always something new to worry about

Decades of concern over air quality in Southern California has reduced the number of smog alert days in Los Angeles. But current research in Los Angeles is showing an increase in ultrafine particles in the air as cars become more efficient at filtering out the larger particles using catalytic converters. In the past, ultrafine particles attached themselves to the larger particles in car tailpipes. Now, with fewer large particles to attach to, the ultrafine particles stay in the air longer, increasing the risk of inhalation. They go deeper into the respiratory system, penetrating lung tissue and entering the bloodstream.

hydrogen's inefficiencies

Some commentators say the inefficiency of converting water to hydrogen and oxygen is one reason why hydrogen fuel cells may take some time to be adopted by car manufacturers en masse. Honda is developing home systems to create hydrogen for use in a fuel cell, but what will it cost in electricity? In the September 2005 edition of Wired Magazine, a writer to the editor claims:

GM's latest Sequel fuel cell vehicle guzzles 8 kilograms of hydrogen to travel 300 miles. Most commercial electrolyzers require at least 60 kilowatt-hours of electricity to produce and compress 1 kilogram of hydrogen. This means GM's cutting-edge fuel cell vehicle needs 1.6 kWh of electricity to travel 1 mile.

Based on those figures, driving a mile on hydrogen uses the same power needed to burn sixteen 100-watt light bulbs for an hour. That may sound like a lot - and certainly would be expensive if you were to buy solar panels to generate the electricity - but in Ontario (Canada) that would only cost you about 9 cents at current residential electricity prices. By comparison, a conventional car costs more than 14 cents a mile in fuel. So it's not really the operating costs for the driver that are the problem, but the technical and political obstacles that need to be overcome.