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- Berkana, on 12/05/2007, -0/+1The problem with this is that it takes energy to split water. People forget this; the energy it takes to split water is more than the energy one gets from either burning it or re-combining the hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell.
This, BTW, is the fundamental reason the "hydrogen economy" is a dangerous diversion from the real solution, which is the electron economy. Hydrogen, if it is made by splitting water using the input of energy from other sources just so it can be re-combined with oxygen in a fuel cell to generate electricity, is NOT TECHNICALLY A FUEL; it is a lousy battery. Electricity is generated at a loss, the splitting of water by electrolysis (even at its most efficient) is done at a loss, compressing it for use takes more energy, and converting it back to electricity is lossy as well. In the end, simply by making hydrogen an intermediary for storing electricity, one ends up losing a large portion of the original energy.
Why the Hydrogen economy doesn't make sense:
http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html
The real solution is not a hydrogen infrastructure; it is an electrical infrastructure, which we already have. We just need to upgrade that to handle additional loads, not spend billions on hydrogen to do the same thing—generate electricity to run motors.
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