The short of it
Elizabeth Kolbert, in a few elegant words, gets down to crux of the world's car consumption problems, and makes a strong point for why alternative fuel technologies will ultimately fail to save us:
Designing the car of the future is such a daunting challenge because it’s bigger even than cars. [...] It’s true that hydrogen cars, which the Bush Administration and the Big Three claim to be working on, don’t need gasoline...but they do need hydrogen, which has to be produced using energy from somewhere. If that energy comes from, say, burning coal, [...] then the puzzle hasn’t been solved; it’s just been rearranged. The same catch applies to plug-in cars and cars that run on ethanol. (Ethanol made from corn takes almost as much energy to produce as it yields.) If someone, somewhere, comes up with a source of power that is safe, inexpensive, and for all intents and purposes inexhaustible, then we, the Chinese, the Indians, and everyone else on the planet can keep on truckin’. Barring that, the car of the future may turn out to be no car at all.
Comments
Way to state the obvious. Is there a reason that production of hydrogen using geothermal energy doesn't get more press? I don't get why we can't just drill a nearly infinite number of deep holes into the hot crust and run off that.
Obvious, yes, but a point that I think a lot of people simply miss.
This project in Alaska sounds like your idea. I'd like to see more geothermal projects, and on paper a geothermal and hydrogen generation system would be pretty cool.
Hydrogen is far from perfect, but it's a lot better than what we're doing now. Given some more research and even a fraction of the money that's been thrown at developing oil-based fuels, it could become a serious contender.
Although I do wonder why the need for the hydrogen middleman, and all of its resultant infrastructure, that needs to be introduced when we have an electric grid capable of supporting plug-in vehicles right now.
Of course, as you know, I'd just like to see less reliance on the automobile in general, but I think we've been down that road before.
You probably don't want to know that I just bought a new car. :) I certainly would have liked to purchase a fully electric or hydrogen powered car, but alas, it's a standard gasoline guzzler. I didn't really consider a hybrid because the current ones just suck imo. I wish I could afford something from Tesla motors, but not quite there yet. I also am more and more convinced that I would like to live in a city and do a lot more walking (as I've had chances to experience this in the past couple years) but am not quite ready to make the leap in rental prices that would require. It's all economics that keeps an average consumer like me - who probably even has an above average knowledge of environmental issues, and even an above average salary - from living that way.