I'm sure we all knew that in some general sense.
If only there was some alternative. There is, there will be.
We just lack the will.
Now: public transit lanes.
Then: H2 fuel.
Now I am not a zealot about hydrogen. The biggest boosters also tend to know the least.
Almost inevitably they have read "The Hydrogen Economy" - and nothing else.
It doesn't mention all the *man* problems.
Though my friend Ryan has managed a much more spirited defence of H2.
The usual first pointless observation of H2 is 'it produces no pollution'!!!
If you mix it with 02 instead of atmospheric air, sure.
But H2 has storage issues- see later.
'n carrying 2x more O2 to in turn mix with it is prohibitive by volume or mass or money.
So in practice, H2 DOES pollute- though much less than, say, gasoline.
I think other than 1/3 the Nox, all the other pollutants were pretty trace.
No particulates to speak of.
So we do come out wayyy ahead.
Even without pie-in-sky naivete.
Ryan countered my H2 storage criticism.
He pointed out all the systems that a car needs due to gasoline.
Initially gasoline (or diesel fuel) seems ideal, due to its compact nature and being liquid
at room temperature.
BUT. Once we factor in all the pollution scrubbing systems necessary, that changes.
Ryan crunched the numbers. Once we pull all those systems in an H2 car, the H2 storage unit is a mass-neutral prospect.
H2 is energy-intensive to make. In general, yes. Particularly if we use cryogenic liquid H2.
However, when solar or wind (or for that matter, idling generators that still consume most of the power to run them!) is not being used, we can store it as H2.
H2 or batteries. H2 is best thought of as a storage medium and not an energy source.
Since H2 is not very usefully available in nature in that form, we must 'process' it.
Mating wind/solar/et al with a H2 combustion generator would address a criticism of alternative power sources- that they are not reliable.
Wind comes and then goes. Solar is strictly daytime.
Whereas, presumably, coal is reliable.
And H2 could do so without needing to send energy long distance on power lines, complete with heat loss.
The loss is less with DC proposals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
The transit of our society has 2 aspects:
1) personal cars and
2) fuel source.
These lead to the costs of
1) many many accidents and
2) pollution health costs.
As rule of thumb
1) cars kill the young(er)
2) fuel kills the old(er).
Once we factor in the hidden costs, the ones ignored by market forces...
a) is mass public transit and carpooling etc. expensive?
b) are cleaner fuels?
All my earlier research suggests the gas tax should be at least twice as high as it is.
The user should pay.
Not the poor sod walking by on the sidewalk...
