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They did it
Paul Ritchie posted in News on March 28th, 2006

Well, GM has turned its engineering department on its head and on the street.

The Detroit Free Press tells a very sad tale. Associated Press provides the whole story, but as soon as GM denied it would happen, we all knew it was a foregone conclusion.

With management practices like that, is it any wonder the company lost 10.6 billion in the last 12 months?

Oh the stories I’ve told over 5 years of blogging…

Reuters says it’s crunch time for the ethanol industry with farmers, it seems, unable to meet the increasing demand for crops necessary to supply the industry. (Just thought I’d drop that in, since everyone’s concerned about the rising price of gasoline.)

Anyway, I’m well overdue with the continuing saga of alternative fuels, bubbling away amid all these side issues and just to show you against what I have to struggle to bring you the best info available, whilst poking around Associated Press for the GM update, I had a look for hydrogen fuel news. What’s the latest, according to Associated Press…

Climate analysts do believe that water vapor in the atmosphere — mostly due to natural evaporation from bodies of water — is already contributing significantly to climate change. According to the International Panel on Climate Change, atmospheric water vapor exacerbates warming caused by the emission of fossil fuels by as much as 50 percent.

However, the additional water vapor that might be created by millions of fuel-cell vehicles running on hydrogen — while it may sound like a lot — would constitute only a drop in the bucket compared to that which naturally occurs.

How tempted they were to say “a drop in the ocean” instead of a drop in the bucket is anyone’s guess. I wouldn’t have gone near that similie in the first place.

In news only 5 hours old at the time of my writing this, fresh out of Minsk if you don’t mind, “Iceland plans to become the world’s first all-hydrogen economy by 2030.” I have to cast a wry smile here. Minsk is in the news for more dire reasons than posting news about Iceland’s economy. It’s the capital of Belarus, into which Dubya has stormed because of rigged elections which I blogged elsewhere about 10 days ago and again last night.

Here’s the whole snippet:

Issues around energy infrastructure are raised in the technology card set and the question is asked: When will petroleum disappear from our energy maps? In 2004 fuel cells began to replace batteries in some portable electronic devices. It is predicted that hydrogen will start being used as a back up power source in remote locations, and in industrial and large commercial buildings over the next two to three years. By 2008, hydrogen could power specialised fleets of vehicles such as buses. By 2015, hydrogen-fuelled cars might be available to the mass market. Source: http://home.nestor.minsk.by/build/news/2006/03/2803.html

It seems like an eternity ago I brought you the news “a hydrogen-powered version of BMW’s current 7 Series will be on showroom floors within two years.” The source for this quote is South African, but what the hey. BMW are denying it so that means it’s going to happen, predictably when suppliers of hydrogen fuel get their acts together. Source: http://motoring.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3169727&fSectionId=&fSetId=381

I also mentioned the other day Mazda have released the street version of the hydrogen fueled RX8. What I didn’t tell you is they’ve been messing around with hydrogen fuelled cars since 1991.

Why am I as enthusiastic about hydrogen fuelled cars as I am about the future of ethanol fuelled vehicles?

In a word: emissions.

Gasoline usage is making the planet sick. When China gets off its collective bicycle and behind the wheel of its collective Party version of the Lada Niva or whatever, can anyone envisage the pollution the world’s most populous nation is going to create? Sheesh. Maybe Duncan Armstrong can persuade them it’s not such a hot idea.

Did I mention emissions? Yeah? How about glaciers? Just to give you an idea how much the geological, meteorological and all those others with a slightly green bent are fretting over global warming, go to google and search glaciers. There are just too many sources to name, the good ones less than a week old, cowing on about disappearing glaciers due to warmer air and sea temperatures.

Glacier National Park in Montana had 150 glaciers 150 years ago, now they’re down to 26. A change of name is in the offing there, methinks. The Park formerly known as Glacier Park will now give you its very own rendition of Purple Rain.

Hmmm…

Ok, so what’s the real story on hydrogen today? Not all that easy to determine because so many people are having their say on the matter and about a dozen sources are all quoting the one example, that of Schwarzenegger failing to refuel next to LAX after hopping about the hydrogen highway in August of last year. Even Iran Daily is reporting that story verbatim from its orginal source.

This little number appeared in Littlespeck.com way back in 2004, which was when I first started getting interested in hydrogen fuel, having put aside water as a substitute for gasoline a lot of years earlier.

“By the middle of this century, all Icelanders will be required to run their cars only on hydrogen fuel, meaning no more gasoline.

Do you think I can find anything to back this up?

But once again, it’s 4am and maybe the road ahead is getting out of focus. I’ll be back tomorrow hopefully with more news on hydrogen fuel. Something more definitive. I can’t wait ’til I start delving into water as fuel.

Oh yay.