Can the Hydrogen Highway Exist?

This article made me think of something. If an area as large as say DC had mostly hydrogen cars, would there be a large increase in precipitation? I am all for pushing forward with hydrogen as a fuel source. It would be awesome to go as far as building something like Stan Myer claimed to have built, but just not depending on the middle east any more would be great. Once we no longer needed oil for gasoline, we would be able to use our own oil for all the plastics and things we need it for here.

After seeing all the problems in the midwest with flooding I started to think that hydrogen might cause a few environmental issues itself.

Any thoughts?

Hydrocarbons have "hydro" in their name for a reason. There is already a fair amount of hydrogen in the conventional fuel, bound to carbon. Don't expect a tenfold increase of water vapor in the exhaust when you switch to H2. No extra rainy days in DC.

reply to post by buddhasystem


I am not sure about the mechanics of this. (which is why I asked), but using a compressed hydrogen as solitary fuel source whereby the only emission would be H2O, seems as if it would add at least some moisture into the air.

Gasoline has complex composition of various hydrocarbons, so for simplicity let's consider propane C3H8 which is often used as LPG fuel for vehicles, as an illustration.

When we burn it, we get 3(CO2) + 4(H2O). In gaseous form, these two substances will displace air in ratio 3/4. So basically more than half of exhaust from such vehicle will be water.

With normal gas, the ratio will be not as high, but I just wanted to give you a ballpark.


[edit on 15-6-2010 by buddhasystem]