Posted by Don in Missouri [172.68.38.158] on Monday, December 05, 2016 at 17:20:41 :
In Reply to: Re: this is nuts posted by clueless [108.162.212.92] on Monday, December 05, 2016 at 16:52:04 :
Not just the truck, but the nationwide network of solar powered hydrogen generating stations. It's tempting to point out all the obstacles in their way. Instead, I'll point out what they got right:
1. We need heavy duty trucks. That need is not going away.
2. If electric motors are the future, we likely need a fuel cell to store the energy, instead of short-range batteries that are too heavy for freight.
3. The sun gives us free energy everyday. We need to take better advantage of solar energy for transport as well as stationary energy.
There are a couple other things working in our favor, that Nikola missed:
A) Liquid fuels are the densest way to store energy without heavy-walled containment vessels.
B) Liquid fuel happens to be nature's preferred way to store solar energy. In this category, I'll include semi-solids, like the fat around your waste and other forms of biomass that are easily converted to liquid.
C) We already have a robust distribution system optimized for liquid fuels.
D) We have barely begun to consider optimized internal combustion like HCCI and RCCI that address power, efficiency, and emissions simultaneously instead of the tradeoff faced with conventional combustion.