Rufus Plough: it's better and the price depends. the carbon emission is lesser using natural gas. hydrogen fuel cells is not good as oil or bio-diesel in running cars.
Ronald Moehr: There are also the poor people who can't afford a Hybrid and wouldn't want an 8 year old one due to the fact the batteries would be out of warranty. They could never afford the money to replace the batteries.
Willis Liburd: because hydrogen is too difficult
Damion Oleksa: What kind of people?I'm interested in trying to change anything that is damaging the planet in anyway, or is non-sustainable, therefore leaving huge headaches for future generations.I feel that the best way forward, in this particular area, is bioenergy obtained from waste products, if it can be made to be economically possible.Of all the categories, I probably fall into the tree-hugger category. lol:)...Show more
Asa Soho: Rich people .
Maria Devenney: Autistic freaks.
Keven Drumgole: w! ell, so far only scientists are interested in this topic.general people will decide or show an interest when:1. they will get the alternative at a good price2. the alternative will be easily available3. the alternative will not cause any harm to environment...Show more
Marcelina Schossow: As previous posters have stated..... the cost is prohibitive. Natural gas (in spite of what a previous poster stated) is plentiful in this country and is readily available. Natural gas refueling stations are relatively easy to install, as the pipeline infrastructure in already in place. Obviously, Natural Gas is a cleaner alternative to regular gasoline..... and especially cleaner when compared to gasoline with ethanol in it!
Ronald Moehr: These days it is fashionable for oil junkies to tell us that all fuels except oil and nukes are pie in the sky. They dismiss dozens of proven energy resources, usually without ever bothering to look into them. Only gasoline. Only nukes.But! a hundred years ago, when cars started making the scene, peop! le thought the idea of cars replacing buggies was kind of nutty. The infrastructure would be too hard to build, where would the money come from...Is the failure of the technically illiterate and marginally anti-environmental right wing to be willing to face change as laughableas the people that pointed and carped about 'them new fangled contraptions'?Your thoughts......Show more
Anibal Scheid: algae is one of the many potential sources of fuel (biodiesel), research are on their way but I don't think we can use it soon. but you are right, it is possible.
Lourie Mcroberts: I just don't like fossil fuels for a thousand and one reasons. Filthyunreliableunstable pricesfinite recourcewarssuper rich oil and coal mongersThe list goes on and on. And asside from that carbon and pollution issue, fossil fuel just isn't going to work for us (civilization) too much longer, it can't. What do we have, 150 years? 200, 300? It's not long.The sooner we get off of them, the be! tter it will be. I want to show that it can be done, not only without sacrifice, but while actually improving your quality of life.So I'm concerned about the future. It could be pretty nice, or it could be an aweful hell hole....Show more
Stevie Goldey: A plant near San Antonio Texas is already years into the bio-diesel concept and has developed the fuel. The cost is greater than getting diesel from fossil crude.America will never be a "environmentally friendly" country. Our way of life depends on having it all, all the time and we don't care who has to pay for it. We are the richest in some things but the poorest in environmental issues.But I'm glad to see perhaps a new generation of Americans will STOP, LOOK and LISTEN to the horrible things to come unless we do become earth friendly in our behavior.Good luck....Show more
Jonathon Labonne: Neither, it is just one more option.For a reason AGAINST Hydrogen, look up the "hindenburg disaster". This was a hydrog! en filled dirigible.The main problem is transport and storage, with ANY! easily ignited and/or explosive fuel....Show more
Lonnie Jehle: People like me who care about our world and whats good for it.
Boyce Gilhooly: biodiesel as an alternative fuel source?
Donella Vasta: Look at the statistics of how many car crashs happen daily. Hydrogen, being the most reactive element known to man, will kill us before we make a major impact on global warming. If two cars crash, the blast from the fuel cell will be devastating. Also its VERY expensive.
Particia Thorton: We bought our natural gas powered vehicles simply to save money. It was the icing on the cake to find out it was cleaner burning and domestically produced, but I have to admit it was really mostly monetary. At the time (late 2007), gasoline was just going up and up, so my husband started looking for alternatives and came across nat. gas cars. They were cheap to buy, cheap to fill up, and we got a nice tax credit for each one we bought, which made them almost free. It ha! s bugged us that it's so difficult to get our friends and neighbors to switch, even though most of them really have no excuse. I'm thinking it will take nothing less than a government mandate (or gasoline going to $5 per gallon!) to make people switch, which is really sad. That's my 2 cents on the subject....Show more
Sook Hershkowitz: well, so far only scientists are interested in this topic.
Giovanna Sherlin: hydrogen fuel cell cars ARE being seriously considered. in fact honda is about to put a hydrogen fuel cell car on the road in a few areas. in fact all the major automakers are developing hydrogen fuel cell cars for future production. the problem is that there in NO infrastructure to support refueling a hydrogen fuel cell car at the moment. natural gas is currently available, the cost of building the infrastructure is modest, and converting an internal combustion engine is fairly easy, and reasonably priced. the other advantage of cng is that it buys time ! to build the infrastructure for other alternative fuels including hydro! gen....Show more
Pattie Vold: The kind of people that could seriously consider buying a roller skate of a tiny car fore 200,000 bucks
Gwenda Micheals: It is too expensive. There is no distribution system that can handle fueling these cars. It would cost billions to build one but gas companies wont build it because there are no cars to use it and they lose billions. Car companies wont build cars if there is nowhere to fuel them because they would lose billions.
Katheryn Skrobacki: Another kind of person interested in alternative fuels will be those who do not want billions of dollars going to buy something which will be burned up in the air. The leap frog cost of oil will only get more and more expensive. The USA will be owned by the oil producing countries unless we can sell them more arms and airplanes to make up the imbalance.
Lynn Hollars: Dear Noah,*****For an automobile, the problem is the fuel tank.To get any range, the tank is so big and ! heavy thatfor us common folk that gasoline is more practical.Also, where do you get the hydrogen? Usuallyfrom petroleum. If you can find another source thatis cheaper and simpler, then maybe it will go. To get hydrogen from water, you have to put muchmore energy in than you get out. So you need a source of energy that is very, very cheap.*****An electric car with common batteries seemsto work well but range is very limited (fifty miles).Then you must plug it in for a while. If you drivetwenty miles to work it will work for you. The oil companies seem to have us "by the short hairs"!...Show more
Dawn Saha: oracle-sorry, that's party line. There are hundreds of towns on the French coast that get their power from tidal energy. Iceland runs on geothermal. There was a technology developed by TRW in the 70's called ocean thermal conversion... proved to work, patent bought, project shelved. No, there ARE proven answers. But there are people in whose interest it is to ! block the progress.
Fred Caminita: TWO WORDS. CARPOOL LANE. Inc! entives like that will kick it off. But I believe Americans will come to a new "money sensibility" after this crazy economic nightmare of the past few years (caused by many years of ridiculous overspending). A car that uses fuel at 40 cents a 'gallon' is going to make a LOT of sense to a LOT of people. The limited range of straight-electrics will also appeal to parents of teenage kids....Show more
Wilmer Skidmore: You have had an odd education in the history of technology. People have been riding in mechanically-driven vehicles since the 1830's. Most were trains, but there were a few steam-powered road vehicles. Trains worked so much better than almost everything else that there wasn't any great need for motor vehicles. The skepticism was not due to technological questions, but economic ones: who needed a car when trains ran everywhere?The ocean-thermal scheme you mention had serious technological and environmental problems. Iceland runs on geothermal energy be! cause the place is volcanic: try that with, say, Florida. Someone has convinced you that there is a secret cabal that has suppressed those kewl comic book technologies you've been reading about on the Internet. But there isn't. Patents don't extend world-wide, and there's usually a way around them. Nobody suppresses technologies. That's right: nobody. Not anymore. If your favorite scheme isn't being used, go find out why. Usually you'll discover that it proved impractical, either economically or because it didn't work so well, or because it really didn't exist to begin with. ...Show more
Vince Delarge: It seems like hydrogen fuel cells were all the hype a few years ago, and now everyone wants to turn to natural gas. Why? Is natural gas that much better or cheaper?
Ervin Laeger: Neither hydrogen nor natural gas is a viable option.Hydrogen has major problems. Fuel cells require platinum right now, so they're incredibly expensive. Honda is leasing their ! fuel cell car for $600/month, and that's just a lease! Then there's th! e fact that there's no fueling infrastructure, which will cost billions to build. And the fact that you've got to get hydrogen from somewhere, and currently 96% comes from fossil fuels. More reasons at the link below.http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/hydrogen-carsNatural gas has many of the same problems. In fact, nearly half of our hydrogen comes from natural gas. At least there is some infrastructure - most homes have natural gas lines, but you would need to buy or lease the equipment to fuel up your car with it. Honda also sells a natural gas Civic, and it costs like $70/month to lease the fueling equipment. And there aren't natural gas stations all over the place, so you can basically only fuel up at home.There's also the problem that the US doesn't have all that much natural gas. It's not a renewable resource, and we get much of our natural gas from abroad.Electric cars are the best solution, which is why virtually every major automaker is developing plug-in hyb! rids, fully electric cars, or both. The infrastructure is easy - you can install a power outlet virtually anywhere. They're so efficient that they create lower emissions than gas cars even when most of the power comes from coal. The technology is advancing rapidly. That's the future of our transportation....Show more
Delmy Varano: i drive a LSV-low speed vehicle. AKA NEV-neighborhood electric vehicle.fully street legal. licensed and insured. limited to 25 MPH on streets posted for 35 MPH or lower.just over 8000 miles in 28.5 months.WAY, WAY, WAY cheaper than gasoline car to run, insure, and purchase. my daily commute. grocery trips, etc.all it takes is a paradigm shift: "I do not need a highway capable vehicle for short trips"...Show more
Gaynell Pizzaro: This is the kind of question that is easy to respond to as it can't have a "best answer" based upon substance. It is more like a poll or simply brainstorming for ideas. But before I put the question to a ! vote I would like to give a nod to some answers: Some are more motivat! ed by social concerns than love for vehicles as perhaps expressed by "Don't Panic" and "tinahdez." Others like "Sunny Girl" and "$Anna$" seem to feel that a love for the planet fits well with such vehicles. A few felt private economic worries were the primary concern. At least one seemed somewhat uninformed with the assumption that Alternative fuel vehicles must be small, expensive or electric. But this can be contrasted with the actual experience of "MrWizard."Thanks all for taking the time to respond....Show more
Monroe Rainey: yes
Kris Bozelle: intelligent pple who have moved passed the denial phase of global warming
Ramona Pago: Hydrogen is not a viable energy source and it's an inefficient means of storing energy. You need to either produce it with electrolysis or 'reform' it from natural gas as Dana states. In either case you lose a lot of the potential energy and with natural gas you actually cause more harmful emissions than compressed natural! gas would release (overall). Then you'd need to build a network of stations to refuel your car or restrict yourself to a small radius around your home refueling station. There are a few good things about the Honda FCX and similar vehicles but many more negatives. The main problem with hydrogen fuel cells is that they require exotic materials that are very expensive and the cells need to be replaced regularly. So, you have no infrastructure, a fuel that is not cost effective to make, that is highly combustible and must be kept in a pressurized tank, and fuel cells that are prohibitively expensive and wear out quickly. That's too many negatives for hydrogen to overcome so it's a good thing we have so many good alternatives. Ethanol from switchgrass or algae, compressed natural gas, and electric cars are all much more promising than hydrogen fuel cells. We do have enormous reserves of natural gas and increasing prices have led to discoveries of even more reserves, not less bu! t using compressed natural gas in cars would only be good as a temporar! y replacement for gasoline until we have enough electric cars and the infrastructure to charge them....Show more
Avis Brantner: I didn't know that, but I'll write that on my hand so I won't forget.Alternative power sources and fuels are being researched continually. The problem is, they all have more problems than petroleum and nuclear. Lots of problems.But lots of folks are working on the problems, and if they are solvable, we will move to the next more efficient fuels.It is just that people are being realistic, and after 40 years of, for example, fusion research and nada coming out of it and no great breakthrough on the horizon, people are not expecting anything to come out of it in their lifetimes....Show more
Hyman Coren: Agree. That's always how it is until people can do a parideim shift. Sometimes people just can't see the forrest from the trees. Back several years ago, a new company Texas Instruments introduced a new LED watch at a world watch show. ! The Swiss laughed at it -- not beloieving the world would ever want any time piece other than a wind up. The rest is history.....
Kate Baune: Maybe. It could be done. Some experiments have already shown it is possible. If it can be economically done on a large scale I think it would be a really good idea.
Dick Ovdenk: Rich people
Horace Escue: You got that right. I have two cars that run on natural gas (methane), and people just don't believe it even though they see me driving around in them. I don't know why people are so hung up over a fuel. Or change. They come up with every possible excuse why they can't buy a car like mine, and they don't know how stupid they sound. One wonders how we ever got to the moon...guess the mentality has changed over the years...
