Hydrogen

shrinkwrap

Swapping cars loaded up with baggage and guitars??
I'm sure they could have swappable batteries if they put their mind to it - but the squabbles in case a manufacturer or country got a commercial advantage could take years to resolve.

Sporky

shrinkwrap said:

Swapping cars loaded up with baggage and guitars??

Probably not - that's pretty obvious, no?

I'd hazard that most - or at least a useful number of - journeys are a person and a bag or two.

If you've filled the car like a hoarder fills their house then you're going to have to sit and wait for a charge.

mr-mac

ICBM said:

mr-mac said:

One wee thing about hydrogen... Yous seen how much electric it takes to extract and pressurise hydrogen??????

It doesn't matter as long as the electricity is generated from renewables. That's energy which is already present in the environment and just needs to be tapped.

crunchman said:

I think it's a better alternative than battery powered cars.

Equipping a few thousand filling stations to deliver hydrogen will be a lot cheaper than installing millions of electric car charging points and massive upgrades to the grid.

The charging time for electric cars is still an issue as well.  If they get bigger batteries to get more range, then it will become a bigger issue - unless they put in really fast charging points, which will require even more upgrades to the electricity infrastructure.

Hydrogen is a good way to store intermittent electricity from renewables as well.  When there is a surplus, you separate the hydrogen from sea water using electrolysis.  Countries with lots of spare renewable resources

like Scotland.

Scotland has the highest potential for renewable energy generation per head of population in Europe, from something I read a while back. It's certainly wet and windy enough, and with huge tides and wave energy from the Atlantic.

It saddens me that the Scottish government hasn't been encouraging investment in this much more than they have, instead of relying on the oil industry. It would be fantastic if the UK could become self-sufficient in hydrogen cell energy.

Yeah but i bet it won't be.... Yeah the hydrogen cell cars are defo the future but they need to sort now how, where and with what the hydrogen is produced with.

And afraid renewable energy policy etc is a reserved Westminster matter and guess what Westminster slashed budget to help entice and fund renewable energy.