Based on the Morgan Aero-8 (which I quite like) comes this hydrogen powered emission-free sports job.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7265267.stm

Thing is, it's speed tops out around 100mph which is plenty for the road, but maybe a little tame for the track. Especially when you can probably pick up a Tesla Roadster for the same price.

But the estimated 250 mile range sounds pretty good.

Thing is, steam which is the product of Hydrogen power, as a tri-atom molecule also contributes to global warming (though perhaps not as much as CO2 - anyone have statistics?). The advantage is that it's not toxic unlike CO2. But it's kind of funny that the global warming preachers don't complain about Hydrogen power thinking that it doesn't contribute.

More unfortunate still is the fact that it seems that biofuels are actually worse in terms of global warming than normal petrol - recently, they also took into acount the process of producing fuel from the plants grown to make biofuels and it worked out that because that process also contributes, the end result is worse than just using petrol.

That said, thankfully, nuclear fushion power is coming along well, it seems - there was some article about good progress at MIT in that regard recently. They expect nuclear fushion power stations by 2035 or there about. That's perfectly clean and if cars were the main remaining things producing CO2 emissions, the environment would be perfectly capable of coping.

If you include the vast manufacturing emissions you'll probably find this car is no 'cleaner' than a conventional car. In 30 odd years the manufactuering process of hydrogen fuel cells will make them slightly cleaner over their whole life, but not that much in real terms.

But terms like "Zero Emission" are designed by marketting departments to fool idiots.

I concur that "Zero Emission" is of course just marketing babble. Face it, nothing comes for free.

But a different point: Did you notice where they out the hydrogen-tank? That's going to be a nice fire-ball when a Porsche Cayenne rear-ends it.

Vain

Isn't making hydrogen very dependent on using electricity?, therefore not that clean at all?

Yeah, those hydrogen batteries still need to get their power from somewhere.

But weren't they testing water-powered hydrogen engines a couple of years back? I'm sure I remember reading about them getting tested in London buses a while ago. Water goes in, steam comes out. THAT's proper emission-free.
I don't suppose anyone knows anything about them?

Quote from Dajmin :

Yeah, those hydrogen batteries still need to get their power from somewhere.

But weren't they testing water-powered hydrogen engines a couple of years back? I'm sure I remember reading about them getting tested in London buses a while ago. Water goes in, steam comes out. THAT's proper emission-free.
I don't suppose anyone knows anything about them?

I remember that aswell. It was beeing tested on these blue busses, saw it on Discovery chanel But that is at least like 5 years ago, maybe they actually has managed to make it now for everyday people?

Quote from axus :

That said, thankfully, nuclear fushion power is coming along well, it seems - there was some article about good progress at MIT in that regard recently. They expect nuclear fushion power stations by 2035 or there about. That's perfectly clean and if cars were the main remaining things producing CO2 emissions, the environment would be perfectly capable of coping.

Call me a n out of date cynic, but weren't they saying that they were close to this a few years ago?

Maybe just me that is retarded here, but wouldn`t that kind of beeing suicide to have nuclear powered cars? I mean, the terrorist using a nuclear-driven car would be like stabbing yourselfe lol...

Don`t want to think of what could happen in a chain crash... Oo

That's the common mistake - you can't split an atom just by causing an explosion. If it was that easy, more countries would have A-bomb tech

The biggest risk would be radiation from the cell itself. You'd need a LOT of lead to protect against it, and that would weigh the car down something crazy. And even if it was well-insulated, you'd still have trace amounts of radiation all around it. It'd never pass health and safety regulations.

Quote from Dajmin :

That's the common mistake - you can't split an atom just by causing an explosion. If it was that easy, more countries would have A-bomb tech

The biggest risk would be radiation from the cell itself. You'd need a LOT of lead to protect against it, and that would weigh the car down something crazy. And even if it was well-insulated, you'd still have trace amounts of radiation all around it. It'd never pass health and safety regulations.

Ahh I see, thanks for clearing that up. As you say, no chance, at least not with today`s technology that there will be normal road cars using nuclear power. Maybe in the future, but not for a while I belive.

Its nothing new

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

Quote from the_angry_angel :

Call me a n out of date cynic, but weren't they saying that they were close to this a few years ago?

Perhaps they were close to making use of the theory but not yet economically. Here's the article:

http://www.popularmechanics.co ... nce/research/4251982.html

Not nuclear powered cars, but nuclear power could be the energy source used to produce the energy source for cars, be it hydrogen, or a truly emmision free source like compressed air.

Also are there radioactive waste products from fusion? Is there a way to recycle more of the waste in fission reactors to reduce or eliminate the hazardous wasted?

Currently the cheapest way to get hydrogen is from petroleum, not exactly environmentally friendly.

The USA is using corn to produce alcohol, but it takes more energy from other sources to produce the alcohol than the energy contained in the alcohol. Sugar cane works much better, but the USA abandoned sugar can production years ago when it became cheaper to import, and there's limited areas in the USA where sugar cane was growable.

Regarding other forms of energy, such as solar to electric, how long is the time before the return on investment, energy wise, pays off (if ever), after taking into accout maintainance and distribution costs?

1. There are thoughts about using energy to make radioactive waste harmless, but likely fusion will come early enough to not make the thought worthwhile.
2. Every process causes dangerous emissions if you keep it up long enough, even when you just warm yourself by standing in the sun.
Fusion turns Lithium and Deuterium into Helium. We've got a lot of Lithium, Deuterium is a part water - also available plenty, and since Helium isn't very dangerous we can live with it for a while, until our voices turn funny.
The Lithium is turned into Tritium before the reaction, which is midly radioactive, but it only emits beta-rays, which is the not-very-hazardeous type, e.g. shielded perfectly well by 3mm of plywood.
We can propably live with fusion until 5000 a.d.

But ultimately, their is no circle of life and any process will change our enviroment if it's kept up long enough.

Vain