Manipulators
Top Gear is a great show, it’s shown on Discovery or somesuch here in the US and even though we can’t buy half the cars they review, their reviews are always entertaining and worth a watch.
http://www.youtube.com/v/ry6w3mRm-FM
or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RboLKikhy04
Except for that one, unfortunately. Don’t get me wrong, it is an impressive prototype–though I’m surprised the sled GM’s been talking about for years is just now finally going someplace under its own power. The car looks cool, even if this review is very shallow on any useful details about how it actually performs. My problem with this review is the way it glosses over Hydrogen.
Hydrogen has been “10-20 years away” for well over 10-20 years now. The solution to it being a viable energy source is not just around the corner, there is simply no solution if you happen to remember Newton’s law of conservation of energy. Basically it was the point of all the talk about kinetic vs. potential energy, much of which we all slept through. It boils down to a simple fact: energy can neither be created nor destroyed. There is absolutely no magical turning of seawater into hydrogen. None of these cars ‘fill up on seawater’. It takes an enormous amount of electricity to break the bonds and change water into something that BURNS (hydrogen) instead of puts OUT fires. If you have that kind of extra electricity just sitting around, it’s FAR more efficient to use it to directly power an electric car or a plug-in hybrid.
Hydrogen has other drawbacks, such as that it’s just not very energy dense. Even at extreme pressure it’s hard to carry enough to go meaningful distances. Which brings up safety concerns over how flammable it is (Hindenburg, anyone?) should there be any point in the system for that pressure to escape. The way the media tried to play up (generally non-existent) concerns about firefighter safety with hybrids, it’ll be something to see them cover the first time a hydrogen test car detonates at the scene of an accident and kills every first-responder in a 10-foot radius.
But wait, why are so many people behind hydrogen? Because it’s the status quo. It’s not happening any time soon, so they feel free to make pie in the sky promises and hope nobody notices ten years from now that there still aren’t practical hydrogen cars (nor that their neighbors have paid 80% less on fuel in that time with a plug-in hybrid, nor that the US auto industry has finished the downward spiral into true irrelevance). Further, there is a way to make Hydrogen that doesn’t waste so very much energy–you break it out of a less inert substance then water… guess which? Fossil fuels! Bingo, that’s why oil companies / George W. Bush (one and the same?) support it, and as a bonus, when you go this route there’s all kinds of nasty stuff left over which they hope you won’t notice getting dumped into a landfill or the air/water.
I’ve just scratched the surface here, but it’s an important topic which has been covered regularly by Car and Driver magazine, Wired magazine, the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car” and in many other venues. Just as often it’s glossed over though, which is why I felt I had to write this.
If you’re interested in alternative energies which could actually do some good, keep an eye out for stories on: Advanced hybrids (especially plug-in ones). E85 (Ethanol based fuel… imagine how much further we’d be if all the massive government subsidies for corn only subsidized ethanol and food staple production, instead of mostly going into Coke and Pepsi’s pockets as cheap corn syrup). B80 (biodesel)–not the aging hippy down the street (in California, anyway) with his french fry oil fueled car, this stuff works great in most diesel engines, as soon as they get diesel’s general emissions problems under control this looks like a great solution. These organic-based fuels are more efficient then pie-in-the-sky seawater into hydrogen, especially if you combine them with a hybrid drivetrain. They could greatly decrease our dependence on foreign fossil fuels while giving American farmers the option to farm again–instead of waiting by mailboxes for government checks.
All we need is leadership and some R&D; seed-money, so CALIFORNIANS: YES ON 87!! (Guess who’s paying for all the anti prop 87 ads? Yep, the oil companies making record profits WHILE collecting subsidies and pretending to work on “clean” hydrogen.) Now’s the time!
And if you want to read about the real car of the future, look into the Tesla.