BMW Hydrogen car goes in the wrong direction
By John Pospisil
Is hydrogen the future of car engines, as BMW and other car manufacturers think it is? With hydrogen taking more energy to produce than it delivers, why the ridiculous distraction from creating clean electric cars with hundreds fewer parts than combustion engines?Forget about a hydrogen car, you’ll never be driving one.
Image from the UK’s Car Magazine – online edition
An article from the Toronto Star waxes lyrically about BMW having created a hydrogen car, and how it is environmentally friendly. A number of other articles have also appeared now that BMW has released the new BMW Hydrogen 7, a hydrogen powered card. Other articles in the news right now about it include one from Times Online in the UK and another from The Independent in the UK.
There’s also lots of other news about this launch over at Google News if you want more.
I advise you to read at least one of the news articles listed above on the release of the BMW Hydrogen 7 so you can see how ridiculous the whole thing is. Near the end of the article from the Toronto Star, we read that “Like oil from Alberta’s tar sands, it takes more energy to make hydrogen than you get from it. Only when renewable resources, such as solar, wind and thermal energy, are used to make hydrogen will its true green potential be realized”.
So you’re telling me it takes more energy to produce hydrogen that you get from it? That’s so unbelievable that it’s laughable. Why would you ever bother? Jim Kenzie from the Toronto Star says that when hydrogen is made from renewable resources such as solar, wind and thermal energy, then the true green potential will be realized.
Well, Mr Kenzie, and BMW, how about applying that solar, wind and thermal energy into recharging lithium ion batteries (or better, future batteries) so our cars can run on quiet electric motors instead? Why do we need combustion at all?
The whole world is aware of a movie called ‘Who killed the electric car?’. I haven’t seen this movie yet, but will this week, and have heard a lot of buzz and have read a lot about it. The way in which GM marketed and then killed this car is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century. Had GM continued, many more people would happily be driving electric cars today.
GM has a response to the movie which you should read, but one of their claims is that they have a hydrogen car too. Hey GM, that’s just not good enough, and none of your reasons wash with me, and I suspect they don’t wash with too many other people either.
And lest you think electric cars are a dream or just a waste of time, of course Toyota has had great success with the Prius car, as well as their new Lexus hybrid. I’ve read reports of European and US owners of the Prius modifying their cars so they run mostly on electricity and use less petrol than ever.
Then there’s the amazing Tesla Motors company with their fully electric sports car that can go from 0 to 60 mph in only 4 seconds, and all from lithium ion batteries!
Tesla is being largely funded out of Silicon Valley and counts Elon Musk, founder of PayPal and Sergei Brin, co-founder of Google, among its investors. The car gets 250 miles per charge at a cost of about 1c per mile. The website has all the details, the car has already won several major awards and they have already sold out of their 2007 series!
Let’s get back to hydrogen fuel for a moment. For a hydrogen fuel economy to exist, not only do we need abundant supplies of hydrogen for all, but all of the service stations that currently supply petrol (or gas for US readers) will need upgrading to supply hydrogen. Tankers specifically designed to transport hydrogen need to be built en-masse to transport hydrogen all over the country – indeed, all over the world.
There’s more to this, but basically an entire infrastructure needs to be built to support this. How much will this cost again? Just so we can produce a car with no emissions. Why not go electric, the technology is mature and can easily be advanced further, and it produces no emissions either.
The infrastructure to charge electric cars already exists all over the world – it’s called the power grid. Every home has one, they’re even in service stations. Quick battery charging technology exists and will only get better, making a very quick recharge of your car’s batteries a convenient reality.
In Berlin, where BMW is trialling this project, the Toronto Star article states that: “Berlin currently has two hydrogen filling stations to service a grand total of 16 hydrogen vehicles and a handful of buses”.
So, they’ve outfitted two gas stations for hydrogen compatibility. Just enough to make it look like something’s happening in the alternative energy space. But every fuel station in the world is going to need hydrogen if you want to drive from A to B without running out of fuel.
The article also states that “Every car maker has hydrogen research projects underway. Where BMW deviates from the mainstream is that instead of fuel cells, which convert hydrogen to electrical energy to power motors, it believes the internal combustion engine (ICE) running on hydrogen is the best, or at least quickest, way to a hydrogen-based transportation system”.
Unfortunately, given the fact that electric motors are now easily powering a sports car, and the car and oil industries have already killed the GM electric car, all of these projects are just a whitewash. A distraction.
C’mon BMW and all car companies around the world. Ditch the hydrogen project, and give us electric cars.
The world has been held back for 100 years from this technology, using filthy oil and petrol to power our cars instead. It’s time we moved to the future, and stopped looking for ways to modify old, outdated technology.
Want to know more? Read the original article from the Toronto Star, visit the Tesla Motors web site, and do your own investigation on Google where a search for the term ‘electric cars’ delivers 18.5 million results.
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Entry was posted
on Sunday, November 19th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
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Read more entries by John Pospisil.
Stumble It!
July 27th, 2007
you guys need to stop blogging about cars and alternative fuels and electric and all that.. because you’re not doing anything justice besides spouting like idiots about things you clearly know absolutely nothing about. stick to other things.. but step out of the automotive side..
January 11th, 2008
hey you knck the hydrogen car people are at least trying.
and many car have been ran on electric in the last 100 years the tesla is one of a very large amount of electric cars you just need to look for them and if you want to have an electric car you ca convert you car to electric there are bok and kit the problame with electric is light at night it will drain the battery and solar dose not charge when you drive. but people are working on ways for a better car. slowly but surly.
the tesla roadster is 100,000 dallors must people can not afford it thenyou also have venturi and many california car makers that is electric but if you think that a hybrid s any better drive a yaris and it is all gas and no hybrid it get about the sme miles to gallon the hybrid is he reason the electric car wont go cause every one think that hey are doing a favore to the enviroment for drive hybrids wtch is not any better it still uses gas.
the bottom line peopl are tryin and thats what count, hydrogen, elcrtic ,solar ,wind all a step in the right direction.
we will figure out what the most enegy sificent way is thruoh trial and error.
but you have to look in to all methods before the right one is born.
if you dont like it chane it and stop bitching
January 22nd, 2008
Present technology delivers a nett loss in energy producing Hydrogen, but methods of producing hydrogen efficiently is developing fast, because of demand for powering vehicles.
Google H2Gen, a company that have means of extracting H2 on site, hence no transportation infrastructure, as well as hydrogen from aluminum pellets, which produces the hydrogen on board.
Pure battery powered vehicles have other concerns, such as disposing of megatons of batteries at the end of their life cycle. Fuel cells dont deplete.
Aim for the best possible solution, and find a way to make it viable.
Can you even imagine the amount of extra electricity that has to be generated to replace gasoline using electric cars?
Since renewables are not efficient enough, how many thousands of nuclear reactors has to be built?
Imagine the increase in world hunger if we switch to biofuels.
Hydrogen needs only a solution in terms of chemistry, and we’re good to go. Using internal combustion, we dont even have to buy new cars.
January 22nd, 2008
Present technology delivers a nett loss in energy producing Hydrogen, but methods of producing hydrogen efficiently is developing fast, because of demand for powering vehicles.
Google H2Gen, a company that have means of extracting H2 on site, hence no transportation infrastructure. Also a new tech to get hydrogen from aluminum pellets, which could produce the hydrogen on board.
Pure battery powered vehicles have other concerns, such as disposing of megatons of batteries at the end of their life cycle.
Aim for the best possible solution, and find a way to make it viable. Hydrogen is not the same thing as gasoline or diesel, and perhaps we can find a way to not have to treat it like it is (storage, transport etc)
Can you even imagine the amount of extra electricity that has to be generated to replace gasoline using electric cars?
Since renewables are not efficient enough, how many thousands of nuclear reactors has to be built?
Imagine the increase in world hunger if we switch to biofuels.
Hydrogen needs only a better solution in terms of chemistry, and we’re good to go. Using internal combustion, we dont even have to buy new cars.
January 22nd, 2008
sorry for the double post…