what is cheaper to produce, electricity or hydrogen fuel cells??

Question

also which can be produced in the most eco friendly way?

im referring to their use in cars.

ha, im asking because i just watched that movie, "who killed the electric car?"

but i thought i read somewhere that 40% of our pollution is from electrical power plants, and only like 15% was from cars... its very interesting..

Answer 1

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An electric car will always be cheaper to buy and operate than a fuel cell car. I believe my explanation below will make this obvious.
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A fuel cell car IS an electric car - it even has batteries, because the fuel cell can't output enough electric current for the car to accelerate without them. So take the price of an electric car, then add the price of a fuel cell. It has to be more expensive.
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Next, as to the cost of operation - both cars use electricity. Here's where most of the public discussion of Hydrogen goes wrong - hydrogen is not a fuel - it is not a magical source of energy - it is really an energy carrier, just like a battery.
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Hydrogen is usually extracted using water and electricity. When the fuel cell uses the hydrogen, we get water and electricity back out. That's a reversible chemical process, exactly what a battery does. Except that batteries are much more efficient than the hydrogen process is. This means electricity for a pure electric car will be cheaper than the electricity for making hydrogen, because of efficiency differences.
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Plus, in the case of hydrogen, there are also costs (and additional pollution) associated with trucking and storing the hydrogen.
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Electric vehicles are cheaper and cleaner across the board. They are also much cleaner than gas vehicles, even when power plants burn dirty fuel, because EVs make much more efficient use of energy than typical cars do.
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Answer 2

Electricity, because the means of producing it is already established on a mass scale. Hydrogen fuel cells are still relatively new, and haven't seen mass production on a level that would reduce costs. Electricity is virtually free today, while hyrdrogen still has a cost to process.

Answer 3

Electricity is way cheaper. Right now with our technology Hydrogen fuel cells are way to expensive. If you are really interested in this i recommend watching the DVD called " Who killed the electric car?" very interesting DVD. It will even make you mad at our government(if you are not already) for what they did.

Answer 4

Actually, it depends! both seem to be eco friendly, for use in cars: in a place where raw material and production is cheap, one or the other will be more economic, depending on the cost of production in the given place! as a gen statement, electricity may be cheaper!