Conflicting Headlines

[fabrisse]

I get news feeds from various sources including the local conservative newspaper (on the theory of knowing what they're up to helps me know how to argue with them). This morning their link to the main weekly story read:
Decline and fall of coal
Environmental regulations hammer last nail into coffin of a proud mining community.

Which, yes, but as has been stated by others before, the rise of the car put an end to the once proud buggy whip community.

Contrast this with BBCNews which had, under Autos, an article about a Welsh (speaking of once proud mining communities) startup for a new car. The only moving parts are the wheels; it's run on a hydrogen fuel cell.

Now, I admit, I've seen the Hindenberg footage and hydrogen worries me a little, but the car is cute and if I had the cash, I'd definitely be interested for DC driving.

Comments

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Well, unless someone discovers a hydrogen mine somewhere, I'd say that the coal industry is safe as long as cars need electricity.

[siderea]

There's one eight minutes straight up at noon. From wikipedia:

One such pilot program is operating on Stuart Island in Washington State. There the Stuart Island Energy Initiative[68] has built a complete, closed-loop system: Solar panels power an electrolyzer, which makes hydrogen. The hydrogen is stored in a 500-U.S.-gallon (1,900 L) tank at 200 pounds per square inch (1,400 kPa), and runs a ReliOn fuel cell to provide full electric back-up to the off-the-grid residence.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

And until someone creates a photovoltaic cell that produces more power in its useful lifetime than was required to make it, every last one you see will be produced by the burning of quite a lot of coal.

[siderea]

From the Wikipedia page on fuel cells:

A fuel cell forklift (also called a fuel cell lift truck) is a fuel cell powered industrial forklift truck used to lift and transport materials. Most fuel cells used for material handling purposes are powered by PEM fuel cells.[citation needed]
In 2013 there were over 4,000 fuel cell forklifts used in material handling in the USA,[121] of which only 500 received funding from DOE (2012).[122][123] Fuel cell fleets are operated by a large number of companies, including Sysco Foods, FedEx Freight, GENCO (at Wegmans, Coca-Cola, Kimberly Clark, and Whole Foods), and H-E-B Grocers.[124] Europe demonstrated 30 Fuel cell forklifts with Hylift and extended it with HyLIFT-EUROPE to 200 units,[125] with other projects in France [126][127] and Austria.[128] Pike Research stated in 2011 that fuel-cell-powered forklifts will be the largest driver of hydrogen fuel demand by 2020.[129]
PEM fuel-cell-powered forklifts provide significant benefits over both petroleum and battery powered forklifts as they produce no local emissions, can work for a full 8-hour shift on a single tank of hydrogen, can be refueled in 3 minutes and have a lifetime of 810 years. Fuel cell-powered forklifts are often used in refrigerated warehouses, as their performance is not degraded by lower temperatures. Many companies do not use petroleum powered forklifts, as these vehicles work indoors where emissions must be controlled and instead are turning to electric forklifts.[130] In design the FC units are often made as drop-in replacements.[131][132]

So they're here already, just not on the roads.