, they fell in the middle. My best dealer experience was with a Chevrolet actually. It's a shame it was the most unreliable vehicle...

_________________
2005 CRD Limited Flame Red w/ Renegade rock rails & light bar, AirLift 1000. 225/75R16 MT/R's on cheap black steel wheels, dual MOPAR subwoofers, Ipod kit & seat covers, Samco hoses - totaled and gone. 2008 WK Laredo 3.0L diesel - AirLift 1000, wife won't let me mess with it much. 2013 JK Sahara on order.

[quote="danoid"]
Even if it is true, it's still kind of scary, charging a 250 mile range in 5 minutes. What if it's winter, and there's a little wet road salt on your charging plug? The BAM will be very bright and you'll have $30,000 of slag in your garage, if you still have a garage.
[quote]

I'm pretty sure that they will be using a paddle charger with that kind of current, same as electric buses use. However for the five minute charging capability a special line would have to be run to your garage with a separate meter. China has a really groovy system for their electric bus pilot program. At every bus stop there is a charging "umbrella" over the parking area of the bus and as the passengers load or unload the bus is charged by induction. never even having to plug in. Just immagine charging umbrellas at every flying-J and pilot truck stops on the highway for passenger cars.

_________________
Manure green 2005 CRD sport4x4, GDE Hot tune, Cat Gut, OE skids, Draw tight hitch, Duramax lift pump, 160K on multiple varieties of fuel, XM radio, Escort live with Redline, fog light mod, GPS, Icom IC7000 all band radio call sign KC9QPF, Grabber AT2s on Soft 8s, FIA grill blanket.

Technologies are advancing very rapidly right now.....and from what I have read in the last few months I am beginning to rethink my previous beliefs concerning energy storage (because that is what we are actually talking about). I think battery technology is about to leapfrog and when it does, lots of assumptions are going to change.

As to the title of this post: At this point it is my Mom's Prius that would be towing my CRD to the junkyard. She has 70,000 flawless miles at 50 mpg. I, on the other hand, have had so many problems with both my CRDs that I run back to this forum and the dealer with an unending list of issues - even after the various recalls were done. In fact, I am back here again today because the beast started cutting out on me in heavy traffic - and then threw a CEL. It was outright dangerous and I had a toddler in the car with me at the time who kept saying "Daddy, why does the engine keep stopping?". I like the way the car drives and feels and I like the fact that it is a diesel, but by all accounts the thing is an absolute lemon and the customer service from DM for these is utterly useless.

_________________
2005 CRD Limited:
* 245/70/16 Nokian Vatiiva
* Magnaflow
* Kennedy Diesel lift pump
* Custom CCV condensor
* Custom modified thermostat housing w/bleeder valve

2006 CRD Limited (wife's)
* Bone stock

So I'm a little confused.

What makes a vehicle reliable? I had a 2002 New Beetle, purchased in 2004 with 9,001 miles. I traded it in in 2006 with 110,653 miles. In that time frame, I had a coolant temperature sensor go out causing a CEL, that was the only CEL that was the fault of the car. The rest were emissions related to the new exhaust I installed. The seat's mounting bracket broke -- this was the main reason I traded the car in -- and I think the door position sensor for the driver door failed, the car always thought the driver door was shut. Annoying, but livable nuances.

My mother bought a brand new 2002 Ford Focus. Today it sits at about 62,000 miles -- if that, perhaps it's closer to 64,000. The short list that I recall: day number two we had all door seals replaced due to leakage, three radios, two wiper motors, ignition switch, two or three throttle bodies, a valve cover gasket. The vehicle has never been in an accident, and my mother drives less than 9000 miles a year. The car is a total junker.

Based upon the two, the VW is obviously the better of the two. Yet JD Power, the people who praise the Prius, say that VW is one of the worst in terms of reliability. They scored the Focus higher than my Beetle. My story is similar to other Focus/Bug owners.

So what that stated, I ask.. what makes a car reliable? I got into a debate with someone about if a CRD could pill 10,000 and I said with the right modifications of course. However it was never and would never come from the factory ready to do such a task. Most trucks are the same way; if your going to be pulling heavy loads you get a F350-or better class truck from the maker of your choice. Or get the low end big dog from the maker of your choice and throw a few grand into upgrades and get the same function for a fraction of the cost.

The Auto market of the USA has been this way since I was alive. We got the Jeep -- which has had the AC go out, a fuel line come off, and a leaking oil pan from day one -- and it has been less reliable than the Jetta it replaced. However the Jetta was not nearly as roomy, and they get the same economy. The Jeep also has 4x4, which we have used twice now (both times escaping a parking lot).

Are we unhappy with the Jeep? no. It's a Jeep. They're known for their adventurous ownership -- like the soaked seat from the bad vinyl top, that's not a flaw that's just an adventure!

I personally feel that the Prius and similar vehicles are shams, at best they are evolutions of the gasoline powered engine. So far as internal combustion goes, nothing outperforms a diesel engine in my eyes.

We have lots of options for using mutated, non-human-consumable crops that would affect nary of the food we eat but provide us with clean renewable fuels for our vehicles. However legislation prevents it.

We could mandate that all waste streams be recycled into new energy forms. But no one wants to buy into it.

Frankly, after watching Black Gold... making biodiesel is a CAKE WALK in comparison to extracting crude. That does not sell.

So... yeah, I don't think hydrogen is going to be the end all that it is made out to be. I think we need to look at what we have available now and push it, while phasing out the trite and tired, and preparing to herald the up and coming technologies that are still in their infancy.

_________________
1998 VW New Beetle TDI & 2006 Jetta TDI Manual
No more: 2005 Stone White Liberty CRD
Powered in part by Biodiesel and Open Source Software.

I read this on another forum and this guy sums it up pretty good. I just had to copy and paste here. It's long but good.....
++++++++

I just cant help adding my 3c worth.
Would it be wrong to sell plans for making hydrogen generators to these people though? Perhaps it'd keep them out of the gene pool, when they fill their car with hydrogen and light it off with a spark from their sweater.

I believe that hydrogen will NEVER be a common fuel for cars and here’s why.

1) Its lethal. It mixes in air at almost the speed of sound, and can be lit off by sparks from clothing. Get a cabin full of this and light it and you'll be the mincemeat occupant of a bubble-car (minus windows).

If you had a hydrogen tank under pressure and just opened it to atmosphere there is enough static generated by the flow to auto-ignite, you don’t need an external ignition source. Some people think its good that H2 will ignite with far wider range than petrol/air mix - but that is actually a huge negative.

2) Its lethal. It has to be transported in specially designed, hardened trucks, in multiple canisters, and these trucks are banned by law from parking in an enclosed space (defined as anything smaller than being in open air), in case of leaks.

Also H2 fires are notoriously difficult to manage, H2 is static clingy, doesn’t necessarily go up when it has the chance, it clings and gets absorbed into all sorts of plastic materials and can lie dormant for hours under the right conditions.

3) Its difficult to store - it requires canisters made of special grades of steel that don’t become brittle when exposed to it.

The composite tanks used in the BMW car are very expensive and consume a lot of raw materials for manufacture and still subject to rigorous leak testing regimes, very expensive, the fittings are also specialized alloys.

When it does leak it contributes to the greenhouse effect.

4) Its lethal. If you ever saw some idiot welding within millimeters of a petrol tank, imagine that was a tank of hydrogen.

I recall someone saying the US hazmat guide said this of an H2 fire, "Extend arm to full length, raise thumb, if you can still see the source of the fire behind your thumb then you are too close"

5) Its lethal. No storage system makes it safe as it still has to be able to deliver useful quantities of gas to the engine, which is still enough to fill the cab in an accident, and once lit you will find the car about a mile away.

The amount of energy by normal gas compression storage is very low and yes if exhausted will explode, it might be deemed fortunate there is only one large explosion rather than a liquid fire, who can say which is worse.

Ok, enough on the lethal...
6) Its pointless. The one GOOD way to burn it (fuel cells) will also burn diesel (I've seen REAL diesel fuel cells running).

Methanol would be as clean as H2 to burn in a fuel cell for the most part, yes no need for H2,

7) Its pointless. Its energy density is pathetically low compared to
just about anything else.

One liter of petrol at STP is about 9000 Watt Hours, one liter of H2 at STP is about 9 Watt Hours. The energy expended in making H2 dense enough so it equals the value of petrol hugely diminishes the utility, either that or its at such a low temp it cannot be stored for long without having to be released.

No-one has managed to make a practical hydrogen vehicle that beats the economy of a diesel fuel cell / lithium battery hybrid vehicle. Not even close.

Interestingly, there is more Hydrogen in a liter of petrol than in a liter of liquid hydrogen.

Why cant people give it up? It doesn’t even burn cleanly in an internal combustion engine (because ICEs don’t breathe pure O2).

Yeah these nuts who happily breathe in the exhaust of H2O, NOx and HC's (from lube release) just haven’t reached basic education about combustion...

Some just don’t get it - even today with potential for chem/physics tech ed, hence my addition to drive it home with comments here...

On a side note,

- Liquid fuel delivery infrastructure has so many values, it is already entrenched to a high degree, any replacement must prove itself long term and that would take a generation or more.

- There is no problem with petrol, methanol, and alcohol, re the environment provided we make the carbon cycle neutral, that will take some doing but many technologies are showing up as possible.

We have a huge liquid fuel infrastructure (and that includes LPG), it makes far better thermodynamic and economic sense to refine this mode and move to a carbon economy as nature has been doing for millennia, we just need to finesse this with renewable liquid fuels like biodiesel from algae/bacteria, methanol/alcohol from waste organic material and cellulose biomass etc etc.

True story

I was heading eastbound on I-95 toward Lake City. Passed a crygenic tanker
filled with hydrogen.

Directly in front of it was a truck loaded with pressurized O2 cylinders.

_________________
U.S. Army Retired

Again, the anti H2 hype is as misplaced as the pro. Thanks to the Hindenburg H2 gets a bad rap but in fact it burned because the paint on the skin was highly flammable. H2 dissipates and becomes non explosive very quickly and it is unlikely to explode. DOT has done many experiments on this and gas presents as much or more risk.

Same thing on transport and storage. You can put it down easily using today’s paradigms of super cooled, liquid transport and storage but if H2 becomes practical it will be because these storage issues have been resolved with new technology and transport becomes unimportant if you manufacture at the source rather than distributing it like we must distribute petroleum products.

_________________
Dave

'06 CRD Limited, Lt. Khaki, MOPAR Slush Mats/Skids, DrawTite Front Hitch, Mag Lite, Yakima Bars, Thule Bike Rack, Fumoto, ORM, 245/70 Revo 2

Wish list: Lift, Boulder Bars, Something Bigger in the Front and Back, More Lights

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/gr ... ops_hybrid

_________________
Dave

'06 CRD Limited, Lt. Khaki, MOPAR Slush Mats/Skids, DrawTite Front Hitch, Mag Lite, Yakima Bars, Thule Bike Rack, Fumoto, ORM, 245/70 Revo 2

Wish list: Lift, Boulder Bars, Something Bigger in the Front and Back, More Lights

Bingo.

It always amazes me how few people really examine the sources of information sceptically. Hydrogen dissipates almost instantly. Gasoline fumes, on the other hand, linger for a very long time, and remain highly combustible for that entire time. Yet no one runs around wailing like schoolgirls that their gas tank is a ticking time bomb. But if the American Petroleum Institute funds some schill to say "hydrogen cars will be rolling nuclear bombs!" it quickly becomes accepted fact.

Personally, i don't think hydrogen is going to be a significant part of our transportation future either, but for different reasons. Fuel cells are just too darn expensive to make, and it takes too much energy to produce the hydrogen to make the process cost (or energy) efficient. Long-term, fuel costs and the general state of the US economy are going to shift our transportation infrastructure away from driving. You can see it already in the housing sector, where houses in the far far outer suburbs are being hit harder by the market than closer in areas. Going to get worse as the legacy of the federal budget deficits further pinch $$ for roads, bridges, etc...

Plug-in hybrids are an intriguing step forward, especially if teamed with better battery designs. The US oil companies moves to market diesel as a "premium" fuel is ensuring that it will never be widely adopted here for light duty vehicles, but it will always have a home in medium and heavy duty vehicles, and for tow rigs.

_________________
2006 Liberty CRD Limited
Mopar engine, transmission, transfer case skids
245/70/16 Michelin Latitude X-Ice (winter)
235/75/16 Firestone Destination ATs (summer)
Thule roof rack, cargo box
V6 airbox mod
Flowmaster 50 2.5 inch muffler
Edge EZ module (set for fuel economy)
SEGR
TDIWagonGuy CCV filter
B99 (summer), B20 (winter)