Because hydrogen fuel can be made from water via electrolysis, all that is needed is plentiful electricity. The United States has enough nuclear fuel in the form of plutonium-239 and depleted uranium to supply all of our electrical power needs for the whole century using modern, safe nuclear power plants.
No more mining is required because plutonium can be extracted from retired nuclear weapons.
With nuclear-power-produced electricity, there won’t be any pollutant greenhouse gas emissions, acid rain and particulate air pollutants.
This is the true environmentalist vision: Electricity from clean and safe nuclear power. Pollution-free autos. The end to dependence on foreign oil. Why is our country not briskly moving ahead to accomplish this dream?
“Independent tests validate BMW Hydrogen 7 emissions well-below SULEV”. Physorg.com 28 Mar. 2008 – Independent tests conducted by engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory on a BMW Hydrogen 7 Mono-Fuel demonstration vehicle have found that the car’s hydrogen-powered engine surpasses the super-ultra low-emission vehicle (SULEV) level, the most stringent emissions performance standard to date.
Renee Schoof. “Hydrogen cars could rule road by 2050, slash oil need, panel says”. McClatchy Newspapers. 17 July 2008 – As the cost of filling up skyrockets, a government-backed study released Thursday says America could nearly eliminate its need for gasoline for cars, pickup trucks and SUVs by 2050 if the government helps build a market for hydrogen fuel cells and other technologies.
The study by the National Research Council of the National Academies, the government’s adviser on science, medicine and engineering, looked mainly at the future of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. It concluded that with about $55 billion in government support in the next 15 years, hydrogen vehicles could be competitive with gasoline-powered ones and common on the roads by 2050.
Congress asked the advisory body to look at prospects for hydrogen and alternatives that could have the largest impact by 2020. The experts group’s findings are a best-case look at low-carbon fuel options at a time when President Bush and some members of Congress are pushing for expanded searches for domestic oil.
Light-duty vehicles use 44 percent of the oil used in the United States and emit more than 20 percent of the carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas causing global warming. The report said hydrogen alone could eliminate more than 60 percent of this oil use and carbon by 2050. If the nation used hydrogen and other low-carbon fuels as well, by the same year, carbon dioxide emissions from cars and trucks could be cut to less than 20 percent of current levels and they’d need almost no oil.