Benefit of hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells compared to natural gas, batteries, and gasoline?

The benefit is profit for the automobile manufacturers. If public interests can be shifted to a new technology then there is a demand for new vehicles in excess of the normal turn over and growth production. This has been the driving force behind the growth of the automobile industry over the decades, essentially it’s an attempt to use the green movement as the next designed obsolescence which has been so profitable for the automobile industry over the years.

Electric vehicles are not desirable in this respect because of the cost of the batteries. At current prices, it could easily cost $14,000 for a suitable battery pack if range and performance comparable to current vehicles is desired, also any increase in battery demand will raise the costs proportionally as the world supply of lithium is limited and centered in certain South American countries that may become geopolitically unfavorable to us.

Natural gas is also not a viable option for increasing profits as the modifications required for a gasoline engine to operate on natural gasoline are minimal so there would not be as much of a demand for new vehicles. Also any increase in natural gas demand will raise the price quite steeply until it becomes profitable to bring stranded gas to market. Such gas is currently flared at the well site since it’s not economical to put in a second set of pipelines, compression, pumping and liquefaction stations just to bring the gas to market. Essentially, any attempt to promote compressed natural gas vehicles on a mass production basis would fall flat on it’s face because the argument of lower energy costs would disappear until the extra infrastructure was built. Also, current proposals to bring natural gas reserves to market is by portable gasifiers and Fischer Tropsch reactors to convert the natural gas into diesel and heavy waxes which could then be sent to market blended in with the crude oil that they already have an infrastructure to transport. This also means that the natural gas would actually be diesel or gasoline by the time it has been brought to the vehicle.

Continued production of gasoline automobiles doesn’t seem to offer the automobile manufacturers any additional marketing brand opportunities (the last two such opportunities was the Hybrid and FlexFuel brands) so there’s no current way to increase market demand. As synthetic gasoline from bio-mass or even directly from CO2 and H2O becomes available, the use of gasoline vehicles will actually reduce the amount of carbon in our atmosphere but this does not present a marketing opportunity for automobile manufacturers.

This is also why there’s so much opposition to PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) which essentially are standardized inexpensive car like vehicles that require guideways that would be less expensive than standard roads due to the small size and low weight and would be driven and co-ordinated by computers such that there’s no need to park as the vehicle would just proceed to transport somebody else. The PRT concept would only create the initial demand for vehicles as there’s no design obsolescence, fashion or brand marketing involved, the market would be limited to maintenance and growth proportional to the population. PRT systems would also divert funds from freeway expansion projects as there would be no need to expand them when more inexpensive PRT rails can be put into place for far less. The PRT concept is for the guideways to cost about as much as a footpath or roller coaster line rather then the $137 million per mile of the recent Katy Freeway expansion or the $43 million per mile of the Houston LRT redline, The cost per mile for PRT is $1 to $15 million per mile.

Solutions that make sense get ignored, solutions that involve increased irrational buying and hence provides growth in terms of profit, they get marketed like crazy, that’s why they’re pushing hydrogen.

2 Responses

Nata T says:

June 28, 2010 at 1:16 pm

the cost versus benefit ratio is infinite. ie cost = X benefit = 0, by definition if Y =X / 0 is X is a positive real number, then Y = infinity

Are you serious or a spammer?
John W says:

June 28, 2010 at 1:19 pm

The benefit is profit for the automobile manufacturers. If public interests can be shifted to a new technology then there is a demand for new vehicles in excess of the normal turn over and growth production. This has been the driving force behind the growth of the automobile industry over the decades, essentially it’s an attempt to use the green movement as the next designed obsolescence which has been so profitable for the automobile industry over the years.

Electric vehicles are not desirable in this respect because of the cost of the batteries. At current prices, it could easily cost $14,000 for a suitable battery pack if range and performance comparable to current vehicles is desired, also any increase in battery demand will raise the costs proportionally as the world supply of lithium is limited and centered in certain South American countries that may become geopolitically unfavorable to us.

Natural gas is also not a viable option for increasing profits as the modifications required for a gasoline engine to operate on natural gasoline are minimal so there would not be as much of a demand for new vehicles. Also any increase in natural gas demand will raise the price quite steeply until it becomes profitable to bring stranded gas to market. Such gas is currently flared at the well site since it’s not economical to put in a second set of pipelines, compression, pumping and liquefaction stations just to bring the gas to market. Essentially, any attempt to promote compressed natural gas vehicles on a mass production basis would fall flat on it’s face because the argument of lower energy costs would disappear until the extra infrastructure was built. Also, current proposals to bring natural gas reserves to market is by portable gasifiers and Fischer Tropsch reactors to convert the natural gas into diesel and heavy waxes which could then be sent to market blended in with the crude oil that they already have an infrastructure to transport. This also means that the natural gas would actually be diesel or gasoline by the time it has been brought to the vehicle.

Continued production of gasoline automobiles doesn’t seem to offer the automobile manufacturers any additional marketing brand opportunities (the last two such opportunities was the Hybrid and FlexFuel brands) so there’s no current way to increase market demand. As synthetic gasoline from bio-mass or even directly from CO2 and H2O becomes available, the use of gasoline vehicles will actually reduce the amount of carbon in our atmosphere but this does not present a marketing opportunity for automobile manufacturers.

This is also why there’s so much opposition to PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) which essentially are standardized inexpensive car like vehicles that require guideways that would be less expensive than standard roads due to the small size and low weight and would be driven and co-ordinated by computers such that there’s no need to park as the vehicle would just proceed to transport somebody else. The PRT concept would only create the initial demand for vehicles as there’s no design obsolescence, fashion or brand marketing involved, the market would be limited to maintenance and growth proportional to the population. PRT systems would also divert funds from freeway expansion projects as there would be no need to expand them when more inexpensive PRT rails can be put into place for far less. The PRT concept is for the guideways to cost about as much as a footpath or roller coaster line rather then the $137 million per mile of the recent Katy Freeway expansion or the $43 million per mile of the Houston LRT redline, The cost per mile for PRT is $1 to $15 million per mile.

Solutions that make sense get ignored, solutions that involve increased irrational buying and hence provides growth in terms of profit, they get marketed like crazy, that’s why they’re pushing hydrogen.

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Benefit of hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells compared to natural gas, batteries, and gasoline?

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