In a very long term sense, hydrocarbons are also only an energy carrier. They stored solar energy millenia ago.
But I know what you mean. You could think of a fuel cell as a mechanically rechargeable battery. The plus is that you can do the electrolysis offboard and it can be recharged quickly. (This is also its big positive for the current stakeholders - petroleum companies - because they still get to sell something and profit on it.) The minus is that producing hydrogen with electrolysis is not very efficient, markedly less so than storing the same electrical energy in a battery. I have a vague recollection that round trip efficiency isn't much better than with an ICE, but I might be thinking of something else. IIRC most industrial hydrogen is made from natural gas. I suspect that if that's your source for your FCV, you'd be better off just compressing the NG and burning it right in an ICE, but I might be wrong about that. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
