How will hydrogen powered cars affect the world economy and the direction the world is headed?

Question

food for thought.. im real interested:-) thanks!

Answer 1

Probably not as much as you might think.

All using hydrogen for fuel for automobiles is push the energy question back one step. There aren't vast supplies of hydrogen gas lying around, so basically we would make almost all of it. This costs energy that would be drawn from power plants.

So it all really boils down to how all those power plants will be making the energy. In America, a fair percentage of energy is produced by burning coal, natural gas, and any number of other hydrocarbons. This rather obviously isn't going to change the environmental picture much at all, though it could very easily change the economic one with local sources replacing distant ones (and reducing the amount of transport necessary, which could be good for everyone).

It would create a push for many new power generation sources. Perhaps that alone could create a lot of innovation.

Hydrogen fuel, however, will never end the need for petroleum. Even hyrdrogen-powered cars will need oil for lubrication, and a fair amount of petroleum is used to make plastics which are used just about everywhere.

Still, it's something to think about.

Answer 2

No. Hydrogen is not a economical way of power the future or the world and will likely have almost no affect on the world economy. I think in the end it will end up being one of those things we will all talk about when we're 80 and sitting on the porch. "Hey Frank, remember hydrogen power cars? he he.. Morons..."

There are many problems with changing to a totally new fuel source. Most of which have been listed on here before me. But infrastructure is one of the main problems. You have to have a totally new pump and hardware at every station. This will be very expensive. How are third world countries going to afford this? This list goes on and on, but I think I can boil the main problems down to one.

So lets say we have the money and backing to change over the infrastructure of the world. We have a bunch of cars ready to use the fuel and people want it. We have a totally new problem. Where to do get the fuel? Hydrogen is a rare gas that is often made by man for the uses that we have today. It also takes more BTU's (heat) to make Hydrogen then it will be able to produce to power cars.. So then we have to figure out how to make it with clean and cheap technologies. So lets say we went with solar or wind power to make the Hydrogen on site.

So at this point we have a solar and/or wind powered hydrogen fueling station, (which would run about 3 million a pop at this point. I see even 2nd world countries are turning it down now.) so where do we go from here? Well we need to make the hydrogen from something don't we? Well the current way we make hydrogen is from water. Water is H20. Two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. So that means have water on site at each fueling station so that hydrogen can be made. (I foresee a problem in the middle east and Africa already.) Thats all well and good. So we are at the point where we have invested millions of dollars into each fueling station. They run on solar and wind. They have the water. They are ready to power cars!

So America and the world starts heavily depending on water for its fueling needs. Anyone see the problem? In the next 20 years, even with out hydrogen being a fuel, we are going to start seeing wars over water. So really with current technology, Hydrogen technology solves one thing. The pollution side of the problem. But we keep killing each other over the fuel, so really we are back to square one. Its time to go back to the drawing board and find another way.

Answer 3

Hydrogen technology is at the very least a decade out, which is backed by the oil and car companies, big surprise. So unless the world wakes up, she is headed for doom!

Answer 4

I don't think it will, except for changing the gas giants to hydrogen giants, and cars will be made for the different fuel.

Shouldn't change the world economy one bit really.

Answer 5

Hard to predict, it raises more questions than answers. Like how fast can we all switch over? What is the cost of the new technology? Will Govt. help fund the changes needed to make the switch in infrastructure needs (Fuel stations)... etc...

Answer 6

No.