[ausev] "Why a hydrogen economy doesn't make sense"

[Gil Dawson]

At 12:00 P -0600 12/13/06, Erik Bigelow wrote:
>What Hydrogen is lacking is a reason for being used
>at all.

Perhaps, after most of the oil is gone, it might prove viable for 
long-distance trucking.  And trains.

--Gil

P.S.  And ships and airplanes.

I guess ships can go back to sails.

Has anyone thought how airplanes might fly without petroleum?

Paul MacReady's Aerovironment built a solar-powered airplane that 
flew above 80,000 feet continuously for nearly a month.  They're now 
packaging it for the military and claiming 65,000 feet altitude, 1000 
pound payload and 6KW excess power.  In his prototype he chose to use 
a closed water/hydrogen/fuel cell cycle to fly at night because 
batteries weighed too much.  His polymer hydrogen storage tank 
weighed less than a pound.  They don't say how the military version 
is powered, but its flight duration is only a week, so it might not 
be solar.

Gliders might work, if we can figure a way to detect updrafts from 
afar.  They are quite efficient, but their performance is sporadic, 
depending upon the skill of the pilot to locate rising air.  They 
don't work very well at night.

--Gil