Hi Steve, welcome to the real Q! zone. Okay, yes, fuel cells could be fueled from photovoltaic cells supplying electrolytically-dissociated dihydroxyl monoxide which could be converted to methanol then tankered around the place to fuel-cell 'gas' stations. Okay, maybe even hauled around as solid hydrogen if Delbert is right in that link.
But in the real world, where people have to work for a living, people don't want to spend a fortune to achieve nothing much, so I don't believe that photovoltaics and fuel-cells will replace good old combustion any time soon.
Before that happens, cars will run on electricity supplied via wires in the roadway. For added fun, they might be superconductor-levitated and linear-motor propelled while being controlled and billed with ASICs from QUALCOMM.
But they will NOT use fuel-cells.
Photovoltaics will be good for fixed electricity supplies in reasonably sunny places [not England or Belgium where people do NOT get melanoma - from the sun anyway, unless they travel to the Mediterranean or hire an ultraviolet light sunbed, which Belgians like to do].
My old company, BP, makes photovoltaics and in the 1980s part of my job was to come up with alternative fuels to fossil fuels [along with lots of other people doing the same thing]. Since silicon is common as dirt, and sunny places such as the middle of Australia and Death Valley are cheap and notable for a lot of sun, I think they'll make continual progress.
OPEC is already into oil replacement pricing and they'll be losing business to coal and other energy sources quite quickly.
Mqurice
Dow 16,000 Feb 2002
Q! and G! $1000 Feb 2003 [or maybe it was 2004 - I forget]
Also, I have no idea whether Fats is in the house.
PS: My ex boss was working for Shell in the early 1970s and he was a proponent of hydrogen for cars and transport way back then. Okay, if you can cart it around, it's a very nice fuel source. But he's waited 30 years and I think another 30 years will go by. |
