Steven M. O'Neill wrote:
Aidan Stanger wrote:
Steven M. O'Neill wrote:
Cast_Iron wrote:
So there's no alternative to the infernal combustion engine the oil
company's say?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/3350715.stm

Epic trip for 'alternative' car

A car that runs on just hydrogen and solar power has completed a journey
through Australia - the first crossing of a continent for a car of this
type.

Where does the hydrogen come from?

Australia, I expect - getting it through customs is more trouble than
it's worth :-)

The trouble with hydrogen is that it's rather difficult to store to take
with you

The trouble with hydrogen is that it takes energy to extract it
from water or other compounds. Hopefully, in the future, wind
or solar power will be used to do that. For now, a hydrogen
fuel cell is just displacing the pollution and greenhouse gases
from the car to the power plant.

In places where they have nuclear power stations, hydrogen power is a
good way to use up some of the excess power produced at times when
demand is low. However, Western Australia does not have nuclear power.
But the amount of energy needed to generate the hydrogen for one car is
very low anyway. The main objective is to prove it can be done. The main
hurdle is technical - the problem of generating the hydrogen efficiently
does not have to be sorted out at this stage. Of course, it will have to
be sorted before commercialization.