Re: "Let the [Dodge] Spirit move you" --- again

[Matt Haas <mhaas@xxxxxxx>]

<snip>
> there's just one hitch: no infrastructure to obtain and distribute
> hydrogen to these fuel-cell cars.  [you can't just use the national
> natural-gas pipelines for two reasons - 1, h2 is much tinier than ch4
> and can whizz through cracks natural gas doesn't even see, and 2, a
> phenomenon called hydrogen embrittlement, which affects steel exposed
> to h2]  this sounds like another excellent way for gm to shelve the
> pesky question of changing the way they do things for another long
> stretch of time.  notice he didn't say 'introduce a fuel cell car to
> compete with the likes of toyota'...
>
> i predict they'll develop fuel cell tech, then shelve it, just like
> they developed and shelved hybrid tech and electric tech before that.
> remember the ev1, anybody?
<snip>

GM is not developing the fuel cell technology by themselves. There is 
another company (the name of which escapes me) that they are working with 
along with I think Ford and/or Chrysler and an Asian auto maker or two that 
didn't want to be named. If you could engineer a process where Hydrogen 
could be split off from other compounds (such as water) quickly enough to 
provide enough energy to be meaningful, it would eliminate the entire 
infrastructure problem. This is something that's actively being worked on. 
Scientists are really trying to understand exactly how photosynthesis works 
(plants have been splitting water molecules for millions of years) and they 
have already come up with synthetic molecules that can split Hydrogen of 
off  Hydrogen Peroxide (this is still not a high volume process but it is 
progress).

Matt

mhaas@xxxxxxx
Cincinnati, OH
http://www.mattsoldcars.com
1967 Rambler American wagon
1968 Rambler American sedan
===============================================================
According to a February survey of Internet holdouts released by
UCLA's Center for Communication Policy, people cite
not having a computer as the No. 1 reason they won't go online.