Comments on The Ergosphere: Why hydrogen is no route to renewables

"After reading your response to my comment I reali...

2007-12-27T22:27:48.206-05:00

"After reading your response to my comment I realize I wasted my time."

You certainly did. You posted an incoherent comment with faulty claims, and expected to be taken as something other than a troll.

"They still create 100% of their energy without coal/oil. My bad."

Even in your correction, you border on incoherence. Iceland generates 100% of

After reading your response to my comment I realiz...

2007-12-27T20:52:30.836-05:00

After reading your response to my comment I realize I wasted my time. You complain that I don't know my facts by saying hydro power is the main source of elec. in Iceland. My bad. They still create 100% of their energy without coal/oil. My bad. Anyhow, you didn't respond to my intended point. If the costs of elec generation are removed, does the creation of hydrogen still rediculous. (No

"You clearly have an agenda regarding hydrogen and...

2007-12-09T02:44:37.971-05:00

"You clearly have an agenda regarding hydrogen and perhaps you have something to gain by doing so."

What factual basis do you have for these claims? Is it the same as the rest of your comment (none)?

"The reason Iceland produces aluminum is because of Geothermal energy. The entire country gets 100% of it's electricity from it."

Funny, says more or less the same thing.

I'm not an expert on batteries, but several of the...

2005-07-31T17:10:11.856-04:00

I'm not an expert on batteries, but several of these problems have been solved for quite some time.

1. Lead-acid cells can be fast-charged using pulses of discharge current to remove gas bubbles from the plates. I read about an electric pickup which charged in 15 minutes quite a few years ago.

2. The new nanoparticle Li-ion batteries charge fully in 5 minutes,

E-P, Do you have any thoughts about batteries?I'm...

2005-07-30T19:42:22.386-04:00

E-P, Do you have any thoughts about batteries?

I'm sure if you were to ask the car industry, and GM in particular, about batteries vs. hydrogen, they would say that batteries were tried, and failed. They would say that batteries on the market now have too little capacity, for too much money, and charge too slowly.

Now, the new nano-electrode batteries should solve the low

Well, there's no question that CAFE made SUV's gro...

2005-07-28T18:03:21.166-04:00

Well, there's no question that CAFE made SUV's grow much more than they would have otherwise. That's very different from making the overall situation worse.

There are many real costs associated with oil and gasoline which aren't in the price. The proper thing to do would be to include those costs in the price by taxing oil or gasoline (and applying the revenues to the costs, like

Doug:It wasn't the CAFE standards that cut usage, ...

2005-07-27T23:36:04.830-04:00

Doug:

It wasn't the CAFE standards that cut usage, it was high oil prices. CAFE actually made things worse. By penalizing large cars, it got people driving trucks around town instead. CAFE is the cause of SUVs! (This is different from the argument that CAFE failed to prevent the glut of SUVs; I believe it is the actual cause of the move to SUVs, because station wagons -- remember

That's old news at The Ergosphere, Nick:"Last, it ...

2005-07-27T19:04:29.243-04:00

That's old news at The Ergosphere, Nick:

"Last, it made the oil, coal and gas interests snicker..."

You read it here first.

This analysis does suggest a cynical strategy for ...

2005-07-27T14:52:54.260-04:00

This analysis does suggest a cynical strategy for gas/coal/oil companies: promote hydrogen, which will extend the usefulness of their products, and create an infrastructure badly suited for renewables. Sigh.

I wouldn't want the hydrogen advocates to say I wa...

2005-07-27T13:12:47.216-04:00

I wouldn't want the hydrogen advocates to say I was being unfair to them.

The real crime is when you take the advocates' numbers, show that their scheme is hopelessly expensive or wasteful or otherwise wrong, and they go right back to touting the awful scheme.

It makes one wonder if they aren't
Reports that H2 pipelines have approximately 0.77 % loss per 100 km versus 0.6 % loss per 100 km for DC.

Oh, Nick, by the way, he is being excessively generous for hydrogen with his numbers.

Always amusing to look at the CO2 production from ...

2005-07-27T11:40:54.723-04:00

Always amusing to look at the CO2 production from a methane->H2 pathway compared to just burning the methane directly.

Your hydrogen analysis should probably include the refrigeration cost to liquify it at 20 K. At 40 kg/m^3, it's still not very dense but it's way better than a gas.

Just a couple asides:

One, transmission losses for DC electricity and hydrogen

Are you being kind to hydrogen, by assuming the be...

2005-07-27T11:37:51.293-04:00

Are you being kind to hydrogen, by assuming the best possible efficiency? Hmmm...I suppose there are transmission losses for wind->electricity over the grid->car battery, which might compensate.

Have you been able to find out anything about the Toshiba battery which charges in 1 minute? It seems to me that the whole reason for the hydrogen economy is the speed of refueling. IF the

I wish people and our leaders would be responsible...

2005-07-27T08:44:02.360-04:00

I wish people and our leaders would be responsible and immediately cut gas use by 50% to give us a decent amount of time for transition.
Back when CAFE was on the march, things got better fast.
Now we've got a majority of people driving 5,000lb pigs with one person going to get the groceries.
...and the whole safety issue is bogus also, since if a large majority were well designed