IS hydrogen a better weapon against terrorism?

Question

I heard that Sweden is already implementing a highway dedicated to hydrogen. There is also a refrigerator-sized box that can produce it. any info or insight is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I think the Swedes are onto something. The world is passing us up on innovations for ending dependance on foreign oil while we focus on a stupid war over oil. Perhaps our priorities are misplaced.

Answer 2

Hydrogen isn't really an energy resource like oil, natural gas, or fissionable material. It's more a way of storing power, like a battery - you use up more energy to produce hydrogen than you get from burning it, or running it through a fuel cell. In some way, it's still a pretty good battery, but it is basically just a battery, you still have to find actual energy resources to use hydrogen.

And, of course, oil is still used for more than energy - plastics, for instance - so even if there were hydrogen available for energy production, oil would remain a strategic resource, and the Middle East would remain the geopolitically critical and unstable region it is today.

Answer 3

Careful.
Some folks might think you're talking about H- bombs.
The Swedes do not have big oil interests to squash alternative energy sources.
They also have abundant hydroelectric power to turn water into hydrogen fuel.
Much easier for a country the size of Sweden to make the transition.
We have the technology to do it also , but not the will of corporations who depend entirely on oil.
Dirty energy is just too profitable.
Unless we follow the lead of the Swedes & other forward thinking countries , we will be pulling our cars around with horses before big oil loses its deathgrip on us.

Answer 4

It's more commonly called fuel cell technology, and it can work even on a neighborhood basis, making vast fragile grids obsolete.

Wind or photovoltaic power is plenty to electrolize water into its components, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen combusts extremely efficiently, and the exhaust is water vapor.

We could have had the entire Southwest operating on fuel cell technology three years ago, had we declared a New Manhattan Project on Sept 12, 2001.

A high school girl in my town made a working hydrogen fuel cell for the science fair a few years back.

She was seventeen.

Answer 5

You know, we could really use a kind of road that has the same elastic quality of pavement but doesn't use oil and lasts a lot longer.

People who live in northern cities (as the Swedes do) know that hard winters cause a mess with pot holes that have to be repaired in the spring season.

We'd save a lot of tax dollars if we didn't have to continually repair these roads.

Answer 6

You're definitely on the right track, although I prefer methanol. Hydrogen can be generated using solar, wind, hydro, OR geothermal. Unfortunately it seems that fuel cells are being designed to use hydrocarbons. WTF is up with THAT???