This will be my last reply to you on this sub thread. Its quite clear this discussion (indeed, perhaps any discussion with you) is pointless simply given your choice in Rhetoric.

"Zubrin is the one scaring people by arguing the hydrogen will be scored in tanks like propane. It clearly doesn’t know how such tanks are tested and built in the real world of auto engineering."

I really don't care what Zubrin says, I do care about what you say- and thats why i responded to you. Zubrin is not the object of this discussion, but your claims and your argument. Zubrin may or may not be an idiot, but that has no bearing on the correctness of your claims.

I really doubt you know much about the 'real world of auto engineering'. If you did, you would actually make a case based on that knowledge. Nor do I believe that the auto industry has ever mass-produced hydrogen storage systems for automobiles. LNG, sure, but thats quite a different problem. So that all strikes me as a hand wave.

"And what are your credentials Yeti? Scaring people in the woods? You are probably just another aerospace engineer like Zubrin who specializes in paralysis by analysis while burning up my tax dollars."

Since you asked, My credentials include a Mastes degree in Logic and Computation from one of the nations top schools in the field, and a Masters Thesis in an empirical science conducted under a Nobel Prize winner. I know very little about aerospace engineering, but I know enough about the topics at hand, when combined with basic reasoning and common sense, to know you realy don't know what you are talking about.

"Hydrogen transformers don’t care where the electricity comes from. I suspect you picked solar because its least likely to happen. Nuclear energy is nice, but you are probably scared of the radioactive waste. "

Again- you miss the point entirely. Producing the hydrogen requires a material (usually a hydrocarbon) to process together with significant energy. If that energy is derived from hydrocarbon burning, then hydrogen completely falls flat as a 'green' technology. If a Hydrocarbon base material is used as the hydrogen source, regardless the electrical source, then Hydrogen is again questionable as a 'green' technology.

I am absolutely not 'scared of nuclear waste', nor nuclear energy- and it is the epitome of a failed argument to try to put words in my mouth or build up such obvious strawmen. I picked Solar as a 'DIY' mode of electrical generation for your 'distributed production' of Hydrogen, because it is the only reasonable environmentally friendly technology with which to nodally produce Hydrogen. Beyond that, I believe it was you yourself elsewhere in this thread that suggested that as the 'DIY' power source for hydrogen generation.

If you want to suggest Fuel Cells for Distributed 'DIY' Hydrogen production, then again you are left with the simple response: 'Why not just use electric transportation', and most of the Fuel Cells need some sort of (hydrocarbon!) fuel source... Or a hydrogen fuel source- but then that would just defeat the entire point of distributed generation, wouldn't it!?

Do you suggest, then, Windmills? Do you think thats reasonable? Every House in a large City spouting a huge windmill? And if you do, then again- why not just go electric rather than waste energy to produce hydrogen?Or worse- waste energy to produce hydrogen from a hydrocarbon base material?!

"Batteries are possibly a competing technology, but they need to get lighter and cheaper to work. The market will determine who wins."

Wait a minute. You are suggesting that batteries (and there are other options, including so-called 'ultracapacitors' and capacitor+battery systems ) need more development? Do you have any idea about the infrastructure and technology R&D work that would be needed to transition to Hydrogen? We already have a power grid, we already have electric motors, we already have good-enough battery systems. no technologies even remotely equivalent exist for hydrogen.

As for the 'lighter and cheaper' needs for batteries, the answer is, as in most things: It Depends. It depends what the minimum range-per-charge and range-per-measure of weight needs to be, and it depends on the significant weight savings that can be realized elsewhere in a vehicle that does not require a fuel tank and an intenal combustion engine. Current range estimations for an economically and technologically feasible automible run anywhere from 250 to 350 miles. I suggest that this is quite adequate for a daily-driver small sedan used for a work-and-back commute or the occasional shopping trip. I would gladly consider such a vehicle.

There is no argument that I am aware of founded in known technical limits of battery and capacitor technology that suggests that significant weight savings, size reductions, range expansions and charging time are not possible with limited investment of R&D funds.

So again- given the electrical demands of Hydrogen extraction, and given the need for hydrocarbons to 'crack' for the most efficient extraction (thus resulting in CO2 emissions), and given the VAST R&D requirements of a hydrogen infrastructure- why not just go electric? It will fit all the benefits of the hydrogen conversion you have mentioned, is immediately technologically feasible, and requires far less redevelopment of infrastructure.

"As for the risk from HTs, maybe you could buy that H-Racer kit and help SDF and Zubrin blow it up. "

Cute, but entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Oh, and yes, Yetis are very fond of scaring people in the woods. Especially those lost in the woods.

Yeti