Hydrogen Cars or Dependence on Foreign Oil?
by Donald Mellon
Hydrogen Cars or Dependence on Foreign Oil? |
Mr. Pickens’ plan as I understand it is to convert the 18 wheelers to compressed natural gas which would cut in half our OPEC imports. This makes sense because the truck stop refueling locations that would have to be retrofitted are small in number. That would leave automobiles to continue on gasoline, some other fuel or switch to electric.
We currently import about 13 million barrels per day of oil, but about 5 million from Canada, Mexico and Brazil, leaving 8 million from mostly OPEC countries. Cutting that in half would mean leaving just 4 million per day to make up with increases from proven US oil reserves. We currently produce 5 million barrels per day in the US so we would have to about double current production to not need any OPEC oil. Keep in mind that this increase in production is just drilling, not refining or distribution which already handles some 20 million barrels per day. We are talking about just replacing the source of the crude oil. At a US production rate of 9 million barrels per day our domestic oil would last some 30 years. Then what?
My favorite is hydrogen fuel cell automobiles which are essentially electric cars that generate the electricity from hydrogen carried on the vehicle. No batteries to recharge or replace. Hydrogen is the most abundant element on the earth and when combined with oxygen to produce electricity the result is water. A hydrogen car made today by Honda used in California gets 270 miles per fill up goes up to 100 mph and takes 9 seconds 0 to 60. They have filling stations where a fill up is about the same procedure as with gasoline. As an added benefit one can produce hydrogen from water with electricity perhaps in your garage. As always there are problems, like cost of fuel cells and the cost to make the hydrogen and retrofitting gas stations, but America solves big problems or at least we used to.
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