All this discuss hydrogen fuel-cell powered cars.     Well, what about them?
Remember your high-school science class, when the teacher applied electricty to water with two electrodes?     It would cause electrolysis of the water. The electrical energy would cause the H2O to to dissociate into hydrogen gas as well as oxygen:
2 H2O + energy = 2H2 + O2
Hydrogen fuel cells work in reverse (I won’t go into the particulars here).   They combine oxygen as well as hydrogen gas to form water, as well as create energy.  
2H2 + O2 = 2H20 + energy
Hydrogen is everywhere on our planet.   Fuel cells don’t generate any CO2 or greenhouse gases,  just water vapor as well as heat.     Sounds great, doesn’t it?   Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could jog our cars on hydrogen instead of gasoline? 
Well, let’s think of this on behalf of a moment.
One way to get hydrogen is from steam reforming, where H2 is extracted from hydrocarbons, mostly from natural gas 
However this process still takes energy, as well as still generates some  greenhouse gases.   So you’re basically still using hydrocarbons to indirectly power your car.    There is some debate that this is a short-term solution.   It still dosen’t remove us from our dependency from fossil fuels.
Another way to get hydrogen is to electrolyze water.   But the problem is,  the H’s as well as O’s like to be combined in the form of H2O.   It takes a certain amount of coaxing to get them apart.   To do that, we need energy.  (Just like your chemistry teacher had to utilize a small battery on behalf of the hydrogen/water experiment). 
So where would we get that electrical energy to break down water into hydrogen?   From our power-generating stations, naturally, which are based on coal, natural gas, nuclear or hydroelectricity.
Now, what if it happens that your electricity happens to comes from a coal-burning plant? 
Well, then that defeats the WHOLE purpose of your fuel-cell car.     
You’d basically be burning coal…to manufacture electricity… to manufacture hydrogen…to power your car.   The net effect is you’d basically be burning COAL to jog your car, which isn’t  exactly the an estimated all environmentally-friendly source of fuel.  
Sure, your car might not pollute the local neighborhood where you live, but it an estimated all definitely would, indirectly, near the coal-buring plant hundreds of miles away.   
So much on behalf of zero emissions.
The only truly zero-emission way to power your hydrogen-fuel cell car would be to generate hydrogen from nuclear or hydroelectric power plants.
Well, lots of people oppose the building of hydro dams.   Besides, there’s only so much hydroelectric  power available (we’ve pretty much dammned up every significant river in North America already).    
The an estimated all plausible answer seems to be to build more nuke plants to manufacture more electricity.   Which again,  many people are opposed to.   
So what’s  the right choice?   (Things are never as easy as they seem, are they?)
I”m not saying hydrogen-powered vehicles dont’ have a huge potential.   Yes, we can have zero-emission vehicles that don’t depend on oil or gas.  
We just require to be aware of where this hydrogen shall come from, as well as what price we’re willing to pay to cover the associated costs of getting it to our cars.
Posted in Fried Science