Every technology has its up-sides which are touted and applauded and offered as panaceas for whatever problem is presently in the public eye, but there is always a down-side too which gets hidden, concealed, covered up and kept as far from the public eye as possible. The history of the tobacco industry is the perfect example of that.
Up-side: "Soothes your comfort zone." Down-side: Cancer
Electric vehicles (EVs) are being touted in just that way today. The up-side is supposed to be no exhaust fumes. The most obvious down-side are the EV fires arising from presently favored Lithium-Ion battery technology. There are other down-sides as well, but we'll let that pass until a different time.
Hydrogen powered vehicles are also supposed to be of environmental benefit because, although there is exhaust, that exhaust is supposedly just water and water is cited as harmless. We hear that as the up-side.
Speaking of just this local area on Long Island, summertime weather can be brutal when temperatures rise and humidity levels rise too. I have actually found myself gasping for breath on some really torrid summer days and I've heard many people expressing their own distress at such times.
Now let's imagine widespread adoption of hydrogen fueled vehicles. Imagine thousands of such vehicles emitting their water exhaust into already unbearable atmospheric humidity. A down-side is what those emissions will do to already high humidity levels. It boggles the mind. This is supposed to be an environmentally beneficial technology, but I have my doubts just from this first standpoint alone.
There is more.
I was listening to a radio interview about hydrogen as a vehicluar fuel in which the interviewee stated that the transfer of hydrogen from the dispensing facility to the vehicle is around ninety-percent efficient. That means that ten percent of the hydrogen gas gets lost to the atmosphere where, because it is so light, it rises up very quickly to extreme altitude where it becomes a very effective greenhouse gas.
We diminish one greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, but introduce another greenhouse gas instead. Is there a net benefit? The interviewee didn't seem to think so.
In constantly seeking panaceas, we can open ourselves up to more troubles in terrible ways.
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