# GW Bush's latest scam - polluting hydrogen cars? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 13, 2003, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996 "2003-05-13T17:32:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/61 "2003-05-15T01:27:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > Electric power in the US is made primarily from coal, hydro, and nuclear power. Basically correct, except that you left out a growing component: natural gas. (I can’t find the numbers right now of how large it is, but I think it is fairly substantial.) Oil **used to be** a bigger component of the mix but has shrunk to just a few percent of electricity generation. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by j.c._ > Scylla - your’s is a generous view. My take was that the Bush camp figured, correctly as far as I can tell after hearing comments from my greenie friends and RTfirefly, that most greenies would be too ill-informed to understand much more than “magic fairy hydrogen fuel cell cars” and White House energy policies would by BAU. Well, I don’t know about your “greenie friends” but from the looks of things, I don’t think Bush has fooled **RTFirefly** or most environmentalists. However, I think his point was to fool the people in the middle…i.e., the average American who cares about the environment but don’t really make it a high priority to keep up on the details. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/62 "2003-05-15T01:36:18Z")
Here are the actual numbers for fuel used in electricity generation: Coal 52% Nuclear 20% Natural gas 16% Hydroelectric 8% Oil 3% Renewables 2% [Back in 1973, the corresponding numbers were nuclear 5% and oil 17%. Not sure about the rest…I think the viewgraph in the talk I got this from went by too fast.] ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/63 "2003-05-15T01:58:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spoke- \* > Hijack for some questions: > > Is water vapor a greenhouse gas? > > What will be the cumulative effect if all US cars were spouting water vapor? I know it sounds good, but are there any unintended consequences we need to consider? Others have answered this, but just to add another way to look at it: In order for something to be a “greenhouse gas” that will actually change the current heat balance in the atmosphere if we emit more of it, it actually both has to be a greenhouse gas and we have to be able to emit enough of it compared to the equilibration time that we significantly raise the level in the atmosphere. For CO2 (and methane and some others), we are doing that; but, for water, our emissions are simply too small compared to other sources and the equilibration time is too fast for us to significantly alter the balance in the atmosphere as far as I know. On other topics, what I find perhaps more deceitful than Bush’s claims about what his hydrogen plan will do is the fact that not all of that $1.2 billion is new money (I think like $700 million was)…And spread over several years, it is a drop in the bucket. It doesn’t even nearly compete with subsidies for fossil fuels. This is no substitute for a real energy policy, as even **Scylla** admits. It is also interesting to note that he talked about this in his State of the Union perhaps almost as long (or at least on the same order) as he talked about a tax cut plan that would cost something like 300 times that amount (using the number I think was being quoted at the time…it has subsequently gone higher). This makes me think that it really was about providing political cover more than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/64 "2003-05-15T02:18:09Z")
Man, I love how ‘Greenies’ used to go around touting the wonders of hydrogen fuel cells, and the hydrogen economy was the panacea of the green movement. Then Bush announces it, and suddenly it’s a harebrained scheme that doesn’t help at all. Wow. Let me ask you naysayers this: If hydrogen isn’t the way to go, then what IS? How do you propose to power all the vehicles in North America without depending on oil? I’d like a real anwer, please, and not just some handwaving about wind and solar. Let’s see some numbers. And conservation isn’t the answer either. Sure, it can help. Maybe help a lot. But you’re never going to cut our energy consumption by even 50%. And if you could, all that would do is delay the inevitable for a few more years or decades. So what’s the answer? I see no one responded to my major point, which is that a hydrogen infrastructure is much less _brittle_ than the oil-based consumption infrastructure. Wouldn’t it be nice to get energy for cars the way we currently get power for electricity? Think about it - we’re free to build coal, oil, natural gas, hydro, solar, wind, or nuclear power plants to feed the power into the grid. Once it’s in the grid, the source no longer matters - it’s all the same. This gives us great flexibility - if the air quality starts to degrade, you can power down some coal plants and replace the power with nuclear or natural gas. You can make small turbines for special uses, small communities, factories, whatever. You can feed solar power into the grid, and supplement it with smaller natural gas plants for peak demand. In short, you have _options_. Fuel cell vehicles are also more efficient, because being electrically powered you don’t have to idle them at stoplights, and you can use regenerative braking. That’s what hybrids do, and that’s why the new hybrid Ford Escape, which has identical power and torque as the non-hybrid version, gets 45 mpg on the highway and 41mpg in the city (compared to something like 17/24 for the conventional vehicle). Fuel cell vehicles also become excellent generators of electricity for off-site power needs. A contractor can drive to a construction site in his fuel-cell vehicle, and plug his tools into it and use it as a generator all day long. But the important thing is to disconnect the consumption infrastructure from the generation infrastructure. Once we do that, the door will open for alternative energy sources - especially as the price of oil starts to climb when production peaks. Once oil prices triple, we’re going to be really happy that we have the ability to produce hydrogen with nuclear, wind, natural gas, coal, or solar power and run our economy on it. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/65 "2003-05-15T02:29:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jshore \* > \*\*It is also interesting to note that he talked about this in his State of the Union perhaps almost as long (or at least on the same order) as he talked about a tax cut plan that would cost something like 300 times that amount (using the number I think was being quoted at the time…it has subsequently gone higher). This makes me think that it really was about providing political cover more than anything else. \*\* I actually agree that Bush’s proposal on the hydrogen fuel cell was to provide political cover. Two quibbles, though. First, a tax cut doesn’t _cost_ money, it _saves_ money. Unless one takes the view that all money belongs to the government, except for the portion they generously allow us to keep. Also, although Bush gave equivalent attention to the fuel cell as to the much larger tax cut _in the SOTU_, he has made up for that in subsequent speeches, where the tax cut has received prominent focus. Anyhow, I do agree with your basic point, **jshore**. This proposal may well be a good idea, but its function in the SOTU speech was politics – a way for Bush to look like an environmentalist. ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/66 "2003-05-15T03:00:29Z")
I dunno. I’m really curious about the distribution issues which have been tangentially mentioned by my betters: > [@](#): > > _From December_: > > - Even if the initial source of the energy were coal and oil, the air and water would become much cleaner, because the coal and oil could be burned and converted into hydrogen power at a few, remote, large-scale locations… > [@](#): > > _from Sam Stone_: > Water can be pumped in from Lake Meade, fed into the reactors, and the hydrogen coming out can be shipped by pipeline throughout North America. So, how exactly do we get this highly flamable gas from these remote locations into the heart of our cities? I’m guessing that a pipeline would be pretty stupid, given that 2 gram of helium takes up about 23 liters of volume- you’d have to pressurise the hell out of it at the source, to get any sort of serious mass transfer, and your back-pressure just adds up with every foot of pipe. Also, wouldn’t miles of pipes carrying pressurized helium be a tad…uh, _vulnerable_? So I’m guessing that our only other option would be trucks carrying highly compressed He. **LOTS** and **LOTS** of trucks. Like the one that jackknifed in the new underground tunnel here this morning. Granted, we have gasoline trucks cruising through our cities now, and LNG tankers at our ports, but I have yet to see the “distribution infrastructure” satisfactorily defined. And finally, **DrDeth** …what the hell is “TAANSTAAFL”? ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/67 "2003-05-15T03:18:11Z")
**Sam** : Just to clarify my position on this, I agree with you that a hydrogen economy does have many attractive features that you have nicely outlined. So, I am not one of those who thinks this is a stupid idea of Bush’s. My point is just that it is very small scale and that it does not an energy plan make. And, while it is good to come up with some win-win ideas that everyone likes, occasionally you have to make some decisions that take on some special interests who you might normally ally yourself with. (To be fair, I will also note that the Democrats also won’t make some really tough decisions here … I.e., I’d like to see a Democrat suggest that gasoline prices ought to be gradually taxed significantly higher over time, along with some rebate of other taxes that fall largely on poor and lower middle income so that it isn’t regressive.) ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/68 "2003-05-15T03:48:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bizzwire \* > \*\*what the hell is “TAANSTAAFL”? \*\* There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. This was popularized and/or invented by science fiction writer Robert Heinlein. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/69 "2003-05-15T12:43:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MLS \* > \*\*Actually, the burning gas from the Hindenburgh did go straight up and would not have caused much damage. \*\* Just to add something remembered from a long-ago episode of NOVA, the people who suffered burns in the Hindenburgh disaster were burned by the diesel fuel from the ship’s engines, and not by the hydrogen. Diesel fuel vapors, like those of gasoline, are heavy, sink to the ground, and burn fleeing passengers when the vapor ignites. Hydrogen, being very light, rises so quickly that it’s very difficult for a person to be burned by it. In that same episode of NOVA, I recall seeing two tanks of fuel, one filled with gasoline, the other filled with an equivalent amount of hydrogen (i.e., same potential energy). Each was placed near an open flame, and was then punctured by a rifle shot. The gasoline tank produced quite a torch, though it never exploded, IIRC, whereas the hydrogen tank never even produced a flame; the hydrogen jetted out, and up, so quickly, it never even ignited. ---
**Author:** ![OliverH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/278dde/32.png) [@OliverH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverH)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/70 "2003-05-15T14:00:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by manhattan \* > \*\*Uh. You’re aware, aren’t you, that substantially all the methanol made in the world today is made from plants which “fermented” millions of years ago, yes? Specifically, from methane captured from gas wells, not landfills or agriwaste or anything like that. Fossil fuels. > > \*\* That is the _current_ state of affairs, because it is cheap and easy. Neither has it always been that way, nor does it have to be that way in the future. Quite the contrary, plenty of research is going on on more efficient ways to produce methanol from waste and biomass. One reason why we have very little methanol from fermentation is, quite obviously, that we have deliberately avoiding producing more of it. A distillery gets much more for their 12y whisky than for denatured foreshot sold as methanol. As such, they strive to keep the methanol fraction as small as possible. Making methanol from plants would not the least make for a use for the agricultural overproduction that currently is bought by governments just to keep farmers from going bankrupt. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/71 "2003-05-15T16:23:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > [Re: [this](http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/164.pdf) pdf] > Instead of me going through this 89 monstrosity right now, maybe you could tell me if my earlier objection holds water. That is, that apples to apples are not being measured. > > Part of hybrid technology aside from smaller, cleaner, more efficient engines are thigns like super low drag coefficients, regenerative braking, low power/weight ratio, conservative gearing and such which could also be applied to fuel cell vehicles. > > In other words, if we take two big ugly '79 Chevy 1 ton pickups, and I set mine up with a fuel cell system, and you set yours up with a hybrid system so that they have equivalent horsepower and capabilities, isn’t the fuel cell truck significantly more efficient? Actually the opposite (at least according to the linked report). To begin, from intro to the report: > [@](#): > > 1. The 15 vehicles considered in the study include conventional and hybrid electric vehicles with both spark-ignition and compression-ignition engines, as well as hybridized and non-hybridized fuel cell vehicles with and without onboard fuel processors. All 15 vehicles were configured to meet the same performance requirements. So both hybrid and FCV are compared with the same performance requirements: apples to apples. The baseline vehicle for the study was, coincidentally, a full-sized pickup truck. Realistically, for other applications, the comparisons among vehicle configurations will change a little bit, but I expect that the overall conclusions would remain nearly the same. Also, a “high-efficiency” vehicle package might include things like low drag, low rolling resistance tires, and so forth (the examples you give), but that’s not part of the _hybrid_ package. Hybrids make their efficiency gains through more optimized power management; the additional things are extra. For this study, the report says: > [@](#): > > The baseline vehicle design parameters used in the study — such as mass and aerodynamic and rolling resistance coefficients — were based on a GM full-size pickup truck. The mass was adjusted for each vehicle’s propulsion system independently; all other vehicle-level parameters were used consistently in all simulation models. I take that to mean that the comparison is literally just swapping drivetrains in and out of the vehicle, so none of these other efficiency improvements apply. It’s not clear to me if regenerative braking is included (seems like it ought to be, being essentially free). Note, too, from the first quote, that both hybridized and non-hybridized FCV were included in the study. The numbers I quoted in my previous post compared a hybrid fuel cell vehicle to a hybrid diesel vehicle; in other words, the FCV got the benefit of _both_ the fuel cell efficiency _and_ the hybrid drivetrain efficiency. If you compare a hybrid diesel drivetrain to a non-hybrid FCV (your original question), the hybrid comes out on top: 4650 BTU/mile for the HEV, 4830-5190 BTU/mile for the FCV. BTW, [this pdf file](http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/163.pdf) is the executive summary of the same report; if you want to dig deeper, you might wish to peruse that instead of the full report, as it’s easier to dig details out. Caveat: I should have mentioned before that I do R&D work on hybrid vehicles, so I’ve obviously got a personal bias. I’m not really that familiar with the methodology in this report, though, other than in a general way. My personal belief is that the report under-estimates the efficiency gains from hybridization (incidentally, hybridization increases efficiency of conventional vehicles _more_ than it increases the efficiency of FCV, because there’s more room for implrovement in the tank-to-wheel efficiency in the conventional system), but again, I’m biased. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996/72 "2003-05-15T23:48:37Z")
**Scylla:** _The idea is that you can generate your power at huge superefficient plants that are as clean as possible._ **december** : \* The plants where the hydrogen is produced can have the utmost in environmental controls. […] These locations would have far better pollution control devices than each separate car does.\* My emphasis. Of course, this assumes that the government sees fit to **impose** stringent environmental controls, which the current Administration doesn’t; cf. its [relaxation](http://www.e2.org/ext/doc/UPI-BushRelatesNSR.htm) of rules requiring older coal-fired power plants to implement stricter pollution controls. In other words, Bush’s boost for fuel-cell cars **would** help the environment, **if** it were accompanied by the sort of anti-pollution measures that Bush apparently has no intention whatsoever of undertaking. :rolleyes: (Not to mention that we could significantly reduce oil dependency and pollution right away with existing technology, by requiring better fuel efficiency and lower emissions for **today** ’s cars and light trucks.) So no, the President is not lying when he says that hydrogen fuel-cell technology could make a big difference for our energy independence and our environment. He’s just omitting to mention that he doesn’t want to take any actions along those lines that are actually significant. I have to wonder, if even hard-core supporters like **december** recognize that Bush is no environmentalist, whom did he think he was going to fool? IMO the [Car Talk guys](http://cartalk.cars.com/Columns/Archive/2003/March/06.html) nailed this one: > [@](#): > > Tom: […] You probably know that we now import boatloads of foreign oil every day. And almost everybody agrees that this is not a good thing (except for the countries that sell us the oil). So what do you do about it? > > Ray: Well, you can try to find more oil here at home, by drilling in Alaska’s forests, for instance. Or you can force people to use less oil. The president knows that both of these options are pretty unpopular. So he’s doing what any good politician would do: He’s changing the subject. > > Tom: Here’s another reason why he might want to distract us from thoughts of fuel economy and foreign oil. With no pressure on American car companies to increase gas mileage, the Japanese have taken a significant lead in the most important new propulsion technology in decades: hybrid engines. Hybrid engines use battery power some of the time and gasoline power at other times, and they never have to be plugged in. They’re a great way to increase mileage without sacrificing power or convenience. And you’re going to see Americans adopting them in big numbers over the next five to 10 years. > > Ray: Who makes the best-selling hybrid cars in America? Honda and Toyota. So, instead of urging America to make more fuel-efficient cars and cut down on foreign oil by raising the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, or urging U.S. manufacturers to catch up with the Japanese on hybrids – which would make a huge difference right away – the president’s talk about hydrogen cars is, essentially, the old “Hey, everybody, look over there!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gw-bushs-latest-scam-polluting-hydrogen-cars/174996.md?page=3)