One Utah can replace 10% of US gasoline. So you would need 10 Utah's for all the gasoline and this does not include diesel and AVgas. Gives an idea of the scale of the problem. Alternately, electrify the surface transport and use the kelp to make avgas.

Everything would be fine if it weren't for the people.

My first question is could you run it on a mix of H2 and CH4 or diesel. If so, you could dial in your CO2 emissions and would be immune from getting stuck between H2 sources on a long run, or whatever. If green H2 gets as cheap as the boosters say, that will be the fuel of choice.

All good as long as people remember to charge them. They could put a nag system into them telling people to charge them if they let the power go too low for too long and they are parked at home, or wherever they are going to be charged.

My feeling is that this will overwhelmingly benefit the insurance company, rather than the drivers.

I wonder how long they were sitting on this possibility and why it took so long. Did the possibilities only become apparent after they had done the Ecolife 2 upgrade, or did no one care that much (about fuel economy) at the time of the first one. I am not suggesting a conspiracy, it is just funny how things evolve and improve.

Good. Let's hope it is affordable so it can be used in mid priced cars as well as fancy ones.

Might be hard to make money from smaller vehicles, like the Fiesta and Ka. But maybe by 2029 batteries will be much cheaper, or people will accept small battery cars for local and urban use and not expect 50 kWh.

@Durson, yes, IMO, if they want to do wave, they should just bring it ashore and use it on the grid. @Lad: it sounds great, but it isn't: a: You are at sea so everything is expensive b: It is a very hostile environment: Corrosion and stuff growing on it. c: Very expensive d: The wavelength of the waves is variable and so it is hard to make a system that resonates with all of the available wave types. e: It has to be massively strong to handle storms, hence expensive (variable amplitude of waves) f: It is not good for marine ecosystems so this pushes many greens away. g: I suppose it is being overtaken by onshore and offshore wind, which looks like a better bet. + good article in wikipedia (as always)

There's a small article in wikipedia which is of interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrolysis#Methane_pyrolysis_for_Hydrogen They say it uses 1/7 the electricity of H2 from hydrolysis. However, the reaction happens at 1050 degrees C so you probably want to run it all the time, and not just when you have excess renewables on the grid.

I imagine they will use no renewable methane at all. People will use that to "green" their gas grid, or whatever. They'll just have to get better at handling methane to prevent leaks. And this includes Russia et al., not just "the west"

That would be something if it worked out. As always, the devil is in the details, like how long will the catalyst last? (And 10 other things that I am unaware of).

Building a "2 car PHEV" out of two cars is IMO a very good idea. You'll already have the ICE car, all you need to add is a low (<= 25 kWh) EV such as a Leaf mk1 or MIEV as described above by both Gdb and Dave. It means you do not need to wait for long range EVs to appear or wait to be able to afford one. Additionally, you might be able to use a neighbour's ICE for the odd long trips. What is needed here is support from governments and insurance companies. You should be able to have both cars on one insurance policy, such that you can only drive one car at a time. Ditto for road tax and car inspection services. (Say you have a golf tdi that you use a few times a year and put up 2K miles, on top of a Leaf that does most of the driving, you shouldn't need to get a full check on the Golf every year.

Batteries + caterary are such a good idea. You get electric drive but you don't have to build catenary all they way, you can skip large sections and run those on battery. + you can charge on the go, so you don't have to wait at the terminus to charge up as you can charge on the way in. The same could be used for streetcars as long as you can bring the poles up into contact with the (dual) wires. If you used machine vision guidance, you could connect without stopping. Thus, no charging at the end of the run+ you can simplify city center areas with a lot of routes passing through.

That is a good thing. You'll be storing fuel for much longer in a PHEV than a normal ICE (if you are using it right).

@GdB, if you could make a plane that could fly 3000km on H2, you would be a hero. This is enough for most intra-Europe flights. If you wanted to fly to the USA, you could either use traditional fuels or stop in Newfoundland to refuel as they used to do. Also, for very long flights, you want to go at about M 0.82 - 0.85, so you need lots of power. In terms of cost, it is really competing with biofuel based aviation fuels, which I would guess are expensive - you are certainly not competing with mains electricity for aircraft (!) IMO, E-bikes and e-scooters are good enough as they are, and will only get better as LiIon batteries improve. (As are push bikes, BTW)

Obviously they increase congestion if you move people from buses carrying 80 people to cars carrying one person (or 2 cars in the place of one bus). What do you think is going to happen? And it doesn't matter whether they are electric or unmanned, they still take a space ~6m long in traffic. If you go electric, you reduce local pollution (at the cost of more tire particles due to heavier cars). If you go unmanned? If you can pack several people into one taxi or minibus, you would save space, but I am not sure people int he 1st world would be happy about being in a service taxi without a driver. Mass transit is really the only way to go for older or dense cities. Bikes are fine, as are scooters and motorbikes (for the brave) (weather permitting). Local vtol transport is a no starter in terms of noise, space for landing etc. and fuel consumption. Nice for plutocrats, but not the masses. (Washed or unwashed). Just take a bus, tube or train.

I would have thought e-scooters are OK as they are with LiIon batteries. The "portable 100w" system looks rather large to stick in a scooter. Military applications, perhaps. I wonder how long the paste keeps ? Backup power supply? IMO to run a car on a motorway (at moderate speeds) you need ~15 kW. + campers can just use propane and not worry about the CO2 as the amounts are minuscule (in the grand scheme of things) (As long as you are not in the same campsite as Greta). I am sure there are military applications as they are not so cost conscious. Looks like a solution looking for a problem to me.

I wonder do they plan to make a plug in version with a small (6-12 kWh) battery that can be charged from the mains, or from a solar panel in the roof. (You might be able to get 3 kWh from a roof panel (600 watts x 5 hours) in sunny places like the Southern US and Japan. Maybe the larger battery would add weight and mess up the dynamics of the car.

@jer, home charging is half of it and is fine for commuting where the distance is within the battery capacity of your car. But if you want to go a long way (say >250 miles), (or 125 miles there and back) you'll want a reliable supercharger network. And it probably has to be > 100kW charging as when driving at motorway speeds, you'll use 15 kW, so you want a decent charge / drive ratio. 50 kW is marginal, IMO.

I agree. Governments need to step in here and establish and enforce charging standards so that you only need one socket on your car (ideally). That is, large entities like the US, EU etc; not Belgium or Monaco and the UK. And then, as the report says, someone needs to spend. It could be the government or it could be individual car companies, but a consortium of car companies (and maybe shopping malls and local government) might be better. In particular, as interest rates are so low, now would be great time to go all in.

@SJC I wonder are we better putting second life packs under the control of the grid, or garages (or individual houses etc.) My guess they would be better selling them to the grid operator who can use them for whatever use they seem fit. You would hope that a liquid market for second life batteries would develop, followed by a market for 3rd "life" batteries for recycling.

I imagine this could be of use if you lived on an island or estuary or Fijord. Or just wanted to show off. Else, What you want is to be able to fly from the burbs into a big city and land near your place of work, but fir that you'll need a runway, or a landing space near public transport.

On a more serious note, pity there isn't more Cobalt in them - loads of manganese though.

Are we sure they are not looking for sunk Russian or Chinese submarines ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer